Ventura County Fair : More Visitors Are Showing Up and Shelling Out at Fairgrounds

More people are coming to the Ventura County Fair this year than last year, and they are spending more money.

“It’s been very busy,” said admission clerk Nancy Klassen, raking in dollar bills at the front gate Tuesday. “The money has been coming in.”

During the first six days of the fair, 119,093 people walked through the turnstiles at Seaside Park, 2,605 more than in the same period last year, officials said.

Many of those people get in free because of special promotions--Tuesday, for instance, was Senior Day--but even ticket sales are up about 6%: 75,092 people have bought passes so far this year compared to 70,500 last year, officials said.

“The first couple of days we were way up,” spokeswoman Teri Raley said. “I’m pleased. I think attendance will hold.”

Results are not as rosy for a new attempt to market the fair to out-of-towners, an effort in which Amtrak has teamed with Ventura and Oxnard tourism officials to offer hotel and admission packages. Officials hoped the packages would both increase fair attendance and boost tourism in the coastal cities.

But brochures advertising the deal were not printed until two weeks ago. As a result, package sales have been slow.

“I think it is a great idea, but unfortunately it got out too late,” said Barbara Mossuto, a travel agent with Carlson Travel Network in Ventura, who sold just two packages to out-of-town visitors.

“There was a delay,” said Millie Matz, director of sales and marketing for the Ventura Visitors and Convention Bureau. “We didn’t get as strong of a response as we would have liked.”

That was apparent on Tuesday morning, when only a dozen people trickled off Amtrak’s 11:06 a.m. train after it pulled into the fairgrounds station.

When Richard Fornof of Northridge and his 8-year-old granddaughter got to the Chatsworth station Tuesday to catch the fair train, they looked around in vain for fellow passengers. “We were it,” Fornof said.

On the other hand, Metrolink trains have been doing brisk business with riders from the east county. Ridership on Metrolink last weekend was up by 87 people compared to last year, officials said. On Saturday, 2,111 people rode the train to the fair. On Sunday, 2,792 used Metrolink trains, which run to the fair only on weekends.

“The bulk of the ridership was from the east county,” Raley said. “We have over a thousand both days from Simi Valley.”

On Tuesday, thousands of people streamed into the fair for Senior Day, one of the most popular promotions of the 12-day fair, officials said.

From 74-year-old Betty Brassard’s viewpoint, the busy thoroughfares and long food lines were indicators of a successful fair year.

“It looks mighty good,” said Brassard, a Ventura resident who has been coming to the fair for 35 years. “You don’t have participation, you can’t have a fair.”

But for some fair-goers, steep prices for food and carnival rides were enough to make them question future participation.

“It cost us $50 to get something to eat, so now we can’t afford to start paying more for tickets on rides,” said Rita Rolph, a peer educator at Ventura’s De Anza Middle School who brought 17 special education students to the fair.

“You might as well go to Disneyland,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Ventura teen-agers Crystal Hansen and Tawny and Nichole Pritchard spent $60 in their first 20 minutes at the fair on carnival rides. “That’s $3 a minute,” 15-year-old Nichole said. “It’s outrageous.”

Cowboy hat salesman Russ Ammon was not complaining, however. For dozens of merchants like him, the point of the fair is to make money. And so far this year, Ammon has sold hundreds of hats.

“Sales have been good,” he said.

Penny-pincher Brenda Cregor of Camarillo literally scraped up spare change to bring her children to the fair Tuesday. At the admission booth, Cregor dumped $6 worth of coins on the counter to buy herself a ticket.

“I called my husband and he said to pick up whatever was around the house,” she said. “So I did.”

* RELATED STORY, SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: B2