The fair had fewer visitors for the second consecutive year.
Fairgoers enjoy the rides during the final weekend of the LA County Fair on Saturday, May 30, 2026. The Los Angeles County fair has just ended the 2026 season, and despite cooler weather and a 17-day run that included Memorial Day, attendance was down for a second consecutive year. 2026 numbers from a fair news release showed that 642,081 people visited the fair, a 41,062 decrease from 2025’s 683,143; and down from 2024’s attendance number of 787,843.
The fair has seen another attendance spike in previous years, with 2023 at 717,815, though 2022 was on the lower end with 635,421 people as the fair returned after the pandemic. Though the fair had one more day than last year and opened on a Thursday instead of a Friday, 2026 numbers still declined.
Paul C. Granillo, President and CEO of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, said that he and his family love the fair, though he understands why attendance could be down due to economic pressures.
“I do think that inflation is high, and we just saw that it is 4.5%, right? And that always gets passed on to the consumer,” Granillo said in an interview.
“Then consumers can only afford so much, and they have to make a choice of where they’re gonna spend their extra dollars. ” Granillo also said that global and national issues could be at play for rising costs seen at food and merchandise booths at the fair.
“So you’ve got the tariffs, which have had an effect, and especially because when you look at the fair, a lot of the goods are imported,” he said. “So, obviously, that’s gonna have a cost to the companies that support the fair, and then that gets passed on to the consumer.
” According to Renee Hernandez, Director of Communications at the Fairplex, home of the fair, the fair doesn’t have exact data to pinpoint just one cause for lower attendance, but rather, there are many factors that affect it.
“It’s possible that community concerns in 2025 and economic pressures in 2026 contributed to some degree,” Hernandez said in a statement. “There is also a saturation of ‘entertainment’ tickets currently in the market – both the FIFA World Cup and LA28 were selling tickets before and during our fair. ” Elsewhere, the Orange County Fair has seen a rise in attendance from 2022 to 2025.
The fair saw 1.05 million visitors in 2022 and 1.16 million in 2025. The San Diego County Fair has also seen some fluctuations in attendance, with 973,508 visitors in 2022 and 874,263 in 2025.
“Dig In,” Special “Dig Into” savings tickets for the 2027 fair are available now for $9 until June 17 and are valid for any day of the fair.
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