Fairgrounds makes plans to discontinue furloughs

The Georgia Agricultural Exposition Authority (GAEA) met on Wednesday for their last monthly meeting of 2020 at the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter in Perry to discuss the future of the fairgrounds amidst a still-looming COVID-19. Stephen Shimp, executive director of the GAEA, led the meeting of the board from continuing the rodeo event to discussion of ending partial unemployment and furloughs in less than a month.

Taking note of the warnings by leading health and government officials of the rising cases of the coronavirus, the board took great care to discuss all options of moving forward with the scheduled rodeo event. Several of the members went out to evaluate the Reaves Arena where the rodeo is set to take place to look at different possibilities of seating. Experimenting with different layouts, they proposed pre-set “pods” of two, four or six seats for small groups. This allows for accurate social distancing and complies with the current executive order.

“What it would mean, when you went on there to buy it,” Shimp began to explain, “is that if you had five people that were coming to the rodeo, you’d have to buy a pod of six. You’d have to buy that sixth seat. We can’t leave an unsold seat in any of the pods.” 

The GAEA would be facing hosting the event with a projected shortage of a third of the profit from previous years. Steven Rodgers, chief administrative officer, broke down the details. “Normally, we can put about 5,400 seats in there per night. When we got done marking it out, our total projected seats was about 1,726. It means we can sell about 1,590 to 1,606 per night. With the price increases that we project, we pretty much have to sell every seat in the house to make any money or even break even.”

Understanding that the rodeo is such an important community event and that the rodeo is not an event usually used to gain a large profit, the authority unanimously decided to move forward with continuing the scheduled event with the safety precautions set in place.

Shimp concluded with, “We checked the executive order. Under the current one, we’re fine to keep doing what we’re doing. We’ve been having other events. And I wanted to mention that [with] the events booked with us, we make sure that they come to us and tell us what they’re going to do COVID related.” He added, “But every event that comes in here, we’re requiring it up front and we’re checking on it while it’s here so that we’re with this executive order. With the new signage, as you all are aware, somebody waives liability if we have those posted everywhere. That kind of takes the liability off of us. So we’ll go ahead with the rodeo.”

In other business, the board discussed Shimp’s motion to end the partial unemployment and furloughs beginning on January 1, 2021. “The staff has worked hard to bring in new revenue, doing things to cut costs, and with Steve’s projection, I believe we can make it through to the amended budget and the money that we’ll need—hopefully when the new budget comes out in January—we’re in there for what we need to get through the fiscal year.”

He went on to note that the staff has sacrificed a lot to make sure that the fairgrounds could continue working—even during the holidays. “I don’t want to get to the point [that] sooner or later something better is going to come along and we’re going to lose some of these folks. I mean, that’s just the way that I feel. If we can make it financially through the end of March, I’m asking the board that we discontinue the partial unemployment and the furloughs.”

Several board members and staff brought up the point that partial unemployment is affecting the fairground’s operation. Events and shows are still going on, but there is less support to keep things going in an efficient and orderly manner. John Hulsey mentioned that sponsorships will play a large role in keeping everything running and funded for the time being.

After much deliberation, the GAEA agreed to put an end to the partial unemployment and the furlough affecting the loyal staff. Foster Rhodes, chairman of the Georgia Agricultural Exposition Authority, ended the discussion by admitting, “I think, at least we’d be showing the staff, ‘please don’t go anywhere, we need you desperately,’ and we’re going to keep fighting for them.”

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