Renaissance Fair to Get Home in San Bernardino County

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors will vote Monday on a proposal to hold the Renaissance Pleasure Faire this spring in a park 55 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, fair organizers said Friday.

Earlier this month, fair officials withdrew an application to hold the annual event on a site in eastern Ventura County because of opposition from residents worried about increased traffic.

Organizers said they were invited to hold the festival in the 1,425-acre Glen Helen Regional Park by the San Bernardino County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“It’s a beautiful site, and they have lots and lots of parking,” fair spokesman Kevin Patterson said.

Dan Stark, convention bureau director, said fair officials have agreed to pay $60,000 to rent the park for seven consecutive weekends beginning May 13. The park is south of the intersection of Interstates 15 and 215 northwest of the city of San Bernardino.

Barbara Riordan, chairwoman of the five-member Board of Supervisors, called the fair “a real entertainment opportunity for residents of the Inland Empire.”

Supervisor Jon Mikels, whose district includes the park, said he supports use of the site by the fair.

The hilly park has two man-made lakes and was the site of the US Festival--a rock and country event in 1982 and 1983 that drew 175,000 people a day.

The fair is expected to draw about 12,000 people a day, fair spokesman Eric Stoltz said.

“I’m really excited that such a nice cultural event would locate here,” Mikels said. “I think the traffic is well within what the roads can handle.”

Organizers have been looking for a site since April, when the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission approved a developer’s request to build a gated community on the fair’s longtime site in Agoura.

In January, they announced that the fair had rented a 139-acre parcel between Moorpark and Thousand Oaks. But residents near the proposed site objected, saying about 4,702 to 5,762 cars per day during the event would create intolerable traffic congestion.