Visit GSOC at the Minnesota State Fair!

Everyone who has been there has a favorite ride or building or booth or food-on-a--stick at the Minnesota State Fair. In 2011, from Thursday August 25th through Monday, (Labor Day) September 5th, nearly 2 million paid attendees will pass through the gates into the kaleidoscopic world of sights, sounds, and smells that makes the “Great Minnesota Get-Together” a truly unique experience.

While an exact number is difficult to record, it is safe to say that many tens of thousands of those fair-goers visit the Gopher State One Call booth in the Blue Flame Gas Association building each year.  Minnesota enjoys the highest percentage of participation by Homeowners and “casual” excavators in the one-call-before-you-dig nation. This is in no small part due to the behind the scene efforts occurring prior to opening day at the Fair. 

Children of all ages who visit the GSOC booth are treated to a brief excavation safety lesson or “test”; (“Do you know what those colored flags and paint marks in your yard mean?) before receiving their choice of brightly colored yardstick or other educational hand-out. GSOC sponsors this ‘free for the asking’ venue with its ongoing educational message in mind: Excavation safety for all who dig in Minnesota and how simple it has become to contact Gopher State One Call before excavation begins.

The GSOC Board of Directors and its Public Relations team, cognizant of the ever-expanding technical abilities that smart-phones can provide, redesigned the new Homeowner Guides to include a Quick Response (QR) code which, when scanned, takes the user directly to the GSOC homeowner portal at its website. From there, it’s a simple matter to enter your locate request by filling in the information that GSOC requires to safely notify public underground facility owners in your projects’ area, whether that is in a city or township; throughout each of the states’ 87 counties, 24 hours a day, any day of the year.

During the 12 days of the State Fair, GSOC is joined by over 40 volunteer public facility operator staff members, who graciously provide visitors their considerable excavation safety knowledge to the GSOC experience.  Remember: Contact GSOC-First Time and Every Time. We’ll see you at the MN State Fair!

For more information go to: www.mnstatefair.org