‘98 Fair Attendance Down; Fiesta Blamed

At 257,862, final attendance at the Ventura County Fair was down 4% from last year, but the tally continued a general increase over the last four years, publicist Devlin Raley said Monday.

“We had a huge spike last year,” he said. Attendance, however, has continued to climb steadily since 1994.

He said the Fiesta festival in Santa Barbara last weekend probably provided some competition, and he suggested that holding the fair earlier than normal may have confused some fair-goers.

The fair encountered other problems as well. Last Tuesday, three Santa Paula youths were stabbed at a rock concert--the first such incident since 1977.

But Raley said this did not hurt attendance.