OC Fair to expand in ’09

The Orange County Fair is adding a fifth week to its summer schedule in 2009 after a unanimous vote by the Orange County Fair Board of Directors on Thursday.

Most of the contractors who provide goods and services at the fair and spoke up during the morning meeting favored the proposal, saying that extending the fair would shorten lines, encourage guests to stay longer and generally improve the quality of the fair.

The idea was put forward initially because the fair was drawing an average of 50,000 guests per day, roughly the attendance it was bringing in before the last expansion.

As part of the proposal, the fair will close Mondays and Tuesdays, meaning that the overall number of days the fair is open will increase from 21 to 23. Since its inception, the Orange County Fair has expanded multiple times, most recently in 2002, when it went from 17 days to 21.

“I think history has shown [expansion] has worked in the past, and there’s no reason to expect it wouldn’t work in the future,” said Howard Lindsey, who sells concessions at the fair.

Fair executives predict that lengthening the event may initially lower daily attendance because guests would have more days from which to choose, but soon, they said, more people will start coming. In order to prevent a precipitous drop in daily attendance, the fair is trying to make a few big additions to its advertising and fair offerings. Fair planners think constructing new buildings, presenting a new exhibit centered on Weird Al Yankovic and advertising to tourists will all help boost next year’s numbers.

“Not only does the staff recommend this model, we have some initiatives that we think will be profoundly effective in attracting people to the fair,” said fair Chief Executive Steve Beazley.

Still, some fair salesmen say the expansion will end up taking money out of their pockets because they have to spend more keeping their workers at the fair longer. People with smaller operations and less heavy machinery to move seemed to raise the most objections because they don’t have as much difficulty moving from fair to fair, and the items and services they sell might lose their novelty if they stay in one place too long.

Jeff Thornberry, one of the most outspoken opponents of the expansion, agrees that the fair needs to work to reduce crowds at some point, but thinks that right now the fair can accommodate even more guests than it already has. When the density does become a problem, the fair should look at expanding fair operations into some of the land from the Pacific Amphitheatre and the equestrian center.

“I would charge you to keep the dates the same and go about converting these grounds to the best and highest use,” Thornberry said.

The proposal also met with some criticism from people who sell goods at the swap meet. They fear that another weekend of the Orange County Fair means one less weekend for them.

“I can’t afford to be out of work for five weeks,” said Pat Derby, who sells baby clothes at the marketplace. “Every time the fair gets an extra weekend, we lose money.”

No residents from the surrounding neighborhoods came to speak at the meeting, but Beazley said the fair has done its best to include them in the process and that they’re mostly in favor of the proposal as long as some noise and parking issues are dealt with.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].