By Howard Packowitz

BLOOMINGTON – The 2017 McLean County Fair is history, and it attracted bigger crowds than previous years even though it rained, sometimes for long periods of time during the five-day event.

Fair manager and head of the McLean County Farm Bureau, Mike Swartz, said attendance was up one percent compared to the last three-years.

Swartz told WJBC’s Marc Strauss cooler temperatures helped reduce the number of medical emergencies.

“The on-site EMT responses were significantly down, which then also reflects public safety as a whole. We’re very fortunate that we had great weather,” Swartz said.

This was the first year beer could be purchased each day at the fair, and Swartz said there were no problems.

“We didn’t have any incidents, which is good” he said. “That first year is always a concern…we’re fortunate that on Wednesday and Thursday nights people are cautious, because the next day is a work day and they don’t want to cause too many problems for themselves or their employers. So they’re cautious in what they drink.”

Swartz said there were about 320 livestock exhibitors with 23-hundred entries, which is similar to past years.

Approximately three-thousand ribbons were were awarded to 870 kids for their 4-H projects in the arts, food, sewing, technology and other areas.