People from all over the world flock to the Oregon Country Fair just outside of Eugene to enjoy a weekend of music, art and to reminisce about hippy-er times.
KLCC’s Kira Hoffelmeyer has some pre-fair details.
If you go to the fair this weekend, you’re bound to see everything from nearly naked people to 12-foot tall flamingo puppets. But what you might not see as an attendee is all the prep work beforehand.
Construction crews began working in June to build and make necessary repairs to booths across the fair’s 466 acres.
“I work for construction, and our job is to service the infrastructure needs of anyone here," said Elliott. "Any booth that serves the whole fair or anything around the grounds like bridges—we build bridges as well. We build stuff behind the scenes that serves the people who support the fair, but you guys never get to see it. So I’ve been working on this for the better part of a month now.”
That’s Ken Elliott—he’s a carpenter from Portland. For the last seven years, he has worked on the construction crew for Fair.
Elliott is helping to rebuild and expand the White Bird medical booth. He says this is the biggest project he’s been involved in at the fair. It was spurred by a tree falling on the stall, which he says happens pretty frequently.
He says the medical booth needed a larger space anyway, so they tore down the entire back area to remake and add to it.
“This year we were able to actually tackle this, and we just crushed it," said Elliott. "It came out really well; everybody is really excited about it. Now we’re putting the finishing touches on. You can see, we have someone over here putting the flare on top of the fences. We’re building some steps for them so they have better access to their loft area.”
Behind him, a woman stands on a ladder sanding the intricate designs that adorned the new fence of White Bird’s booth.
Christopher Sanders, who’s also part of the fair construction crew, says they’re already looking forward to next year.
“The visible structure over there is fairly small, and what we’re going to do is extend it closer to main stage. They’ll have an office up there, a little room to relax…that sort of thing," said Sanders.
The Oregon Country Fair runs Friday through Sunday in the woods near Veneta. KLCC will broadcast from the main stage all weekend long.
