Marketing: Fair Weather in Seattle

They laughed when a brave band of Seattle promoters sat down to play that great marketing game called “world’s fair.” Seattle, said the scoffers, was too far away to attract many visitors, and besides, world’s fairs have hardly ever been known to earn money. But by last week, as the 6,000,000th visitor clinked through the turnstiles, Seattle plainly had made a go of it.

The privately financed Space Needle, symbol of the fair, is close to paying off its $4,000.000 cost on the strength of elevator rides to the top ($1) and rent receipts from the revolving restaurant there, where crowds sometimes line up for four hours at lunch and reservations are made for breakfast. The $4,000,000, mile-long monorail to the fairgrounds will soon be paid for, and may be turned over to the city. As for the rest of the fair. private creditors have already recouped their original $4,500,000 investment, and since the fair still has another two months to run, its promoters expect to wind up comfortably in the black.

Not everyone is making a fair profit, or intended to. The admission-free pavilions of the U.S. and foreign countries were not designed to earn anything except prestige. (But one Belgian baker has become a smash success, turning out diet-demolishing waffles piled high with whipped cream, strawberries and powdered sugar.) Some marginal carny operators on the fair’s “Gayway” are described by Fair President Joseph E. Gandy, 58, as “sick cats,” since the fair has proven to be more of a family occasion than a peep show.

Sinking also is the business of three ocean liners docked in Elliott Bay as floating hotels. And a few get-rich-quick sharp-sters got burned by hoping to profit from a hotel-room shortage that didn’t happen.

Among them: a big new trailer court far off the highway, 14 miles from the Seattle fairgrounds, which charged $18 per couple for a night’s occupancy of a trailer.

The fair has given a lift to business throughout the Northwest, whose lumber and fishing industries have been hurting.

Seattle restaurants are crowded, hotels have enjoyed 90% occupancy all summer —and motels en route, as far away as Butte, Mont., are usually full. Last week sales of Seattle department stores were up 22% from a year ago, and not alone from selling souvenir totem poles for $35.

In June alone, sales of woolens were up 47%, women’s suits up 75%. Counting all that, Seattle bankers estimate that the fair will add $160 million to Washington’s economy this year.