COUNTYWIDE : County Fair Attendance Sets Record

By the time the gates of the 98th annual Orange County Fair closed for the last time at midnight Sunday, more than half a million people had walked through them, setting an overall attendance record that will be one for the books.

“This is going to be hard to follow,” said fair sponsorship coordinator Diane Sorensen.

By Sunday, 56,222 had attended this year’s closing day, pushing to 600,784 the number of people who had taken part in some of the fair’s festivities, including the animal petting farm, pie-eating contests and carnival rides.

Last year 544,816 people attended the 12-day fair. Final figures for this year’s event won’t be available until today.

Through the cacophony of carnival ride music, laughter and hucksters’ taunts, a few celebrities shone.

Organizers say the star of this year’s Fair was Shortcake, the fair’s mascot pig who was on display with her new piglets. Ask any one of the hundreds of children begging parents for money to play one more game, however, and they will tell you the star of the fair was either Bart Simpson or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

“This year, it’s been the Ninja Turtles,” said 21-year-old Peter Matrisciano, who has been painting the reptiles’ expressions on youngsters’ faces for the last 12 days. “Last year, it was Batman and the Joker.” Matrisciano has been face painting at the fair for six years.

Debra Scharf from Fullerton brought her 4-year-old son Alan to the face-painting booth and Alan chose the Turtle face.

“I can’t believe he’s sitting still through this,” Scharf said. “He loves the Ninja Turtles. He’s always got to have a weapon and he goes around saying ‘Cowabunga.’ ”

Youngsters dragged their money-carrying parents to booths that promised a chance to win a life-size stuffed Turtle or Simpson doll.

At Blackbeard’s Ladder, their eyes were glued on the life-size prizes as they tried to climb up a ladder suspended by a rope. Most fell off and landed on the soft air cushion below, having fun for their dollar but looking discouraged because the dolls were out of reach. Only eight players had completed the climb since the fair opened July 11.

“It’s all balance,” said the man who ran the booth Sunday. “It takes about two hours to learn.”

Fair attendance has consistently increased each year.

“We always try to add stuff to the fair but I think we had a lot of good incentives for people this year,” Sorensen said, explaining several time- and money-saving tips for fair-goers, including a weekday discounted admission price, a parking-fee waiver for car pools--of which 40,000 cars took advantage--and a shuttle service to lessen traffic.