I'm not sure where you live, but I have never found the traffic on the west side to be any better than that in Mesa which, actually, doesn't have bad traffic at all.

Its the freeway traffic downtown that is so bad and scary for us older people.
The fairgrounds show is a sales event for vendors and as far as I am concerned it should be free since they are there to sale you something. Its like a dept store that charges a fee to enter the store.

I've been going to the show for about 10 years. I go with a friend, and we make a whole day out of it. There's always something new to see. It's nice and convenient to have so many vendors in one place, and we always end up buying something...sometimes four or five somethings!

A couple of years ago, I made a vacation quilt for my best friend. Each block had a picture representing one of our vacations (Seattle, NY, Grand Canyon, San Francisco, cruise....you get the idea), and I was able to find most of the fabrics for the quilt at the show. So much easier than driving around to multiple quilt stores!

Try telling my friend that, lol. She is 91 and still drives downtown on a regular basis!

I do agree with you on the entrance fee though. I understand that the organizers have to make a profit, but $20 before we even get in the door is excessive. Sadly, however, such fees seem to becoming the norm. The parking for any event downtown are crazy.