Nateva provides hope for fairgrounds future

OXFORD — Board members of the Oxford County Agricultural Society say they hope next week’s Nateva Music & Camping Festival will be just the infusion the 170-year-old organization needs to keep it going.

“This is just too good a piece of land to just sit here,” said board treasurer Lance Bean as he looked over the 100-acre fairgrounds off Pottle Road. It was acquired by the society in the 1960s after the state took its site on Route 26 on the Norway/Paris town line for the construction of the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

About $1.2 million has been spent in improvements over the last seven or eight years, said Jackie Young, board vice president. Barns, including a $400,000 structure, and exhibit halls have been built, along with a racetrack and betting parlor.

The construction has changed the face of the annual September fair, and brought old-timers back to it, Young said, but the fact still remains that of the close to $1 million in revenues the society pulls in each year, about 80 percent of it is dependent on the Big O, the Oxford Fair. With the exception of stall rentals and storage space, the rest of their revenue is garnered through donations and fundraising events, she said.

The society, established in 1841, needs additional revenue to continue, members say. In 2009, for example, the board reported to the state that they took in $725,742, but paid out $815,815. With a beginning cash flow of $92,351, the remaining cash on hand was $2,278, Bean said.

“We who get on the board want to see it survive,” he said. They include an accountant, home inspector, optometrist, farmer and surveyor from the Oxford Hills region. All have something in common, said Bean, who started showing animals at the fair when he was 5 years old. They have roots in agriculture and a love of the fair.

But maintaining enough cash flow to operate the massive complex with a small group of volunteers, revenues largely from a one-week event, great support from businesses, but not always from the community-at-large, has become increasingly difficult, Bean and Young said.

So a decision was made to try to expand the events at the fairgrounds.

Country singer Josh Turner was brought in for a successful show last year.

A road race and fitness walk is planned for September.

But a $3.5 million amphitheater project that was announced in a big media splash last fall, fell through, Bean said. “We just didn’t have the money,” he said.

In December 2009, the society sold the racetrack and a small parcel of adjoining land to Black Bear Realty, whose address is a post office box in Casco. It financed the deal with a $780,000 mortgage and then leased the racetrack back to the society, according to records at the Oxford County Register of Deeds.

“We’re just trying to get anything in here,” Young said.

So when Frank Chandler, president of Nateva Festivals LLC of Newton, Mass., approached the society about leasing the fairgrounds for not only one, but perhaps annual multiday concerts, board members agreed.

Thus began months of negotiations, meetings and more meetings to bring the event to fruition July 2-4.

“As a society, we saw it as an opportunity to form a partnership with an organization to ensure we will be here years from now,” said Bean of the festival that will feature about 50 bands, some nationally known, and up to $15,000 people a day to the area.

While saying the venture is “providing operating capital” for the society, Bean did not divulge details.

The effort has not been easy for anyone.

To accommodate the festival and future events, the society made changes to the fairgrounds, such as building a mammoth “natural setting” of trees and stones in the center of the racetrack, clearing a large hill of trees, and removing the racehorses from their barn.

Not everyone has taken the changes well.

“It just came out of the blue sky,” said Freeman Parker of Waterford who was asked to remove his six horses from the barn next to the racetrack from June 27 through July 5 because of the the noise from the crowds, music and fireworks around the barn. He pays $75 a month per stall, but like the other racehorse owners who fill less than half of the 30 stalls in the horse barn, will not be charged for the time that he is not allowed to use the stall.

“It made it inconvenient, but I was lucky I had a place to fall back to,” he said.

The event is seen as a blessing to some neighbors on Pottle Road, who plan to rent spaces for parking and camping, and a curse by others, who lament the onslaught of traffic and people to their road.

Police have set up a four-phase traffic plan that allows for a new road to be opened as others fill up. For example, once traffic backs up on Route 26 at the festival entrance through the Bob Bahre property at the traffic lights at Hannafords, the traffic will be routed down Pottle Road to Coldwater Brook Extension. Both Pottle Road from Coldwater Brook Road to Webber Brook Road will be closed to through traffic along with Staples Avenue.

Oxford Police Chief Jon Tibbetts said he is not concerned with emergency personnel accessing the road. “We just turn on our lights and sirens” and use the side of the roads to get by. “It’s not a major issue,” he said Friday.

Businesses are also preparing for the best and the worst. In Norway, which is within a mile and one half of the fairgrounds, Norway Downtown President Andrea Burns said they tried to figure out a way they could get concert-goers downtown to shop, but all the Oxford Hills school buses have been rented by the festival promoter, and an idea to get a horse and wagon just didn’t seem feasible in the end.

“There’s so many questions around what’s going to happen. We just couldn’t get a handle on it,” Burns said.

Whatever happens during and after the Fourth of July weekend, board members say they’re hoping it’s the start of more revenue-producing events.

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OXFORD — Board of Directors of the Oxford County Agricultural Society are elected for a three-year term by the membership at its annual meeting during the first week of December.

Anyone interested in becoming a member may join the society at one of two meetings in July and December. Notice of both meetings are posted in the local newspapers, said Lance Bean, treasurer of the Board of Directors.

The current board includes the following:

President Suzanne Grover, Norway, Grover Gun Drilling

Vice President Jackie Young, Paris, Young’s Greenhouse

Treasurer Lance Bean, Bryant Pond, Hoisington & Bean Accounting

Secretary Ann Bellwood, Oxford, retired

Director Lou Goulet, Mechanic Falls, Home Inspections

Director Glen Young, Paris, Young’s Greenhouse

Director Ben Young, Paris, Young’s Greenhouse

Director Lawrence Murch, Mechanic Falls, optometrist

Director Rupert Grover, Norway, Grover Gun Drilling

Director Caldwell Jackson, Oxford, farmer, county commissioner

Director Gail Trundy, Hebron, Hebron Academy