Crews place finishing touches in time for The Big Fresno Fair's opening day

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Giddy up!

The Big Fresno Fair is coming together. Crews and organizers are putting the finishing touches on preparations for Wednesday's opening day.

"Most all of our concessions are coming in pretty much from Bakersfield," Big Fresno Fair CEO John Alkire said. "The carnival has been coming in from Bakersfield. They've been moving all night setting in. The locals are pretty much set and ready to go."

Alkire is pleased with the updates the fair has made since last year, beginning with a safer track for race horses and a bigger drought-resistant park area for families near the ag building.

"Last year, we had about 650,000," Alkire said. "We'd like to see that many this year or maybe a little more but most important thing is we come out a little bit bigger, a little bit better than we were last year."

If we're talking fair, we can't forget all the wonderfully wacky fried food combinations.

"Chicken in the waffle on a stick," Tony Boghosian with Chicken Charley's said. "We take fried chicken, bake it into a waffle and serve it on a stick in good fair fashion."

"My favorite deep fried bacon smore, a smore fried gooey marshmallow fudge graham cracker and if that wasn't good enough we covered it with bacon."

Another new addition fair organizers are thrilled about is the Hacienda sign that once stood on Clinton and Highway 99 for many years.

"Our biggest attraction is right behind us with the Hacienda sign that we're very, very excited about putting up today," Alkire said. "Preserving a big part of Fresno's history. It's kind of what we're in business to doing now with the museum. This is a very important step for the fair."

Crews spent much of the morning carefully erecting the cowboy on his horse at its new home near the entrance to the Paul Paul Theatre

"I think when folks come into the Paul Paul Theatre or visit the museum they'll look around the perimeter and see these old signs and it brings back old memories and the old feel of Fresno years and years ago," Alkire said. "And that's important for us to fast forward those stories to future generations so they kind of know where it started."