A million people usually attend the State Fair. This year was different
The Washington State Fair saw a 20 percent decrease in attendance this year, drawing in a total of about 816,000 people to the Puyallup fairgrounds, according to a news release from the fair.
“We truly didn’t know what to expect attendance-wise,” Stacy Van Horne, public relations manager for the fair, told The News Tribune. “I don’t know that we would have been surprised if very few people showed up or if we had record-breaking attendance.”
The fair usually draws about a million people each year. In 2018, the fair had over 1.1 million attendees. The only times the fair has been canceled were in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and during World War II.
Throughout the fair, 369 people received a COVID-19 vaccine onsite, according to the news release.
“We had no expectation out of that,” Van Horne said. “It was nice just to have that on-site and available to people to kind of help do our part.”
Earlier this month, The News Tribune reported officials at the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department were investigating over 20 COVID-19 cases concerning people who attended or worked at the fair while they were in the contagious or exposure stage.
If there was an outbreak, the fair would have been shut down, which did not happen, Van Horne said. The fair tested employees every day, attendees wore masks and were socially distanced whenever possible, she said.
Despite the dip in attendance, the fair still “broke financial records in many areas,” according to the news release.
Van Horne said all aspects of the fair such as food, concert and alcohol sales were up. Non-food vendors reported the same if not more in revenue compared to 2019, she said.
“Every area was up,” Van Horne said.
Some concerts that drew big crowds were those of Carrie Underwood, Macklemore and Darius Rucker. Performances by Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias and the rodeo with 38 Special also drew a lot of people, Van Horne said via email. More than 75 percent of the seats were filled for each of those shows, she said.
This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
