Clean up begins at Santa Maria Fairpark after successful Santa Barbara County Fair
SANTA MARIA, Calif. – Just hours after the Santa Barbara County Fair officially closed at 10 p.m. Sunday, the Santa Maria Fairpark looked dramatically different on Monday morning.
As soon as the sun rose, Fairpark staff, commercial vendors, exhibitors, carnival employees, as well as junior livestock students were busy hard at work, breaking down, cleaning up and clearing out.
"We have all the worker bees out on the property buzzing around getting everything put back the way it was before fair," said Casey Douglass, Fairpark Public Relations spokesperson. "All the vendors are getting their stuff and taking it home, or taking it to the next fair and we have all of our maintenance crew out doing clean up because we have a lot of things to do to get our grounds back to normal."
The clean up comes after the conclusion of a successful five-day run of the 131st Annual Santa Barbara County Fair, which officially ran from July 12-16.
"We had a great fair this year," said Randy Jones, Santa Maria Fair Board Member. "It was much improved from last year, coming out of Covid. Last year, it was great to do what we could do, we were a little short on vendors and exhibitors, but this year, it's building, and it was a great fair, increased numbers, increased exhibitors, and everybody had a great time, so we're really proud of what we accomplished this year."
While the official numbers will not be released for several days, Fairpark staff said the event enjoyed trended upwards following last year's fair, which was the first held since 2019.
"We had a fabulous time," said Douglass. "We had a lot of people show up. Overall, we do believe that our attendance was definitely up, but we don't have exact numbers yet, so we will hopefully have those next week."
The Junior Livestock Show and Auction also proved to be success this year.
According to preliminary numbers released by the Fairpark, the auction brought in more than $2 million, the combined total for the nearly 1,000 junior livestock students who participated in the event.
The number does not include "add on" totals, which are extra donations received by the students on top of the amount their animal was sold for during the auction, or any of the student agriculture mechanics projects that were also auctioned off.
Even as the cleanup for this year's fair is taking place, Fairpark staff already has its eyes set to 2024 and the 131st annual Santa Barbara County Fair.
"We are already looking ahead for what we can do," said Douglass. "The things that we can improve on, and what do we want to do next year, like what other things can we bring out here that would be fun for the whole family, so we are already starting the planning process right now as we're tearing down."
The 131st Annual Santa Barbara County Fair is scheduled from July 10-14, 2024.
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