State Fair organizers look to improve parking

Now that the State Fair of Virginia has concluded its 11-day run at its new location in Caroline County, organizers are looking at ways to improve the event for next year -- especially the parking.

At times, the entrance to The Meadow Event Park in Doswell was a scene of gridlock and hourlong waits. Access to the parking areas at the State Fair site was from one entrance off state Route 30.

"We take a critical eye to everything. We want everyone to have a good experience," said State Fair spokesman Jay Lugar. "It does us no good if people are stuck in traffic."

The fair opened Sept. 24, marking the first major event at The Meadow Event Park, and ended Sunday. The fair moved to Caroline after a 63-year run at the Richmond Raceway Complex in Henrico County.

The Meadow Event Park has 5,000 more parking spaces than the raceway location, but fair organizers never got to do a dry run of the parking setup to make sure it would run smoothly.

Kevin Anderson said he drove to the State Fair from King George County on Sept. 27 and spent more than an hour waiting for a parking spot. He said problems began not on state Route 30 but once cars merged from six lanes to one at the entrance to the parking areas after paying the $5 parking fee, creating a bottleneck. Parking was free when the fair was at the raceway.

On Sunday, during the final day of the State Fair, cars merged into two lanes -- one to the left and one to the right -- to go to parking lots in different areas of the 348-acre Meadow Event Park.

The previous Sunday, it took Anderson more than an hour to park after paying to do so.

"While it was going on, we were having second thoughts about if we should have gone somewhere else, but once we got inside, we didn't even think about [the parking problems]," Anderson said. "It was just a complete debacle all the way around with the parking, but inside [the fair] was nice, much better than it was at [the raceway]."

A couple of miles down the road at Kings Dominion, the parking-related gridlock at the State Fair wasn't an issue, said John Pagel, the amusement park's marketing manager.

However, on Saturday night, the State Fair used a grassy field at Kings Dominion for overflow parking. The fair extended its hours by an hour that night to counteract the long parking waits.

"If you couldn't get in for an hour, hopefully we gave you that hour back," Lugar said. "We were trying to do the right thing. We've never extended the hours during the fair."

Pagel said Kings Dominion officials plan to offer continued assistance to their State Fair neighbors to make parking and guest transportation smoother next year.

Lugar said the fair's new $5 parking fee covers operational expenses and pays for parking attendants. The State Fair contracts with Standard Parking, a national provider of parking facility management services.

To offset that added fee, Lugar said, the State Fair made all the concerts free with paid admission. In the past, he said, there was a charge of $10 for the concerts.

"When people got in, I think they had a great experience. We know we have to get them in a little better, and we're going to work like heck to make sure that happens," he said.

Contact Jeremy Slayton at (804) 649-6861 or .