The Fair at Fenway South is filled with rides, various food trucks and games for attendees to enjoy. -COURTESY PHOTO

The Fair at Fenway South will open its doors on Oct. 31, marking its 11th year at JetBlue Park.

The fair will be open on weekends from Oct. 31 to Nov. 16, and will have many new and returning attractions.

Enjoy a view from up above with the fair’s Friendly Wheel. -COURTESY PHOTO

The idea of the location for the fair started in 2012, when the baseball stadium was built in conjunction with Lee County and the Boston Red Sox. The two groups thought the stadium could use some family entertainment when it wasn’t being used for spring training and called Peri Appollo and Brian Schuman, the fair’s founders and managers.

“We came down, we looked at the stadium,” said Shuman. “We thought it was brand new and beautiful, and we thought it was an area that had loads of families, and maybe this type of family entertainment wasn’t being addressed adequately, and we gave it a shot.”

The two got started in the fair business in New York around 30 years ago, when they were producing and promoting consumer events like home and car shows. One event they oversaw was a fair at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, and that inspired them to try their hand at owning and hosting one.

“We had little kids at the time, and it was really important to us to produce the kind of events that we would want to bring our family to,” said Appollo. “We really try to keep that family fun perspective and have an atmosphere where friends can come and work, people can come and you can, you know, from teens on through grandparents and that keeping that environment and that atmosphere is always paramount in our mind.”

Attractions at the fair at Fenway South include the Candyland Fun House. -COURTESY PHOTO

After coming to Fort Myers, Appollo and Schuman wanted to bring the same experience they provided to their New York market.

“The idea was, at the beginning, to do it family-friendly, kid-friendly, and go into neighborhoods or areas where they didn’t really have big outdoor family festivals and things like that,” said Schuman. “The idea was to try to bring a little bit of Disney to the neighborhood, so to speak, family-friendly rides, games, fair food, things like that all geared towards young kids and their parents.”

A week before the fair starts, vendors and rides are brought in and the whole facility is built from the ground up.

“There’s nothing there beforehand, you know, a week and a half, two weeks before, there’s nothing there,” said Schuman. “It’s a pretty monumental task to get it up and get it running and looking so nice and clean and safe in a week, but it’s an all-year venture in terms of starting with the permit process and starting with the ideas and looking for new entertainers and looking for new activities.”

Fair at Fenway South brings a multitude of rides for attendees to enjoy. -COURTESY PHOTO

In addition to quickly setting everything up, the team also looks for ways to improve visitor experiences. Something they’re introducing this year is a streamlined security line, using new metal detectors. On average, the fair attracts approximately 10,000 people annually, so it’s very important to get everyone into the event as quickly as possible.

“The middle Saturday night of the three weeks has traditionally been the most crowded time at the fair, and last year was no exception,” said Schuman. “So, this year, we are instituting new arrangements to get people in where, obviously, we’re always very safe, and everybody’s bags are checked, to make sure the current environment is as safe as possible. The Lee County sheriffs are there and private security is there, but to get people in faster, we will be using the metal detectors like they have at the airport that you just walk right through, in addition to security.”

In addition to looking to keep things fresh and new, many rides and performers have been consistent throughout the years.

One of these performers is magician Lance Gifford, and he has been with the two producers since they went into the industry.

“That gentleman who produces the fair (Schuman), I’ve been working for him for probably about 25 years,” said Gifford. “For the fair in Fort Myers, I think it’s been about 13 years; it’s been in existence. I saw Siegfried and Roy on television, and I wanted to become a magician. And at the age of 16, I was working (at) Friendly’s Ice Cream after school, and I had a balloon delivery business all to support my magic career to buy the illusions.”

Magician Lance Gifford performs magic for a crowd. -COURTESY PHOTO

While his shows are popular, his performances are weather-dependent.

“You know, you get bad weather and rain and drizzle, we usually go out on stage if we have an audience,” said Gifford. “If we have somebody sitting out there and they’re getting wet, we usually go out and perform. We just have to be very careful, because the stage gets slick and we have to make sure we don’t break a leg or something.”

The fair itself is also extremely weather-dependent. In 2022, during Hurricane Ian, the fair was cancelled because FEMA needed the site for disaster relief.

“Just last year, we were really lucky, but (when) Hurricane Milton came through, we were lucky in the sense that all we had to do was move the fair back a week from its regular starting time,” said Shuman. “But if we get rain, it’s closed so it’s a very dry weather event.”

At the end of each fair, the group gives a percentage of the earnings to a local nonprofit through their charity, the Jordan Schuman Foundation for Kindness.

“We always give a little bit of what we can at the end to local organizations, whether they’re kid organizations or school-related or hunger drive-related,” Schuman said. “One year, we did something to clean the beaches in Fort Myers, we try to do local charities.”

The fair at Fenway South (JetBlue Park) will be in town from Oct. 31 to Nov. 16, with admission costing $12. The event’s hours vary, with Fridays being from 5-11 p.m., Saturdays from 3-11 p.m. and Sundays from 3-10 p.m.