IT’S HERE: A fair day: Get ready for cotton candy and corn dogs

By KEITH WALKER

FAIR FACTS:
Fair Schedule
Fair features several demonstractors
Read more stories about the fair here

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW:
Fair runs through Aug. 22. Tickets are $5 for kids ages 3-6; $8 for ages 7 and up, and $5 for seniors 60 and above.

The electrical cables are laid. Burned out light bulbs have been replaced. Rides have been tested and inspected for safety. Stuffed animals are on display and everything has been pressure-washed and
cleaned.

Food vendors have at hand the makings for corndogs, cheese steak and sausage hoagies, funnel cakes, lemonade and cotton candy.

The 60th annual Prince William County Fair opens today..

Andy Deggeller, of Deggeller Attractions, said it takes about four days to set up all the midway rides and attractions, which include a Ferris wheel the height of a 9- or 10-story building and the 48-
foot “Wildcat” roller coaster, a new attraction this year.

“We’ve been taking our time doing a lot of lighting work and cleaning stuff,” Deggeller said.

This year’s attractions also include a number of kiddie rides and games of chance, run in part by a crew of 20-somethings from South Africa.

Deggeller said the South African residents come to the United States to work, see the sights and travel with the show.

Mellisa Prinsloo, of Capetown, South Africa, has a four-month work visa and is spending her summer vacation on the Deggeller tour.

“It’s a good experience,” said Prinsloo,  who works as a bartender and restaurant hostess when she’s not traveling with the carnival. “It’s different. So far so good. I’m enjoying it.”

“You mix with people and that’s what I like,” the 27-year-old said. “It’s what I’m good at so that’s why I do this.”

Judith Hoff, of Johannesburg, South Africa, said she likes the life with the carnival.

She gets to sleep in since the midway doesn’t open until 3 p.m. on weekdays and noon on weekends. 

“You don’t have to get up at six o’clock in the morning to go to work,” said the 24-year-old Hoff who is in her second season with Deggeller.

“It’s a different kind of life we have here,” Hoff said. “You work late at night. It’s really fun. It’s laid back and everything. Back home it’s really rushed.”

This year, Deggeller Attractions rolled in a little bit early and some of the South Africans got the chance to visit Washington.

Schalk Pretorius, 23, was in the group of South Africans that went to the nation’s capital.

He spent all of the trip seeing the sights outside and ran out of time.

“We saw all the monuments; didn’t see the museums,” the 23-year-old said.

While Hoff, Prinsloo, Pretorius and the others wait for a night’s work on the midway, the fair’s early risers will be preparing dairy goats, poultry, rabbits, hogs, beef cattle and dairy cattle for judging.

There will also be several baby contests for tots of different ages and a couple of pet shows.

Other afternoon and night attractions include Illusionist Josh Knotts, the Agricadabra Magic Show and Mark Preston’s Comedy Safari, not to mention the tractor pull and demolition derby.

Friday, opening day, tickets are half price — tickets for those 7 through 59 are just $3.50.

For a complete schedule of events, attractions and special deals, visit pwcfair.com.

The fair ends Saturday Aug. 21, and by Sunday Aug. 22, the Deggeller show will be gone for parts as far away as Arkansas and Texas, Deggeller said.

“Usually everything comes down in one day,” Deggeller said. “It definitely comes down faster than it goes up.”

Manassas Bureau Chief Keith Walker can be reached at 703-369-6751.