17,000 Came. The Fair Netted $89K. So Why the Questions? – A Closer Look Inside the 2026 Cass County Fair

By Connie Whitlock
Publishing Editor

At the Sep. 14 council meeting, with a fully packed agenda, Assistant Administrator Nici Wilson presented the Cass County Fair’s financial wins.  Her presentation included attendance, revenues, expenses, volunteers, improvements, and the history of how the fair came to be. 

Council also raised questions during the meeting, which were discussed, along with other questions answered by staff about the Cass County Fair. 

Could Pleasant Hill Lose the Cass County Fair?

One of the more persistent rumors surrounding the Cass County Fair is that Pleasant Hill could somehow lose it to another Cass County community.

According to Wilson, there isn’t a county contract or bid to lose. The fair’s beginnings go back to 1993, when community members and the City of Pleasant Hill began working together to create an event that would bring visitors to town, create community traditions and foster a sense of place.

At the time, Wilson explained, there wasn’t an established county fair. City representatives approached the Cass County Commission and received its blessing to call the event the Cass County Fair. “There was no contract with Cass County, nor has the event ever been awarded to the city through a bid or similar process,” Wilson said.

She later addressed the rumor more conversationally. “We’ve all heard it for years, like, ‘Oh, did the city lose the bid on the fair? Is it moving to Harrisonville?’” Wilson said. “There was no contract. There was no bid.”

In other words, Pleasant Hill didn’t win the Cass County Fair through a bidding process. The City of Pleasant Hill created the event and has continued to host and administer it.

So Who Actually Runs the Fair?

The City of Pleasant Hill runs the fair, but with help. The Cass County Fair has a Fair Board, individual event committees, and a large group of volunteers. Wilson estimated that more than 200 volunteers contribute more than 2,000 hours throughout the year and during fair week.

Wilson explained that the Fair Board itself evolved. Before 2019, city staff held monthly meetings with a broad group of fair volunteers. Eventually, they tried to establish a smaller core group that could work regularly with city staff and communicate with the committees responsible for the individual fair events.

But that didn’t change who was ultimately responsible for the fair. “No formal governance changes occurred,” Wilson said. The Fair Board helps choose the grand marshal and annual theme, provides input on entertainment and scheduling, coordinates individual events and contributes thousands of volunteer hours.

“The Fair Board provides an important volunteer leadership, planning and advisory role, and its members have meaningful impact on the character, programming and success of the Cass County Fair,” Wilson said.

But she also made the distinction clear. “However, the Fair Board does not function as a separate governmental or administrative entity responsible for the fair,” Wilson said. “Ultimately, administrative and financial responsibilities for the fair remain with the City of Pleasant Hill.”

That means the city’s annual budget includes fair revenues and expenditures. The city handles purchases, contracts, financial transactions, and cash handling through city procedures, and the City Council ultimately oversees the budget.

The people on city staff specifically identified in the presentation as Fair Board leadership included Nici Wilson, Assistant City Administrator, who is involved in the administration and oversight of the fair; Missy Gentry, city staff and longtime fair administrator; Kylie Baker, city staff involved in fair responsibilities, Jeff Hull, Tony Bakken, Landon Vest, and Chief Dennis Kleh.

Volunteer leadership was listed as Rachael Randolph, Terri Lees, Randy Miller, Glenn Coleman, Lisa Byne, Trent Simpson, JW Hanes, and Nick Gentry.

Should the Fair Board Change?

That explanation led to another discussion about whether the Fair Board should have a more formally defined role. Councilwoman Jessica Elliott said she would like to see greater council oversight and a clearer understanding of the board’s structure. “I would like to see a Fair Board ordinance or a Fair Board appointed by council, so that we do have a little bit more understanding of how it impacts our budget,” Elliott said.

Not everyone was ready to go that far. Councilwoman Pat Niner said she was willing to look more closely at the numbers but didn’t want to turn the fair over to a separate volunteer board. “I’m not comfortable with turning that over to a volunteer board,” Niner said. “I think it’s a city-run operation.”

The council ultimately voted unanimously to schedule a future work-session discussion about the Fair Board, how it currently operates and whether changes should be made going forward.

Did the Fair Make Money in 2026?

By the direct operating numbers presented to council, it did. The 2026 Cass County Fair generated $294,136.15 in revenue and recorded $204,332 in expenditures, a difference of $89,804.15. Revenue also exceeded the $261,800 budget by more than $32,000.

One of the biggest reasons was sponsorships. The fair budgeted $40,000 in sponsorship and advertising revenue but brought in $70,450. That compares with $42,450 in 2025, $39,874 in 2024, and $30,900 in 2023.

The rodeo generated $51,520 in admission revenue while costing $15,150. Motocross generated $12,208 in admission revenue and cost $1,800. The demolition derby brought in $25,060.15 against $15,450 in expenses.

