Franklin County Fair

I'm not sure it was worth $8 per person (no discount for kids!). My little one did thoroughly enjoy seeing the farm animals and especially the pigs and rabbits.

Other than that you're paying for the opportunity to pay more for fair food and for rides. I guess that's typical of fairs, but that's almost all that's here. There were some vendors with booths giving away some licensed materials, but they weren't even there first thing in the morning. Rides don't open until noon and the line at the ticket booth was super long even before that.

So, overall, meh.

Very little to see, do, or eat! First and last visit! Wish I could say something better but I can't. Franklin county engineers were very friendly as were the Franklin county sheriffs ofc.

My first county fair and if this is how the Ohio State fair is I'm already dissapointed.
Its not very big for one, two $5 entrance is unnecessary, since there is nothing to do except spend money on rides
(which was not many or anything exciting)
or food
(also nothing appealing, the most exciting thing was fries served in a bucket)
We were in and out in half an hour, $15 spent on absolutly nothing, what a shame.

When most people think of fair food they think of a random assortment of foods on sticks, elephant ears, and funnel cakes. But on this trip to the fair I came home with an entire praline cheesecake. Sinful =) It may have been a bit more expensive than standard fair fare at $50 but it was still a deal as a dozen cookies could have cost me $750.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about then you don't know that there is more going on at the fair than just what you see in the commercial buildings. As a former 4-Her, Franklin County Fair Queen, Franklin County Fair Junior Fair Board member, and exhibitor, I realize that there are tons more events going on behind the scenes including the Creative Baking Auction where youth show off their baking skills in a variety of categories with the 1st and 2nd place winners being auctioned off. While $50 may have been a lot for a cheesecake, its nice to know that I'm supporting a new generation of 4-Hers.

If you're more interested in the traditional fair activities, the Franklin County Fair has them too. Plenty of foods on sticks and some pretty decent rides too. And with admission only $5 and free parking, its an affordable day out.

A tip: There are only 3 air-conditioned places on the fairgrounds. Two of them (the Junior Fair Board Office and the Senior Fair Board Office) are closed to the general public. But if you're looking for someplace to cool down, look in the schedule for events occurring in the 'Safety Building.' They're included in admission and you'll get a chance to cool off before going back out in the heat!

This is a small fair with a small showing of animals, about 10 kiddie rides and about 5 rides for older kids/adults. There is the typical fair food that dominates the space. Unlimited ride tickets are $15. There is also an admission fee but, I believe that parking is free. There are truck and tractor pulls in evenings and other activities throughout. A unique attraction is the historical village, which is open limited hours. Listing at franklincountyfair.org says there are no rides available on Sunday. This does not in any way compare to the size and scope of the state fair, for the person who's review questioned that. It is a small local fair.

Stopped by Saturday and Sunday for the "Central Ohio NTrak N Scale Weekend" (http://www.centralohiontrak.org/p/central-ohio-ntrak-n-scale-weekend.html) model train show and was glad I went (again) because it's the best train show in Columbus.

It's an annual event, so it tends to draw clubs with layouts from far and wide. I saw layouts from clubs in Pittsburgh, Dayton, Michigan, Illinois and many of the local N Scale groups.

The vendors were top-notch... though you really have to hunt through a lot of stuff if you're looking for something in particular. On the bright side, vendors tend to know their stock and the club members running layouts (who are often shopping themselves) are often helpful pointing to vendors that specialize in particular items of interest.

I saw a caboose running on one layout and the guys at the club were able to point me to it's owner who told me who made it - and which vendors had them in stock. Long story short, it's kind of a model-train Hive-mind and if you ask questions you can probably quickly get routed to someone who has the answer.

I took my kids and everyone was so nice to them, saying hi, making them feel engaged and making sure they were enjoying themselves. One of the vendors was handing out promotional train whistles that you might see retailing for $6-$10 for free. It's this side of things that brings my daughter back - when she was young, one of the participants offered her a cookie (with my permission) after a diaper change. A year later, I asked if she wanted to go with me and she said "Will they have more cookies?" (which seemed like a strange response since I hadn't remembered that moment).

The event is also SUPER inexpensive at $5 for adults - kids under 12 are free. While the event is held in two pole-barn type structures, since everything is N Scale (1:160th of the size in real life) you can fit a LOT of train show in such a small space. A hand-stamp gets you in/out privileges all day so you can come back after lunch.

My daughter's favorite scenes were the drive-in movie theatre module showing cartoons, a module of Godzilla destroying a Japanese town and being warded off by tanks, planes, and firefighters, a model amusement park, and of course the miniature tornado spinning next to the railroad tracks with lightning and thunder illuminating the destroyed buildings and vehicles in the scene.

The layouts ranged from the fanciful to the prototypical such as my favorite layout that faithfully recreated a connector between two busy mainlines in Galesburg, IL in 1966 (https://m.facebook.com/NScaleGalesburg).

Also, nearby is a small park with historical structures including an old caboose, depot, and railroad crossing flashers that were a hit with the kids.

Beware that things tend to wind down on the afternoon of the second day so you might see fewer trains running or less variety - especially near the end of the show.

I went on the morning of the last day. It was dead but I was there at 10 AM. Great place to take a little on e who wants to see animals. The rides are extra and just your basic small town fair type rides.

Some cool things there: homemade ice Cream, petting zoo, old historical village, work with summer camps to bring kids in for educational tours, great for 4Hers, elephant ears, free parking. I also had free tickets so it was worth it for me to stop in and check it out. It is a nice place to spend 2-3 hours of your summer day. Nothing great but it entertained my toddler.

Uh...for real? I always heard about the Franklin County Fair and figured it to be maybe half the size of the Ohio State Fair. Boy was I wrong. This is more for families because I think they only had 2-3 adult sized rides. That's fine, we didn't come for the rides anyway...onto the grub. My husband got a gyro. The meat was way overcooked but the rest was okay. (Aka-fail in my book) We split a small fry...you know, the one the guy handed my husband with SCALDING HOT OIL dripping from it onto his hand!? We asked for a 2nd cup because it was too hot to hold and they refused to give us a cup but gave us a sheet of foil (seriously?!) and then a paper towel. I took one bite of the oil laden, shoestring fries and said I wasn't eating any more of that crap.

Then on to the vendors who have a few covered picnic tables. I wanted a coney dog and small lemon shake up. What I got was a practically raw hot dog with sloppy joe mix and cheese whiz on top, not coney sauce. One bite of that and I threw it out and got a corn dog because I was dying for anything decent at that point. The corn part was bland and tasteless unless I had mustard and ketchup on it. I took a sip of the lemon shake up and got a mouth full of crunchy, chunky sugar. I stirred the sugar for 5 minutes and it NEVER dissolved! FML. I sipped from the top until I got diabetes then went to finish ourselves off with dessert. The hubs got a "red velvet funnel cake." Isn't a red velvet anything supposed to mean it tastes like chocolate, not just that it's red? Well, if you're up for pay $1 extra for red food coloring for the same taste as a regular funnel cake, chow down. I got my elephant ear up toward the front. This is the only guy who charged $4 instead of $5 for one and it was good! Actually it was the only good thing I had at this side show carnival. Seriously, this is about as big as the deals you used to find in a department store parking lot back in the day.

With our wallet $42 lighter for entry and bad food that I barely ate and no rides ridden or games played, I'll go to the state fair where the vendors are in a different class and actually try to make good tasting food. Sigh...duped.