Fair Crowds Expected to Surge in Final Week

Del Mar Fair attendance is down slightly from this time last year, but fair officials are expecting the traditional surge during the last week ending July 4.

By the end of Sunday, which marked the halfway point for the 20-day fair, nearly 520,000 fair-goers had passed through the turnstiles, against about 540,000 last year.

“It’s not unusual to be below the previous year and then shoot up by the end of the fair,” said spokeswoman Diane Scholfield. “Last year, there was a point where we were below the previous year and then we had a humongous increase toward the end which pushed attendance over the 1 million mark.”

Fair officials said attendance might have been hampered because some schools just closed for the summer Thursday, and the fair had already been under way for seven days, Scholfield said. Overcast skies, which did not clear on some days until 1 p.m., may have also put a damper on initial enthusiasm. Plus, a lot of things have been going on throughout the county to vie for fair-goers’ attention, including the 10th anniversary of Seaport Village, she said.

If last year’s survey of visitors is an indication, the typical one is a college graduate from the city of San Diego or North County. The largest group of fair-goers, about a fourth, are in the 35-to-44 age group; they come in pairs, and they spend about five hours at the fair. Fair visitors generate about a pound of trash each for a total of about 500 tons.

The fair receives the lion’s share of the fairground’s $25-million budget this year, with profits going to pay for the next year’s fair.