Attendance at this year’s Clark County Fair, held Aug. 4-13, was down slightly from last year’s numbers, but there were likely several reasons why.
Temperatures soared to more than 100 degrees in the closing days of the fair, thinning out previously packed crowds. Higher gas prices and an increase in ticket prices likely left some people choosing to stay home this year, as well.
Total attendance was just under 257,000 people, a 10 percent decrease from last year’s attendance numbers of 285,500.
Still, this year’s numbers were up 6.2 percent over 2019’s pre-COVID-19 attendance of 242,000.
The fair was canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic.
Gone this year was the free pancake breakfast that had been an opening day tradition since 1989. Fred Meyer, which had taken over sponsorship of the breakfast, decided to donate $10,000 to the Clark County Food Bank instead.
Fair Manager John Morrison said he wasn’t concerned about the slight dip. He said he would only start to worry if there’s a downward trend over multiple years.
