Valleywide : Heat Blamed for Drop in Fair Attendance

Scorching temperatures are being blamed for sagging attendance at this year’s 49th annual San Fernando Valley Fair, held last month at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank.

Fair organizers were hopeful that the inclusion of a professional rodeo would help top last year’s figure of about 45,000 visitors, but instead they saw the number dip by a few thousand as people were urged to stay indoors and out of the heat.

On July 27, opening day, the mercury climbed to 106 degrees in Burbank.

“I’m disappointed,” said fair publicist Jana Olson-Collins. “Certainly I would have loved to see it cooler.”

According to fair estimates, this year’s attendance was the lowest since the event moved to the equestrian center in 1992. Previously, it had been held at the Hansen Dam Recreation Area in Lake View Terrace.

In addition to keeping potential fair-goers away, the warm weather created problems at the event itself, with several people treated for heat-related illness during the fair’s four days.

“Besides being hard on the people who came out, it’s also stressful on the animals,” Olson-Collins said.

Organizers are considering rescheduling the fair for a cooler month, such as October, she said, but admitted that it probably would not happen until 1997.

Glendale homeowner Jeff Hobson, the plaintiff in a pending lawsuit against the equestrian center and the city of Burbank over non-equestrian events at the site, said that while this year’s fair was an improvement over 1994, he’d still like to see it held elsewhere.

“I don’t think that it’s appropriate to have it there,” he said. “[With] the kinds of crowds that they hope to get, they should have it somewhere else.”