FANFEST ’94 : Kickin’ Up Some Country : Pop music: Some 150 recording artists are on tap as well as a rodeo, carnival, vendors and a dance club.

Wanda Sturdivant of Riverside has been to Nashville’s annual Fan Fair nine times, joining thousands of country music fanatics who trek there to meet their favorite singers, get their autographs and hear them sing.

But the time Sturdivant and a friend came within spitting distance of cowboy-hatted hunk-du-jour Alan Jackson looms large in her memory. As they passed Jackson one morning in an empty hall at the fair, Sturdivant recalled: “He says, ‘ ‘Morning girls,’ and we about passed out. He is very handsome.”

That sort of accessibility has helped make Fan Fair a country music institution that draws sell-out crowds of 24,000 each June. This year, however, West Coast enthusiasts won’t have to change time zones to get up close and cozy.

FANFEST ‘94, a similar event, runs from Wednesday through Saturday at Pomona’s Los Angeles County Fairgrounds.

Such superstars as Garth Brooks (at home in Nashville for the birth of his second child) and Wynonna Judd (undergoing treatment for a back injury) will be absent, organizers say, but FANFEST ‘94’s scheduled performers include John Anderson, Dwight Yoakam, Martina McBride, John Michael Montgomery, Rita Coolidge and Buck Owens.

Many of its headliners will already be in L.A. for the Academy of Country Music’s 29th annual awards show, to be nationally televised on Tuesday from the Universal Amphitheatre.

The Hollywood-based ACM is sanctioning the festival and helping to secure artists, and will receive 10% of the event’s gross from its producer, FANFEST Inc., headed by Bob Alexander and Zachary Taylor, special events and concert producers making their first foray into country music.

They have arranged for roughly 150 recording artists to sing (for 20 minutes on average) or sign autographs, plus performances by such leading songwriters as Hank Cochran (“I Fall to Pieces”), a celebrity rodeo, a 20,000-square-foot dance club, carnival rides and 600 vendors selling everything from boots to hats. They hope to outdo Nashville’s bash by drawing twice the attendance.

“This will be something far larger than any of its predecessors,” Taylor, FANFEST INC. board chairman, said during a recent interview at the outfit’s cramped West Hollywood headquarters.

Considering country music’s booming popularity in greater Los Angeles--where more country music recordings are sold than anywhere in the nation, according to SoundScan, which tracks sales--why has it taken so long for such an event to be staged here?

ACM executive director Bill Boyd, who has been involved with the academy since 1967, says that the ACM has been approached every year for the past 16 about capitalizing on the presence of country stars already in L.A. for its awards show. Two small-scale, fan-driven gatherings have been held locally in the past several years, he added.

But, the personalities involved never jibed until now, said Boyd, who claims to seal 75% of his negotiations “on a handshake.” Also critical was FANFEST Inc.’s agreement to donate 20% of the event’s gross proceeds toward a planned retirement home for country artists to be built in or near Nashville.

“You have to give something back to the country community that’s attractive to the artists,” Boyd said, without whom “none of us would be in this business.”

Remaining net proceeds from FANFEST ’94 will benefit earthquake relief efforts of the Los Angeles Times Fund and Feed the Children charities, to which organizers hope to donate $1 million, Taylor said. (Participating artists will not be paid, but may sell recordings at event booths, he said.)

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Tickets to the fest, envisioned as an annual event, are $30 a day or $99 for four days. That exceeds by about $20 the six-day admission to Nashville’s fair, which sold out in a record three weeks this year. Local organizers say they have to spend more out of their $1.9 million-budget on advertising, among other needs.

So far, only about 10,000 tickets have been snapped up, despite promotions on more than 475 radio stations nationwide, but organizers expect a large number of walk-up sales.

It appears that top country record labels are taking a wait-and-see attitude as well. Several labels put on artist showcases in Nashville’s fair, initiated in 1972 to ease congestion at the city’s annual deejay convention, which drew fans hoping to see artists there, but only BNA Entertainment and Atlantic Records have signed on here this year.

But, Alexander said, “with a first-time event, we’ve always felt this would be a building process.” Fan Fair, he added, didn’t become a sell-out until after its 19th year.

As for FANFEST ’94 attendees experiencing their first such jamboree, Sturdivant, a veteran volunteer at Loretta Lynn’s booth in Nashville, recommends people dress comfortably and expect to spend time on their feet.

“We have had people wait in line for three hours for a Loretta Lynn autograph,” she said.

* FANFEST ’94 runs Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m., at Los Angeles County Fairgrounds, 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona. Tickets are $30 per day or $99 for all four days; free for children 12 and under, half-price for seniors 65 and older. Parking is $4; Ride admission for adults is extra. (800) 550-FANS. For ticket packages including admission to Disneyland, call (800) 586-3378.