GREEN BAY, Wis. -- It's back to the drawing board for the Green Bay Packers annual Fan Fest. Due to declining attendance, the Packers last week canceled the annual March event for the second consecutive year.
Leading up to 2007 -- Brett Favre's final season in Green Bay -- Fan Fest was still going strong. All 3,000 available tickets were selling out each year, and it was so popular the Packers were having a lottery system to determine which fans would get the opportunity to attend.
Not anymore.
Attendance was just a little less than 2,200 in 2010, the lowest in a continuing downward trend that began in 2008. In 2011, Fan Fest was canceled, partly due to the NFL lockout. In 2012, the lockout is over, but the absence of the event remains.
"We need to really evaluate and enhance it," said director of stadium services Jennifer Ark. "It may change dates and it may change in general. It might have a different look or feel, too.
"We hope to have Fan Fest again, we just don't know when."
When Fan Fest ran from 2005-10, admission was $85 for a two-day event that included autographs with players, a guest speaker series, breaking down game film with coaches and much more.
According to research done by Ark and her event committee, it wasn't cost keeping fans from continuing to make the event a sellout. Packers fans were telling Ark in many of the surveys taken that it was personal schedule conflicts that kept them from attending.
"Most people who attend are non-ticket holders," said Ark, who admitted that it surprised her to find out that Packers season-ticket holders weren't the types of fans attending.
Considering the passion of Packers fans, struggling to get 3,000 people to attend an event in which they can get autographs from players and break down game film with coach Mike McCarthy seems strange. After all, this is the same fan base from which 1,200 people stood outside beginning at 4 a.m. in freezing weather a few weeks ago for an opportunity to shovel snow out of Lambeau Field.
Fan Fest was typically held in March. That was the time when many players would begin to report back to Green Bay for offseason workouts. However, under the rules of the new collective bargaining agreement, players get to enjoy a longer offseason at home without football. That also made it difficult to keep Fan Fest running in the time frame that it once had.
Dwindling attendance at offseason fan events has not been a statewide problem in Wisconsin. The Milwaukee Brewers had a record 12,118 fans at Brewers On Deck for a similar program last weekend.
"Now we know, hey, it's time to refresh this thing," Ark said.
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