Mystic Realms Fantasy Fair finishes third year ‘bigger in almost every way’
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POCATELLO – The number of people who show up to a local fair to celebrate fantastical fiction has grown for the third year in a row.
Mystic Realms Fantasy Fair finished cleaning up after its third year of operation on Monday, which was its busiest year yet. Over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, more than 4,000 people went to the Bannock County Fairgrounds to attend the fair, where they could watch live entertainment, including singing, magic shows and sword fights, eat delicious food from a variety of food trucks, and browse the inventory of nearly eight dozen vendors.
“It was bigger in every way. Well, in almost every way,” said Deneb Edwards, noting that it was their most-attended year yet, despite having slightly fewer vendors than the second year. Edwards and Michael Collins, who are the co-owners of Mystic Realms Fantasy Store, started the fair in 2023.
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In its first year, the fair drew about 2,800 people in two days, even though the organizers had only expected 600 to 800 people to attend. Around 600 more people showed up for the second year, with a little under 3,400 people attending over the course of three days.
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Going into their third year, Edwards and Collins weren’t sure exactly what to expect, discussing a range of possibilities.
“All right, so what’s the plan if all of a sudden this is the flop year? Doesn’t get very much attendance, our vendors don’t make very many sales. What’s the plan if last year’s numbers are our maximum?… And then we also talked about the other end of it. … ‘Oh man, what if this year is another explosion year, like the first year?’ … So we kind of talked in all of those directions,” Edwards said.
After these discussions, they estimated that they would add another 600 attendees this year, like they did from the first to the second year. This estimate proved to be accurate after they had around a thousand people attend the fair on Sunday.
“It was a pretty cool feeling,” Edwards said. “We did it. We broke that 4,000.”
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Edwards felt that one of the major contributing factors to their attendance growth has been word-of-mouth marketing by them and the work done by the fair’s volunteers.
“Leading up to the fair, whenever Mike and I would go out to the store or anywhere in public … (we’d ask), ‘Hey, you going to the fair this year?’” Edwards said.
They weren’t discouraged when people said they couldn’t, because “then they knew about it.”
“We did a lot of word-of-mouth just by the people we interacted with, but our volunteer crew is top notch. … They’ll go out and hang flyers starting clear back in February, and every couple of months they’ll go refresh flyers and hit new places,” Edwards said.
Edwards and Collins plan to bring Mystic Realms Fantasy Fair back again next year, even bigger than it was this year. They’ve been reached out to by a number of entertainers who could come to the fair, including a jousting group.
Edwards also said that the fairgrounds have been a good location to operate, but the grass would prevent them from holding shows involving horses.
“We’re always looking at different locations for the fair. If anyone has any, we’re open to suggestions,” Edwards said.
Applications for new vendors to join next year’s fair open in January.
