Daily Press Writer After a years-long hiatus, the carnival is back at the Eddy County fair, according to Dylan Pinson, president of the Eddy County Fair Board of Directors.

This year, a new company is bringing the carnival to the Eddy County Fair. This is the first year since the previous company went out of business that the fair board was able to find a company that could accommodate the fair on its route, Pinson said.

“I don’t think we’ve had a carnival for five years and we’ve been fighting to try and get one for the past five years,” Pinson said.

The carnival will be the largest at the Eddy County Fair yet, said Pinson.

“The carnival is huge,” Pinson said. “It is the biggest carnival that our team has ever had come through here.”

The new company, Wright’s Amusements, is bringing over 25 rides, according to the fair’s Facebook page. The company travels yearround to events throughout Colorado, New Mexico, Arkansas and Texas, according to its website.

The carnival will be running from Tuesday through Saturday evenings, Pinson said.

Aren Dade, a volunteer who works with the fair board and entertainment committee, said that people are excited for the carnival to be back at the fair this year. For the past few years, when the fair board was unable to secure a carnival for the fair, people wanted to see it come back, he said.

“I’ve heard from many people that they’re excited for the carnival,” Dade said.

The carnival brings people from communities around Eddy County, especially families with children, Dade said. Pinson said he expects the carnival to bring more than 3,000 people to the fair per night.

Entertainment at the fair this year also includes concerts. This year, the performers are William Clark Green and Easton Corbin on July 25 and John Wolfe on July 26, with a Faith and Family Night concert by Sanctus Real and Josh Wilson on July 24.

Each year, the fair board and its entertainment committee choose the performers based on a list of possible options from management companies they have worked with, Dade said. They begin reaching out to artists around December and January to prepare for the fair in July, looking for country artists who have name recognition to promote attendance, Dade said.

“Being a county fair, we look for more of a country artist,” Dade said. “We do look for at least somebody that, whether it be a Thursday night headliner or a Friday night headliner, somebody that’s got a name that’s a little more recognizable that will help draw in that crowd.” Name recognition draws a crowd to the concerts because people have heard the artist on the radio, for example, and know they want to see them, Dade said. He also added that recognizing an artist’s name may draw people from other places to come to see the fair.

“Getting those bigger names out there, you kind of get a little more excitement from people with that,” Dade said.

The goal of bringing bigname artists to the fair is to generate attendance to support the community, Dade said. The board and entertainment committee look for up and coming artists, artists who are well-known in places like Texas and older artists who can generate a lot of interest, Dade said. Dade emphasized the work that goes into the fair’s junior livestock shows and said that attending the concerts helps support that. He encouraged people to come to the fair not only to watch the concerts, but also to watch the livestock shows and support local vendors.

Other entertainment at the fair will include bull riding, a cornhole tournament, Fire ‘N Ice Competition and the Jack Rauch Anvil Toss.