While gate admission to this year’s Northwest Montana Fair and Rodeo was down significantly from last year, rodeo participation, market livestock entries and auction revenue were all up. That’s according to Flathead County Fairground manager Mark Campbell, who presented initial highlights from the five-day event to the Flathead County commissioners Tuesday morning.

According to Campbell’s report, gate admission sales were 16.2% of the previous year and grandstand events never approached capacity thresholds.

Although numbers have not yet been finalized, Campbell estimated about 35,000 individuals attended this year’s event over the course of the five days. That’s compared to 70,000 to about 80,000 in previous years.

These outcomes had been somewhat expected, given capacity for events had been decreased in order to meet safety and sanitation regulations for COVID-19. Campbell said the plan that fairgrounds staff and leadership had in place for COVID-19 wasn’t executed well on Wednesday night, but he said the team “hit the reset” Thursday morning and for the remainder of the long weekend, he said those safety plans were executed well.

On Wednesday evening the fair was kicked off with a concert from country music artist Lee Brice. According to the report, 1,919 people attended the concert.

As for other events, nearly 6,400 total attendees filed into the grandstand for the rodeo, which was spread out over the course of three evenings, and about 1,300 individuals attended Sunday’s demolition derby.

According to Campbell, the entertainment portion of the fair was the largest driver of ticket sales, accounting for about 87% of total tickets sold.

“People just coming to the fair itself really did not occur to the extent we thought it would,” Campbell said. “You see entertainment carrying the bulk of the load of the fair.”

Campbell said concert revenue likely will not cover the cost of the show and he is not yet sure if all of the costs of the rodeo have been covered, but said “it’s going to be close.” Revenue from the demolition derby however, covered the cost of that event, which occurred on Sunday.

A major highlight of the fair and rodeo was the market livestock auction.

There were 312 entries overall, which is slightly higher than last year. The year’s online auction established a new record of $642,568 — a figure that is a $90,000 increase from 2019’s auction results. According to Campbell, buyers tuned in from all over the United States to bid on the animals.

The report also shows the fair’s exhibit program had a soft 4,498 items accepted by 598 exhibitors. In addition, there were 15 food concessions and final revenue reports are “forthcoming.”

Follow-up reports and more concrete data on the Northwest Montana Fair and Rodeo is expected in the coming weeks.

Reporter Kianna Gardner can be reached at 758-4407 or kgardner@dailyinterlake.com