The tractor pull didn’t cover its direct expenses through admission revenue this year, bringing in $13,871 while costing $15,700. Weather and heat were among the factors staff discussed when looking at attendance for individual events.

Significant revenue also came from sources outside the main-event gates. Beverage sales brought in $53,277, vendor and booth fees generated $10,205, and livestock shows brought in $9,697.

The Carnival Actually Pays the Fair

One of the more interesting pieces of the fair’s financial picture is the carnival. Pleasant Hill doesn’t pay the carnival company to come to town. “They actually do not pay anything for the carnival,” Wilson explained. “They actually pay us to be here.”

The city works with the carnival under an arrangement in which the company calculates its gross receipts, removes the sales tax, and pays the fair 25 percent of the remaining amount.

That resulted in $30,227 in revenue for the fair this year. Wilson called the arrangement unusual and said she wasn’t aware of another carnival company operating under the same type of agreement.

But Does $89,804 Tell the Whole Story?

This is where the council discussion went beyond the numbers on the page.

Elliott questioned whether saying the fair generated an $89,804 difference between revenues and expenses tells the full story when the financial statement doesn’t account for regular city staff and the time spent producing the event.

“There’s a lot of statistics here, but none of it accounts for city staff hours and the resources that we also have to spend that take away from other city business,” Elliott said.

Her concern wasn’t that the fair isn’t valuable to Pleasant Hill. In fact, she complimented staff and volunteers on the event. Her question was whether council knows the city’s full investment in producing it. “I would like to quantify what we’re actually investing in it when it comes to the numbers,” Elliott said.

City Administrator Kristen Dorman explained that the city doesn’t currently have that information because it hasn’t historically tracked all fair-related staff hours separately. “We do not currently track staff time — all of it,” Dorman said. “I don’t have anything to provide.”

Dorman said that will change for the next fair. “I’ve asked staff to track it for the 2027 fair,” she said. Several council members weren’t interested in trying to recreate the 2026 number after the fact. They preferred to begin tracking it accurately going forward.

So the $89,804 figure represents the difference between the revenues and expenditures recorded in the fair books. What it doesn’t tell us is how much regular city staff time went into producing the event.

Numbers Are Missing on the Other Side, Too

If the city begins calculating its staff investment in the fair, there is also another side of the equation.

More than 200 volunteers put in an estimated 2,000-plus hours to make the event happen. The fair’s financial statement assigns no dollar value to those hours, either. The financial report also doesn’t tell us what more than 17,000 attendees may have spent elsewhere in Pleasant Hill.

People coming into town may buy gasoline, eat at restaurants, shop at local businesses, or make other purchases that generate sales tax. The city did not attempt to put a dollar amount on that broader economic impact during Monday night’s presentation.

So while staff time isn’t reflected in the $89,804 operating difference, neither are all of the benefits the fair may bring to Pleasant Hill. Thousands of visitors come to town, potentially spending money at local businesses and generating sales tax revenue. Putting an exact dollar amount on either side of that equation, staff time or the fair’s broader economic impact, is more difficult.

Is the Fair Running Out of Room?

The 2026 fair didn’t just have a good financial year. It had a big attendance year. Estimated attendance reached 17,367, compared with 15,351 in 2025, an increase of about 13 percent. 

On Saturday night, staff believe the fairgrounds may have reached practical capacity. “Saturday night was probably the busiest we’ve ever seen the facility as a whole,” Wilson said. Friday night’s rodeo had sold out. Staff encouraged people attending Saturday’s rodeo to arrive early and purchase tickets. They did.

Many people bought their tickets and then went back to the carnival. As staff watched the rodeo seating, it initially appeared there was still room, so they kept selling tickets. Then the crowd returned from the carnival. “All those folks that had bought their tickets early left the carnival, went and sat down very quick, and I’m back going, We’ve got to stop selling tickets,’” Wilson said. “Like, we were at capacity.”

That experience has staff thinking differently about what growth should look like. “We feel the commitment needs to continue to improve the experience rather than always being focused on increasing attendance and revenue,” Wilson said.

Free Bleachers — With a $115,000 Catch

The capacity issue comes at the same time the city has been offered an unusual opportunity. The Pleasant Hill School District is replacing the bleachers on the south side of Eklund Field and has offered the existing bleachers to the city at no purchase price.

Wilson said the school district reasoned that taxpayers had already paid for them once and the bleachers would remain with essentially the same taxpayers. But getting them from Eklund Field to the fairgrounds isn’t free.

The preliminary estimate is approximately $115,000 to remove the bleachers, transport them, prepare the fairgrounds site, and reinstall the seating on the required concrete foundation and piers.

The project could also provide an added benefit. The bleachers currently on the north side of the rodeo arena could be moved to other areas of the fairgrounds, providing additional seating for events such as the demolition derby, motocross, or tractor pull.

Council members expressed interest but asked for more information, including exactly how many seats would be gained and where the existing bleachers would go.