Wilson County Fair

Wilson County Fair

Wilson County Fair opened up to great weather and a lot of visitors on Friday. Inspectors were at the fair early to make sure everything was safe from the rides to the food. The Tennessee Department of Health inspectors checked each vendor and gave random checks throughout the fair. A rides inspector on site will check each one of the rides everyday before the fair opens. The Wilson County fair saw some of their highest attendance numbers last year with more than 466,000 people attending. They said they expect even more this year. Nattily dressed monkeys on dogback: That's just one of the attractions offered at the Wilson County Fair that begins Saturday.

Organizers expanded the midway by 300 feet to accommodate additional thrill rides, one of which includes a ride that travels up to 70 mph, fair spokesman Craig Browning said. Country musician Darryl Worley will appear in concert at 7 p.m. Monday in the new covered arena. And about those monkeys — they will be appearing nightly in the Banana Derby, where they are billed as "America's Favorite Monkey Jockeys." Dressed in flashy, jockey gear, monkeys will saddle up on top of dogs racing against one another. The Big Aerial Show features acrobats on top of 80-foot sway poles, and five stages will showcase a variety of musical acts.

Fair organizers are hopeful that all of these events and projected mild weather will help them bring in a record-breaking crowd of 500,000 visitors. "We were just shy of that by about 15,000 last year" and the temperatures were in the mid 90s, Browning said. "I really think we'll hit that half million mark." Wilson County's Fair is ranked as the 43rd top fair in the nation. The fair's attendance and attractions helped get it to the top 50 billing. People are waiting for the Wilson County Fair to come to town, and that's obvious with our numbers," Browning said. Last year when the temperatures soured and gas prices rose to $4 a gallon, Wilson County's fair attracted 486,000 visitors.