BUSINESS WATCH:

Steve Beazley started his Orange County Fair career at age 12 with a broom in hand — and the Costa Mesa resident hasn’t missed a summer since. Last week the fair’s board of directors named him as the successor to Chief Executive Becky Bailey-Findley, who plans to step down in August. Beazley spoke the following day about his goals for the future.

So next year will be your first time in charge of the fair. Do you know yet what the theme is going to be?

We’ll know that in May. What we started in January is just putting together the scaffolding of the 2009 fair while the 2008 fair is wrapping up. In May, we’ll come back with fair dates, fair artwork, and in May, we’ll launch the official campaign for the 2009 fair. We use the 2008 fair to preview the 2009 fair.

How far in advance do you start preparing for each one?

The 2008 fair is basically ready to be publicized. All the attractions are booked; all the vendors are in. The 2008 fair is ready to roll. So now we can turn our attention to 2009. We try to put each fair on about an 18-month planning cycle, which means, for about six months, you’re planning two fairs at the same time.

Tell us about your first days at the fair. I understand your job was pushing a broom.

My first day of my first job, I was handed a sweeper and a pan and told to sweep up the trash in the main mall.

The second half of my first day, my supervisor handed me a shovel and said, “The parade starts in front of the grandstand arena. Report to the back of the parade.” So it was an illustrious beginning.

Did you know back then that you wanted to work in the fair business?

I remember being bitten by the bug, but that didn’t translate into any career goals. I felt the energy of the fair, and that was contagious, but I didn’t plan a career at the fair. That just kind of happened to me.

Did you return to the fair every year after that?

Yes, and that’s been 33 years.

In an interview, Becky once told us the 1970s were the years the fair really came into its own as an attraction — when the owners brought in big-name entertainers and started pushing to compete with Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. What are your memories of the fair around that time?

The fair, traditionally, had been about exhibits. Exhibits are the core of the fair, so that’s been present since the beginning in 1890.

But she’s right. My greatest memory is that the integration of headline entertainment into the fair in the ’60s and ’70s really moved the fair to the next level.

Who were some of the entertainers you remember seeing back then?

Bob Hope was the consummate fair entertainer. He was the one every fair went for. So for your fair to have any cache in the industry, Bob Hope was the one. By the way, that was my second job at the fair — being kind of a runner for the entertainers. So I moved from cleaning up to hospitality, if you will.

What sort of running did you do?

Kind of a gofer for the entertainers — making sure they got transported where they needed to go. I was a runner for the food and hospitality, all the services you provide entertainers. I did that for three fairs in a row.

Did you ever meet them up-close?

Oh, yeah! That was one of the byproducts and one of the things that made the job kind of a plum.

That was kind of fun, but I didn’t get too much time to stop. As a runner, you’re always asked to do things.

You’ve had some remarkable musical acts in recent years — Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Cyndi Lauper and Duran Duran, to name a few. Is there one you’re still hoping to lure?

It’s so hard, because acts that may be my favorite might not be applicable to the fair audience. If you asked me personally, it would be Sting. But I couldn’t say if that would be the best for the fair audience. You have to pick things that not only you would like but also that your fair audience would like.

What will some of your other year-round duties be at the fairgrounds, aside from planning the fair?

My anticipation is I won’t be planning the fair any longer. There will be other staff members who will be more hands-on. My role, I think, is going to be more of a public relations-based role, getting out in the community and telling the story of the fair and the fairgrounds. There are stories I know personally, but I can also tell the fair history. One of the goals we’re setting for the next few years is to create a complete fair archive that tells the story. So there will be two facets to that public relations job — one is to speak about the history of the fair, and the other, which is even more exciting to me, will be to speak about where the fair and the fairgrounds are going in the future.

Last year, the fair posted record attendance numbers. Do you think you can top them?

Other than making yearly budgets, it’s not something we really concern ourselves with. We have to make financial projections about the number of attendees, but one of the attributes of our staff is that we focus more on quality than quantity. Each fair has an energy unto itself that’s different and unique. So prior fair performances aren’t necessarily foremost in our mind.

What’s the best part of the fair for you?

I think all of us have this kind of innate sense of things returning, whether it’s ceremonial each year, like Christmas coming or your birthday coming. It’s the anticipation of a celebration that really fuels our energies. It fuels the energy of the community, too. I hear from people saying it’s like a family reunion for them.

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at [email protected].