One week of gates. Months of entries, exhibits and stand paperwork.
A fair is a year of administration that pays out over a handful of days. Competitive entries, the gate, the ride wristbands and the trade stands are usually four separate subscriptions, all priced on the week you are open.
What a fair or show society pays for
Write down the renewal dates before anything else. They fall in different months, which is why the total has probably never been read out in one figure.
Billed per entry, for a week you open once a year
A per-entry fee is charged on the structure of your premium book, not on the number of people who turn up. One exhibitor entering several classes across a couple of departments is several charges. A family sharing one kitchen table is several exhibitors. Open a junior division, add a section for a new craft, and the count multiplies before a single extra visitor comes through the gate. Participation is the thing a fair board works all year to raise, and it is the thing being taxed.
The licences behave the other way round. They are annual, and the fair is open for days. The entry system carries real work for a few months either side of that week, the gate system for the week itself, and both are paid for in the months when the showground is empty. Because the renewal falls in the quiet season, it is usually approved without anyone holding it up against what the alternative would cost.
The cost nobody prices is what happens after judging. Placings come off the judges' sheets in the ring and the exhibit hall, someone matches them back to the entry file, works out what each exhibitor is owed across every class they placed in, and turns that into one payment run. Then the results are retyped for the newsletter and the local paper. When entries, judging and the gate sit in three products, that reconciliation lands on one volunteer's evenings, every year.
What we build around your own premium book
- The premium book as the systemDepartments, sections and classes exactly as printed, with entry limits, junior and open divisions, substitution rules and the amendments your board voted through at its last meeting.
- A whole family in one sittingOne login covering several exhibitors and many classes, one payment, one confirmation, and entry tags that print in the order the stewards want them.
- Judging and resultsPlacings recorded on a phone in the ring or the hall, champions carried up from their classes, ties and disqualifications handled to your rules, and results published without being retyped.
- Premium and prize payoutsPlacings turned into what each exhibitor is owed, totalled per person across departments, handed to the treasurer as one payment list, and kept as a record the board can audit.
- Gate, wristbands and stand space in one orderAdvance admission, ride wristbands, parking, camper hook-ups and pen bookings, plus the trader contract, insurance certificate and power request held against a pitch map you control.
What we leave alone
- Livestock health and movement paperworkTesting, inspection and movement permits are issued by the veterinary authority and the breed registry. We store the certificate number and its expiry date against the animal. The record of truth stays with them.
- The carnival operator's own systemsThe midway comes with its own contract and frequently its own ride ticketing or wristband stock. Where that contract governs, it stands, and we reconcile against what the operator reports.
- Card processingWhoever built the entry form, the processor's charge on an admission or an entry fee is the same. It is the cost of taking a card, not of the software.
The buyer is a board, and the budget is read out loud
A fair board does not buy the way a company does. A proposal has to survive a meeting, sit in the minutes, and in most societies land in accounts that members, funders and the council can read. That is an argument in itself for one flat monthly price rather than a scatter of per-entry and per-admission fees: a single line, the same figure every month, easy to put in front of a treasurer and easy to defend at the annual meeting. We write quotes to be read out in that room, including plainly what is covered and what happens if you stop.
The second thing worth saying to a board is that the software year and the fair week are not the same thing. Entries open months ahead, judging records are finished after the gates close, and premium cheques go out later still. Judging the system only on the days you are open misses most of what it does. It also sets the order of the work: something small and self-contained goes first, one department's entries or the trade stands, long before the entry deadline, while the current product still carries everything else.
Questions fair boards ask
The board has to approve this in a meeting. What do we bring them?
A page they can read without a technical background: what you pay today per entry, per admission and per season, what the flat monthly price covers, which systems stay rented and why, and the date the changeover would happen. We write the quote in that shape because a committee, not a person, is the one saying yes.
Does an entry fee still have to carry a platform charge?
No. What an exhibitor pays to enter becomes entirely your board's decision, because there is no per-entry fee sitting underneath it. The card processor still charges for taking the payment, as it does for any system, and you can absorb that or show it.
Can one system handle livestock, baking and quilts together?
Yes, because they are the same shape: a department, a section, a class, an exhibitor, a placing. Livestock adds pens, weights, ownership dates and the certificate numbers you have to sight. The registry and veterinary paperwork behind those numbers stays with the bodies that issue it.
Our fair is small. Should we just keep what we have?
Quite possibly, and we will tell you so. Add your per-entry fees, your per-admission fees and the annual licences into the calculator on this site, then look at the total across the number of years your board would normally commit to. If the figure is modest, renting is the right answer and the money is better spent on premiums.
From the blog, for fairs and expos
- Why are trade stand sales and the floor plan billed separately from gate admission?September 23, 2026 · Booth and trade stand space is rented ground, not a ticket, so it is usually a second product and a second licence. What that split costs a fair.
- What do competitive entries cost a fair across a season of departments and classes?September 22, 2026 · How per-entry and per-exhibitor pricing multiplies across a premium book's departments and classes, and which charges to add up before a renewal.
Keep reading
Send us your entry and gate fees
What you pay per entry, per admission and per season, and the jobs your volunteers still finish by hand.
Hiro costs about a tenth of what you pay now, quoted against your own bill. Hosting, fixes and changes included, and no per-seat fees.