Attendance record set at 2009 County Fair

Day 16 at the Fair (by ‘I Are Roswell’ via Flikr)

Maybe it was due to the Entertainer‘s spectacular Fair preview or our story about the good and the bad of food at the Fair (although we won’t take these speculations to Vegas), but the Fair seemed more popular than ever this year … and statistics backed it up.

A whopping 1,274,442 people came out to Del Mar this year, making for a sea of clogged traffic on the 5 Freeway and clogged arteries among those willing and able to get that deep fried twinkie down.

July 3 alone saw more than 88,000 pass through the turnstiles at the Fairgrounds, which was 20,000 short of the all-time one day record of nearly 102,000 in 1998. San Diego’s County Fair is now the fifth largest in the country.

“We want to thank everyone for coming and hope they had a great start to the summer at the San Diego County Fair,” said Tim Fennell, CEO and General Manager of the Del Mar Fairgrounds. “We are pleased to provide our community and families with an opportunity to have fun and play for a day at the Fair during a difficult economy. Because of these challenging times, we were proud to present a venue that provided a great value for our guests. But the Fair is really about people and teamwork, and again we had an excellent team for the 2009 San Diego County Fair.”

The attendance record should come as welcome news, with tourism way down in San Diego County and many folks feeling strapped for cash – preventing the usual travel away from San Diego that many families partake in during the summer months. It seems the Fair is invincible to recession.

Coming up next at the Fairgrounds: Opening day for the Del Mar Races on July 22.

Here are some “fun facts” from this years Fair:

• Food Facts
  • Zucchini Weenies from Chicken Charlie’s: 8,000 sold.
  • Deep Fried S’mores: 10,000 sold
  • Deep Fried Twinkies: 13,000 sold
  • Deep Fried Oreos: 28,000 sold
  • Deep Fried White Castle Cheese Burgers: 5,000 sold.
  • Deep Fried Frogs Legs 2,000 lbs. sold
  • Deep Fried Avocados: 6,000 sold
  • Mexican Funnel Cakes: 12,000 sold
  • Apple Fries: 2,000 sold
  • Chocolate Bacon: 20,000 pieces sold
  • Pignotti’s Pasta – Meatball Sliders, more than 5,200 sold.
  • Indian Fry Breads: sold 7,000 all variations
  • Australian Battered Potatoes used over 15,000 lbs. of potatoes

• Top 10 Vendors
  • Golden West BBQ
  • Brett’s Juicy
  • Chicken Charlie II
  • Chuckwagon
  • Chicken Charlie I
  • Juicy’s Outlaw
  • Australian Foods
  • Brander I (Donuts)
  • Fruit Caboose, Avenue location
  • Capitol Cookery

• Special Events
  • 220 pies consumed at the Pie Eating Contest
  • 1540 pieces of pie consumed at the Pie Eating Contest
  • 807 participants in our Flag Raising program (Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts)
  • 81 Girl Scout & Boy Scout troops
  • 500 jalapeños consumed at the three Jalapeño Pepper Eating Contests
  • 44 jalapeño peppers eaten by the winner
  • 24 participants in the Jalapeño Pepper Eating Contests (3)
  • 420 contestants in the Best Animal Noise  & misc. contests
  • 40 contestants in the Frozen T-shirt Contests (3)
  • 2100 participants in Three O’Clock Fun  (daily)
  • 41 participants in our Family Look-Alike Contest (1)
  • 140 participants in Kazoo that Tune (4 contests)