Requiem for the fair

Amidst all the relaxing this long weekend, I forgot to write a small blurb about my trip to the CNE last Thursday. Tiff and I got there around dinner time to take advantage of the reduced evening admission prices. The fairgrounds were not crowded, and the weeknight atmosphere was subdued as expected. The last time I went to the CNE was in 1997 when I was an awkward, lanky 15 year-old spending his first summer away from home. The CNE hasn't changed much since then, but I have. The older I get, the less interesting I find fairs like the CNE and its Vancouver counterpart, the PNE. Maybe it's because I don't covet oversized stuffed animals at the midway the way I used to--although, I did win a nice lion for Tiffy at the midway by beating out a bunch of kids who had terrible hand-eye coordination. But the more likely explanation is the decline of the fair relative to other venues. Years ago, the fair was where you went to check out new technology and see and buy products from around the world that were accessible only once a year. But today, there is nothing at the CNE that you can't find at Square One or Pac Mall. In fact, the only new thing I saw at the CNE this year was a jacuzzi system with built-in speakers, blasting 50 Cent--and that's hardly worth the price of admission.


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