Nearly 12,000 paid entrants went to the county fair over the three-day event this year – which amounted to an increase of nearly 30 percent over 2012, according to fair organizers.
“Our paid attendance was up considerably,” said Kelley Ferreira, manager of the county fair, in a phone interview Wednesday.
Nearly 9,400 attended the 2012 fair, Ferreira said. That comes to a boost of around 27 percent year over year.
As a whole, the fair “exceeded budget expectations,” he said.
He said the fair board budgeted $47,000 for the gates but made $55,000 in paid attendance, including from ticket and parking sales.
“We’re back up to where we were,” he said, referring to prior years before the recession.
He said that this year, attendance at the fair was back to around 2006 levels when there were 13,200 paid attendees that year.
“Being there the whole time, it looked like it was pretty well attended,” said county Supervisor Jerry Muenzer, a fair board member, in a phone interview Friday.
He said the attendance was in such demand this year that the Council of San Benito County Governments, the local transit agency, had to add an additional, free bus shuttle to and from the fair to handle crowds.
More than 3,000 volunteers, sponsors, vendors and other non-paid attendees also came – meaning the total attendance was almost 15,000 fair participants.
Ferreira also said food concessions were up – with over $24,000 worth of sales compared with last year’s $20,000 haul.
Additionally, he said the Junior Livestock Auction also received a boost – as total livestock sales were $601,000 this year compared with $455,000 last year.
He noted $57,000 was raised for the San Benito Heritage Foundation as a result of family and community contributions to the Heritage Hog, which will contribute to repairs and updates of facilities at Bolado Park.
“Everyone seemed to be happy with it (the fair),” said Muenzer. “They (the fair) are going in the right direction.”
