MontanaFair started on Friday evening with Sneak A Peak, with the gates opening at 4 p.m. for the fair that runs eight days.
MetraPark plans on adding about 3,500 seats to make up for the approximated 5,000 to 6,000 seats that were lost with the demolition of the grandstands in 2020.
A decision has not yet been made, but potentially bleachers could be built east of the Expo Center.
MetraPark was a venue for many outdoor events, including car racing on the dirt track.
“Would have come just straight this way and then it would have turned about right,” Allen Peters said. “Right about where you're standing,”
Peters is part of the creative team for Spotlight Productions.
He has been shooting video at MetraPark for more than two decades.
“I catch them coming down the straight away, about 100 miles an hour coming into this turn and they just were beautiful,” Peters said about the car racing.
Peters has also shot horse racing and rodeo and has childhood memories of sitting in the grandstand for his first concert in the 1960’s.
“My dad brought us to see Wayne Newton,” Peters said. “It was the first concert I ever went to. So it was great.”
Now, the Yellowstone County commissioners and MetraPark want something to take the place of the old grandstand that was demolished for safety reasons in 2020.
“For the fair, we want to get the rodeo back,” Reitz said. “That's our main goal. We love the arena. It's a good venue but fair rodeos are supposed to be outside.”
Reitz is the MetraPark marketing director and says so far, only the grading and resurfacing design has been approved and the plan is to have bleachers, either movable or permanent, ready for next year's MontanaFair.
Commissioners signed an agreemnt with WWC Engineering for site civil services for an events area.
“In the 1940s is when that Midland Empire, part of it was done,” Reitz said. “So it's a rich history here and we still have a lot of really good memories of it. We just want to make sure that we can create those memories for families coming now.”
And this year, one of the new MetraPark, MontanaFair features is Heritage Park.
“We really wanted to make it an inviting area to have families come,” Reitz said. “We have a bunch of shade, a bunch of park benches. We have food vendors and everything else that's over here. We also have the stage that's behind us here. That's really exciting.”’
And like Reitz, Peters looks forward to something to replace the grandstand.
“Start again and all the outdoor events that we had here were just wonderful,” Peters saidl "It'd be great for my kids and grandkids to see them again.”
