Fair Attendance Down 21%

Attendance at the Ventura County Fair continues to lag behind last year’s numbers, with 3,025 fewer people passing through the turnstiles Tuesday than they did on the same day in 1999.

Teri Raley, publicist for the 12-day event being held at Seaside Park in Ventura, said she thought the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert held Wednesday night would give the turnout a boost.

“It’s my gut feeling that it’s going to be the strongest show,” she said.

The lower turnout thus far--down 21% compared with last year--has been attributed primarily to the absence of the carnival and midway for the first two days of the fair. Raley said last year’s Beach Boys performance also inflated last year’s numbers because more than 13,000 people attended the show.

“We pretty much always stay around 250,000 [by the fair’s end] and I think we’ll do that well,” she said.