No matter how busy the Fair is, I always like to take some time to sit on the north lawn of the Dorton Arena and just watch the people go by. Because not only is people watching a lot of fun, you also eventually see the wandering performers who walk around the Dorton Arena area and near the exhibit buildings. Two of those performers are so tall you can't miss 'em -- Rock-It The Robot and stiltwalker Carrie McQueen.
She doesn't make nearly as much noise as The Procrastinators, but Carrie McQueen is easy to spot as she strolls by (in a different outfit almost every time I saw her.) She'd stop for a minute, juggle for a minute, try to teach someone else to juggle (this rarely worked) and talked to kids. My favorite thing she did was spot a big group of teenagers and reach over and pat the tallest one on the head. Visit her Web site and learn more about her show that features her juggling and comedy sans stilts.
Rock-It the Robot, which gets only a couple of lines at the NC State Fair Web site, was amazing. I had seen robots (the Web site for Mark Sonder Productions calls them "Body Puppets") like this before, but never this articulate. Rock-It's eyes and mouth moved, it danced, and moved at a good pace through the crowd. And there was always a crowd around it whenever I saw it. It posed for pictures, danced, and ragged on the crowd. A lot of fun to watch!
