FAIRMONT – The Fairmont Home Show has businesses across the spectrum of home renovation and upkeep doing what they can to attract attention and bring business to the Fairmont area.

This year, Organizer Keith Hoye said they have over 60 businesses set up at the Martin County Arena in Fairmont. He said there are more booths than last year, so they’ve made adjustments to accommodate.

“We made extra space this year,” Hoye said. “We came a little bit further, so we were able to add four more businesses this year. We continue to grow and find ways to make it work.”

Businesses were hard at work Friday morning to get everything set up for the 3 p.m. start time. Montana’s Tree Service Plus had to put up several supporting beams to hang and drape their signage around and make an enclosed space. Owner Montana Thiesse said this is by design.

ABOVE: Joel Howlet and Mike Boike are among the first to get a lay of the land and see what's on display before the Fairmont Home Show opens Friday.

“We try to make it feel more [like] a private area,” he said. “Customers come in and talk to us on an individual basis about what’s going on, without the other sides talking or interrupting the situation. It makes it a little more homey.”

Taking down trees and grinding up stumps are the two main things Thiesse said they get asked for. Regarding Emerald Ash Borer, he said right now Fairmont is on the other side of it.

“The ash borer has came through pretty significantly,” Thiesse said. “The trees are dead now or on their final life span. It’s just trying to get people knowledge about it.”

In sharing this space with so many other businesses, Thiesse said it is good to know who’s who for when things go down.

“Roofing businesses will help us out,” he said. “Siding businesses, when trees have come down, give us a call. We’ve even taken a tree off a hot tub before. It helps to know people, absolutely.”

Even after 10 years of attending, Thiesse said a lot of what goes into the show is still first impressions.

“Meeting and greeting people,” he said. “Introducing yourself, because I still find that people don’t know about us. Being able to get out and let people know we’re still here, meet them and let them know.”

Rich Wolf of Midwest Garage Doors, located in Fairmont, said he deals in garage doors for both residential and commercial buildings. He said both of them have been popular options for people to work on recently, but not as much on new garages themselves.

“There’s not that many new homes being built,” Wolf said. “It’s fixing up the old stuff.”

Since he’s been coming to the show since it was in the mall, Wolf said he knows the best practices when it comes to working with people on their projects at the show.

“We sit down, see what they’ve got, what they want, what their desires are, what kind of look they’re trying to achieve,” he said. “The garage door is a big look to the outside of the house. Do you want to try and set your house off, or you’re just trying to blend in? You want windows in it? There’s a lot of different things we can look at and ways we can get started.”

As for the level of interest they’ll receive, Wolf said there are several factors that go into what attendance will look like.

“Some years you could get six, eight, 10 leads, 20 leads,” he said. “Some years you may get one or two. Who knows. Weather has a lot to do with it. You got Ceylon Community Day sale going on. So that takes away some people. We’ll just wait and see.”

Cory Hillesheim with Northland Buildings said this is the time of year their sales start to slow down, as farmers are starting to get into the fields. With the home show coming in at the same time, they’re able to offset some of that decrease.

“Everybody is needing a garage or a storage shed,” he said. “We just let people know what we can offer them. We can do as much or as little as we want.”

With the projects they undergo, Northland Buildings often works with others on facets like insulation, plumbing and electric. While being present for people’s home and property ideas is the major priority, Hillesheim said they also network with the other businesses present at the home show.

“We rely a lot on plumbers, electricians that are local,” he said. “If I sell a building in Fairmont, we can coordinate that with local businesses.”

The home show runs until 5 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.