Thanks to a little creativity, it’s now entirely possible to head on down to the fairgrounds for a wheely good time.

“It’s a place to be with your friends,” said Dany McEnerny, the new manager of the Jefferson County Fair and Fairgrounds who took over the role in March of this year.

The dance floor of the Oscar Erikson Building on the fairgrounds property has successfully held two skating events so far, and organizers are eager to get more going.

“My big dream someday is to have that old school kind of skating, and frozen yogurt, and all that kind of cheesy stuff back around here,” McEnerny said. “In July we put on our first skating event and it was just a test and it sold out in 48 hours.”

That first event was limited to kids only due to the restricted space.

At the moment, a stage juts out into the dance floor which McEnerny hopes to move back eventually.

“Ideally, there would be an addition to make it an actual skating rink,” he said.

More recently, a Halloween-themed skate was held in the space with 60 youth skaters able to hit the floor throughout the event, split into two groups of 30 which seems to be the max for the time being.

While adults who want to lace up their skates would have more hoops to jump through, the Jefferson County Fair Association is doing everything in its power to make room for the youth.

“When it comes to youth stuff, we want it to be as accessible and easy to do as possible because we want to be a part of the community in a new way,” McEnerny said.

“I don’t think it has to be complicated or fancy,” he added. “It can be really homegrown stuff for now.”

With 3,500 square feet, a commercial kitchen, and a dining room, the space has plenty to offer.

“My whole goal out here is to open the place up for the community to use because a lot of the buildings just sit and rot away,” McEnerney said.

To get an event going, it requires a minimum of two volunteers, he added, one to get attendees to sign a waiver and another to watch the floor.

The space is already available to rent for fundraisers and the like, but youth skate nights would operate differently.

“If someone wanted to put a skate night on, I wouldn’t charge a rental fee,” McEnerney said. “If they wanted to say, ‘Hey, I’m here to help the fair association put on a skate night. I am a body and can be here and help manage it,’ then we would just do that.”