The San Diego County Fair (Photo by Fred Greaves)
An extra two days on the schedule helped the San Diego County Fair break its total attendance record for the fourth year in a row, with more than 1.5 million people passing through the turnstiles at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, organizers announced Thursday.
Total attendance over 24 days was 1,517,508. The per-day average was higher last year, however, when the previous record of 1,412,113 was set in 22 days, according to the fair.
The fair has set total attendance records every year since 2009. Wednesday’s holiday crowd of 92,407 was the fifth-highest on record for a single day.
“We are pleased we broke our all-time attendance record once again, making fair history during a still-sluggish economy,” said Tim Fennell, chief executive officer and general manager of the Del Mar Fairgrounds. “Because of these challenging times, we were proud to present a venue that provided a great value for our guests.”
High-calorie fare continued to be popular among fair-goers, who bought 180,000 massive belly-buster burgers, 60,000 deep-friend Oreo cookies and 20,000 deep-fried pineapple rings.
The fair website — sdfair.com — received nearly 1.1 million hits, up 8.4 percent, and in a sign of the technological times, the 213,000 hits to the fair’s mobile website marked an 87 percent increase.
Organizers say the San Diego County Fair is the sixth-largest in the country.
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