TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 189 



There is some expense attached to going and getting back home. It is 

 harder to convince the man or woman or child who lives in that zone to 

 go than it is the man or woman or child in your own back yard. There- 

 fore use the concentrated method of spending more money in your own 

 back yard, get persons to go from your own home town. As a matter of 

 fact, you have got to convince the man in your own home town to just 

 as great an extent as the fellow who lives outside of your own home 

 town. That is the fundamental principle that is followed by the circus, 

 by the motion picture theatre, and by the legitimate theatre, and by all 

 forms of legitimate entertainment when they are going out after the 

 money, so concentrate, and as you go out spend less and less as you go 

 out. If you have arterial lines leading into your towns, go out along 

 them, because it is easier for the folks to come in. Spend more money 

 in the accessible parts of your territory then on the inaccessible. For 

 instance, Minneapolis and St. Paul, some people will say, "Oh well, these 

 people are right here, they will come." Here is Minneapolis and St. 

 Paul with practically a million people within thirty miles reach of the 

 Minnesota state fair, a wonderful gold mine unexploited, left absolutely 

 alone, but we will shoot way over here $20 worth of advertising trying to 

 get some one to come in three or four hundred miles, and lose the chance 

 to get twenty times as many in your own home town. And the fact that 

 concentrated publicity pays is demonstrated by our city day's attendance. 

 Four years ago the record daily attendance at the Minnesota state fair 

 was 101,000 people, obtained on Labor Day. After we started the con- 

 centrated method of publicity it then went up to 115,000 two years ago, 

 and a year ago it went up to 187,000 on one day, and this last year we 

 had just practically as many as we had a year ago — we had 170,000 plus 

 official attendance. There are no alibis to be said on that, but as a mat- 

 ter of fact we had on the Minnesota state fair grounds, although our 

 official attendance will not show it, to exceed 200,000 people on last 

 Labor Day. It was estimated that 10,000 people got in through the north 

 gates and fence when they broke them down to get in, and we had an 

 attendance of 15,000 children coming through the gates without being 

 counted. But there were so many people coming in, and because the 

 kids were free, they didn't count them. 



Now, so much for the zone method. And now there is one more point 

 and I am through. You are going to find this tendency— at the meeting 

 in Chicago of the International Association of Fairs and Expositions this 

 last week I had an occasion to talk to some fair managers about it, and 

 you are going to find this to be true — every fair manager assumes and 

 admits it is going to be harder to get people through the gates in 1921 

 than for several years past, and, seriously, you are going to have ta 

 spend more money in 1921 for publicity than you ever dreamed of spend- 

 ing in 1920. I know of three state fairs that have recommended an in- 

 crease of 50% in the advertising budget for 1921. Two of those men are 

 very conservative, but they admit that it will be very difficult to get the 

 people through the gates in 1921, and they have got to spend money to 

 do it. 



And with these things in mind, I wanted to make a few points in as 

 simple a way as I could for your enlightenment. 



