Page 9 - BusinessWest September 4, 2023

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT >>
West Side, Big E Are Focused on Milestones
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
“I remind
people that
they can make the difference between someone who’s a patron having a good day or a bad day.”
Once the 17 days of the Big E Fair begin, Gene Cassidy settles into a routine he’s followed for years now.
His day starts early, with a few minutes
in his office in the Brooks Building, before
he gets into a golf cart and proceeds to his ‘other office’ in the Hampden County building. Along the way, he stops in with employees in the parking area, the ticket booths, and other areas to get a sense of how things went the day before and what would be expected in
the hours to come. And to stress, again, the importance of these 17 days to the overall health and vitality of this West Side institution.
“I remind people that they can make the difference between someone who’s a patron having a good day or a bad day,” he said. “Or I’ll thank them if the day before was pouring rain ... I’m very conscientious about making sure that people understand that we make 87% of our revenue in 17 days. The people who work here, they have to know how impor- tant their role is to delivering to the fairgoing public an experience that’s at the highest level it can possibly be.”
Before any of that, though, Cassidy checks the attendance numbers for the correspond- ing day of the fair the year before. That num- ber becomes a target and a tone setter, he
explained, adding that, if that day from the year before was a washout due to rain, there probably won’t be any trouble matching or exceeding results and moving toward the ulti- mate goal of improvement over last year. If it was a really good day the year prior, it’s the opposite.
Which means that, this Big E season, there will be some big nuts to crack.
Indeed, the fair set five single-day atten- dance records in 2022, starting on opening day, and continuing to the second Friday, the second Saturday (when the single-day record was broken and more than 177,789 came through the gates), the second Monday, and the final day. Overall, the 2022 fair came in just shy of the 17-day record of 1,543,470 set in 2018.
“People really responded to the fair last year, and, overall, the weather was pretty good,” Cassidy said, touching on a subject we’ll get back to in some depth later. “People really came out.”
Those new standards set last year, and maybe some others as well, might fall this year, based on what Cassidy has seen in Wis- consin, which just wrapped up its annual fair, as well as Indiana and elsewhere.
Indeed, while inflation remains high, and
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333 Bridge Street, Springfield, MA 01103 413-732-2858 |communityfoundation.org
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<< COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT >>
SEPTEMBER 4, 2023 9
West Springfield
at a glance
Year Incorporated: 1774
Population: 28,835
Area: 17.5 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $15.54
Commercial Tax Rate: $30.58
Median Household Income: $40,266
Median Family Income: $50,282
Type of Government: Mayor, City Council
Largest Employers: Eversource Energy, Harris Corp., Home Depot, Interim Health Care, Mercy Home Care
* Latest information available