The fair, online and off: lessons to be learned.(Emmerce)

Searcher, April, 2004 by Calishain, Tara

Ah, the North Carolina State Fair. In 2003, it celebrated its 150th anniversary with more than 830,000 visitors over a 9-day period. The 300+ acres of the fairgrounds accommodated rides, games, agricultural exhibits, vendors, and endless amounts of food, from fried Twinkles to grits to emu burgers.

Okay, there's no need to check the front of the magazine--I didn't slip in a copy of the Raleigh News and Observer (known to Netters as the Nando Times) while you weren't looking. This eventually works back around to ecommerce, I promise. A lot of marketing books and materials now talk about selling "an experience." You're no longer marketing shoes, you're marketing the "shoe-buying experience." You're not trying to get people to visit your library's Web...