Fairground launches Direct to book qualified SMB meetings

Announcing the change on LinkedIn, Soward wrote, "Orbital is rebranding to Fairground." The post cites more than 125 customers on the database product and says recurring questions about outbound execution to small businesses prompted the move. Customers, it says, wanted a "big red button that says 'book me a meeting.'" Soward also wrote that the team built "one of the best cold calling operations anywhere" over the past six months, and that early-access customers saw 50 to 100 meetings in their first 30 days. Those figures have not been independently verified.

Fairground's site features several customer results, all published by the company:

• Yellowstone Local, an agency, reported a 65% close rate on Fairground meetings. "We just hit our best month in company history," Caleb Cote, its VP of sales, said in a case study. The site says that came two months after the agency moved its outbound work to Fairground.
• Skimmer, a pool-service software company, moved from 15% to 95% contact accuracy, and its connect rate rose from 5% to 15%, according to a site card.
• Belfry, an industrial services firm, cited more than $5 million in pipeline and more than $1 million closed in its first quarter with Fairground.
• FieldPulse scaled its outbound team from 15 to more than 40 in a year, the site says.

The homepage also displays logos including Angi, Housecall Pro, Podium, Scorpion and EverCommerce. These are marketing claims, and it is unclear whether each company is a Data customer, a Direct customer or both.

The competition

Direct goes up against appointment-setting vendors, whose models run from retainers to pay-per-meeting. CIENCE, according to its site, pairs monthly retainers with per-held-meeting fees. Belkins promises to "book meetings straight to your calendar." Upcision advertises "Pay for Results Only."

Fairground Data sits in a different category, alongside ZoomInfo and Apollo, which supply contact data to in-house sales teams but do not book meetings. Those comparisons come from Fairground's own pages.

Backers

Crunchbase lists Fika Ventures and South Park Commons as investors and shows two funding rounds. Amounts and dates are behind a paywall, and no public press release on funding turned up. South Park Commons reposted the announcement on LinkedIn, though its portfolio page still lists the company as Orbital.

Fairground's about page states its mission as "connect great products with Main Street," with pathways for vendors, agencies and reps.