Bringing the Oregon Country Fair to life
VENETA – Along the dusty driveway to the Oregon Country Fairgrounds, the air is heavy with heat as the welcome committee directs a steady trickle of incoming cars. Less than two weeks before the beginning ceremonies of the 39th Oregon Country Fair, a quiet murmur of activity slowly grows into what will become a mass migration.
Before an estimated 50,000 fairgoers flock to Veneta to take part in the freewheeling annual event, a small army of volunteer workers and a skeleton crew of paid staff members work feverishly behind the scenes to bring a dreamlike, ephemeral city to life for one glorious weekend.
Along the tree-lined trails inside the Fair property, a vacant city of 2x4 clubhouses and Ewok balconies awaits the coming fairgoers. Some are newly renovated and some are in dire need of repair. All brandish fresh red tags.
Before the Fair starts, an inspection teams scour every booth looking for any sign of disrepair. OCF safety inspectors detail repair and maintenance with specific instructions on what needs to be done in poems of a Seuss-ical nature.
Doug Green, a volunteer OCF backup manager or “B.U.M.” explains that this is how the fair operates. The positive attitude of the staff breathes fresh energy and warmth into the Fair each year, he says.
Adding to this year’s challenges, longtime organizer Leslie Scott is stepping down after over a decade and a half of midwifing the Fair’s yearly birth. At the fair’s general manager, Scott oversaw budgeting, safety and risk management for the construction crews among her many duties.
“She has been the top management position of the entire organization for 16 years,” says the fair manager’s assistant, Charles Ruff, noting that Scott worked year-round for the OCF.
It’s an exciting year for us, a year of change,” Green says. “With Leslie retiring, it’s like pulling a heart out of a body. We’re having a heart transplant.”
Despite the transition, work is moving along ahead of the Fair’s opening day, July 11.
“Everything is on schedule and the mood is great,” Green says, as a crew member giggles among the rafters, the sound of laughter and hammers drifting back into the distance. “This is a party with a purpose!”
According to Green, the secret to keeping this yearly event healthy and positive is only having six-and-a-half paid employees. The paid staff members are necessary to keep the Fair property maintained year round, Ruff says. But the Fair itself wouldn’t get off the ground without the effort of volunteers.
“The scale of the event means that, by and large, the Fair happens because of this huge volunteer effort,” he says. “We couldn’t get it done without the volunteers. Some of them are highly, highly trained in their fields.”
In May, volunteers begin streaming into Main Camp. In the two months prior to the Fair around 50-60 volunteers, most from the local area, work on any given weekday. Up to 200 or pitch in on weekends.
So many tasks need to be completed before the first day of official fair activities that volunteers work most hours of the day, seven days a week. All the grass on the more than 400 acre must be watered, stages must be built, recycling stations must be assembled, Godzilla—one of the Fair’s fleet vehicles—must have the troll re-glued to its’ bumper and so on.
“We have thousands of volunteers and they’re all smiles,” Green says. “They’re all here because they want to be. It’s all about heartfelt effort.”
The canopy above the transitory village keeps the air cool and shady, a key to keeping Fairgoers healthy and happy. The OCF has their own crew of arborists dedicated to keeping trees healthy and happy as well. Weeks prior to the opening festivities, the crew amputates dead branches, hauls debris away and takes on a general clearing and cleaning up of the ground.
Green, who helps facilitate other festivals in the Northwest, dedicates about a month each year to the Oregon Country Fair. He claims the OCF is the easiest, most rewarding and most fun to work on, in part due to a unique approach to staff training.
Dr. Zach Birch, a psychiatrist from the White Bird Clinic in Eugene, teaches volunteers how to tap into their interpersonal communication skills with humor and compassion.
“The systems in place here are unique,” Green says. “Mediation, humanistic intervention training is required for everyone. Everyone,” he emphasizes. “It puts everyone on the same page and makes it far more functional.”
Many of the vendors and volunteers arrive the week prior to the Fair, wandering in from across the United States, Europe, South Africa and beyond. Together they bring elaborate art installations to life for the Fair, many from natural materials.
None of these materials are harvested off the Fair’s land. Instead, workers import truckloads of branches, wooden poles and beams, many from U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and assemble the sculptures in an environmentally conscientious manner in order not to harm the existing trees and shrubs.
When it’s all said and done, the chaos will merge into an intricate, living, breathing work of art.
It’s simple,” says Green. “We give permission to create.”