About a million people visit the Iowa State Fair every year, and there are only about 15,000 parking spaces on the fairgrounds, which has led to a micro-industry of nearby residents parking cars in their yards.
It’s the subject of a new feature-length documentary. Des Moines filmmaker Shawn Hicks says “Parkers” is the tale of the people in the neighborhood surrounding the fairgrounds who create improvised parking lots around their houses every August.
“They’re neighbors and they’re family and they take it seriously,” Hicks says. “It’s also generational. You have parkers that are parking cars now that — they started when they were kids and their grandparents taught them and showed them the way to do it.”
The story tells how it’s typically one of the hottest times of the year, there’s extremely heavy traffic, flaring tempers, and raging drunks — contrasted with a surprising amount of tenderness. One man featured in the film openly carries a holstered gun on his belt, in his words, “just in case,” while a grandmother marked her 86th birthday on the curb, flagging down cars.
Hicks, who grew up on Des Moines’ East Side, says he was inspired to make the film after hearing so many stories about the parkers over the decades, like this one:
“A bunch of kids decided to make some money and park a bunch of cars in a vacant church lot,” Hicks says. “People paid them. They parked a whole lot full of cars and then the kids took off, and then somebody from the church noticed all the cars parked there illegally and had them towed.”
Perhaps 10,000 cars park in the neighborhood each day of the fair. Some folks charge five dollars a day for a space, others can get twenty. Multiply that by 11 days of the fair and the cash can really add up.
“For some, it’s a matter of paying property taxes, that’s why they’re doing it,” Hicks says. “For some, it’s supplementing their children’s education to make sure they can go to a private school. But a majority, it’s really just the economic survival for taxes or just paying some bills.”
The documentary will be featured August 29th and September 5th on the big screen at the Fleur Cafe and Cinema in Des Moines, what Hicks calls fundraising screenings. He’ll be there to do question-and-answer sessions after the showings.