Agreed. The term “recreation ground” already causes so much confusion among American English speakers without it being overloaded in this manner. Memorably, it’s been said that landuse=recreation_ground is a space for general frolicking. Besides, fairgrounds are run like amusement parks in the sense that access is restricted to event-goers and admission is usually not free.
These days in the U.S., there are fewer and fewer fairgrounds that fit the classic mold. They used to be built primarily for horse racing (or rodeos) and agricultural fairs, but nowadays in many states, the horse racing function has become secondary to slot machines, and the fairs are more of a food festival than a showcase of giant pigs and pumpkins. My county’s fairgrounds, which is in an urban area, mostly rents out its space to edgier sports like karting and paintball, as well as to used car dealerships, and more recently has been using the exhibition halls as a testing and vaccination center.
My tagging of fairgrounds has shifted over the years. Originally I used leisure=park, sometimes with tourism=attraction. But once it became clear that leisure=sports_centre could be used on a non-building for something other than an indoor arena, I used that tag instead, with sport=horse_racing if applicable. Refining sports_centre=* would make a lot more sense to me than refining recreation_ground=*.
Regardless, the exhibition halls should be tagged as POIs in their own right. Except during a county fair, the exhibition hall is often rented out for weddings, conferences, and other social events, just like any amenity=events_venue or amenity=exhibition_centre. Sometimes they’re managed by a different company than the racetrack and go by a different name.
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