COLUMBIA, S.C. — If you tried to get to the South Carolina State Fair this weekend, chances are you hit some traffic. We’ve been out talking to people who say they were stuck on the roads.
"Hot dog donut, that’s what I’m looking for," Chapin resident Don Sharpe smiles.
Sharpe says he tried to come to the fair this weekend, but says he got stuck in traffic.
"It was backed all the way up to Seventh Street all the way to Hampton Street and it wasn’t moving," Sharpe explains. "So we turned around went back home after sitting in line for like an hour and a half."
Sharpe says he’s been coming for over five decades and doesn’t remember seeing that much traffic in the past.
TJ Salvato works at Spaghetti Eddie’s and tells me in his five years of coming to the fair, this past weekend was especially busy.
"It was insane," Salvato explains. "I heard people that got on break and they took like probably three hours to get back from just across the street."
Nancy Smith, the fair's general manager, says from Friday through Sunday, a little over 100,000 people visited the fair. Traffic was directed by approximately 40 South Carolina Highway Patrol (SCHP) troopers with "a portion of that number was provided by the university for its purposes," Smith says, referring to the Saturday University of South Carolina (USC) home game.
"First day of the fair weekend without the ballgame going on so a lot of people were headed that way and we just got thousands and thousands of people and into that area, probably cause a little bit more traffic delays than normal," Lance Corporal William Bennett with SCHP explains. "The only time that we change anything with the traffic around the fairgrounds is during a home football game. [Sunday], the rest of the days, all the routes and access to get in the fair are all open."
Bennett says troopers were busy prioritizing pedestrians to make sure everyone stayed safe during the high traffic times with the USC game on Saturday.
"Traffic was just awful from the fair and the game and you couldn't really get anywhere," Coleman Marr, a USC freshman, details. "So I ended up like walking like two miles to get in my car and stuff from the game."
Marr is says he’s grown up coming to the fair, but hasn’t seen traffic like this year before.
"You couldn't really drive anywhere because they had the traffic stopped over there for the people crossing into the fair and then the traffic stopped there. So you couldn’t go down Rosewood and then Bluff Road, that's where everybody went out of to try and get out of it so it was awful," Marr remembers. "Typically you can drive around…I mean there’s not that many people that you can’t drive around."
When it comes to next weekend, Trooper Bennett is encouraging people to pack their patience and head out early.