Free Concerts Likely to Boost Fair Attendance

Ventura County Fair officials are counting on free evening concerts to draw more people to the 1991 fair and to ease past financial problems.

Poor attendance at last year’s main concerts has prompted fair planners to offer concert seats as part of the $6 general gate admission to this year’s event, which begins Wednesday. Such acts as folk-rockers Los Lobos, the hit teen-age band C & C Music Factory and country star Chrystal Gayle are set to perform.

“You can’t go to a movie for the cost of the fair,” said fair General Manager Michael A. Paluszak.

The concerts are part of 12 days of activity that will emphasize farming and traditional domestic arts, said fair board member Earl McPhail, the county’s agricultural commissioner.

This year’s fair will have baby farm animals for children to pet and professionally raised beef for judging. Professional and amateur bronco and steer riders will perform at junior and adult rodeos.

Thousands of residents have entered goods in fair contests for judges to decide who makes the county’s best orange marmalade and who grows the most beautiful roses.

The Youth Building is filling with designs, collections and works of art by children. An exhibit in the Gem and Minerals Building will show fair-goers how to mine for gold.

Racing pigs will be back after a year’s hiatus. Other attractions will include men who dive from a 175-foot crane and are saved from death by bungee cords. New this year is a roller coaster, but the popular double Ferris wheel will be absent.

“It’s a fair for hometown folks, and we’ve never pretended it was anything else,” McPhail said.

The 1991 fair follows a period of financial upheaval for organizers. In February, a state audit requested by fair officials revealed sloppy bookkeeping, about $2,800 in unpaid state sales taxes on souvenirs and other accounting problems.

The audit showed that a previous fair administration had improperly transferred money from the fairgrounds’ off-track horse-betting revenues into the fair’s operating budget in 1988 and 1989.

But in April officials at the state Division of Fairs and Expositions said they were pleased with the fair board’s progress in straightening out the problems.

Paluszak pointed out that a district attorney’s investigation found no past illegal practices.

“We’re very comfortable with the fact that everything is in order now, and we’re ready to rock ‘n’ roll,” Paluszak said.

Planners project a 4% increase over the 273,525 people who attended in 1990, largely due to the free evening concerts. The 11,000 additional fair-goers would increase ticket, food and parking revenues over previous years, Paluszak said.

But due to new accounting practices begun after the February audit, Paluszak said officials for the first time will not assess whether the fair has been profitable when it closes. Instead, only direct fair revenues and expenses will be listed. No overhead costs such as fairgrounds maintenance will be counted as fair expenses, as they were in previous years, he said.

The fair has failed to show a profit for three years because such overhead expenses were figured against fair revenues.

Paluszak said the fair should generate more income than expenses this year.

One new exhibition expected to draw crowds this year is a giant sandcastle that sculptors will carve out of 20 tons of sand during the first days of the fair, spokeswoman Teresa Raley said. The castle will be the centerpiece illustrating the fair’s theme, “A Seaside Fantasy.”

“What they accomplish with damp sand is absolutely an artistic achievement,” Raley said.

Inside the Youth Building, a painting of children, depicted in a giant castle facade, greets fair-goers at the door. The Agricultural Building, which will feature exhibits on everything from local citrus to beneficial pests, will reflect the same theme, Raley said.

The Floriculture Building will be 500 square feet larger this year and filled with the scent of plants and flowers displayed by local residents of all ages.

“I have watched kids grow up in here,” said Barbara Schneider, floriculture superintendent. “Now they’re parents and entering things themselves.”