Attendance at the 2024 Clark County Fair rose slightly this year thanks to high interest in motor sports events on the fair’s closing weekend, organizers said.
Total attendance of the 10-day even that ran Aug. 2-11 is estimated at 267,800 — about a 4 percent increase from last year’s attendance of just less than 257,000. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, 242,000 attended the fair.
Fair Manager John Morrison said he heard from staff and fairgoers that the addition of a Clark County fair app was a noticeable success. He said it improved accessibility and helped answer questions about event schedules.
“You could look up anything, all the way down to what food you might want to eat,” Morrison said. “I’m very pleased with it and think we’ll try to grow its capability next year.”
This year’s top attraction was the featured Dino Encounters exhibition, with life-size dinosaur models and various activities that invited children to think like a paleontologist.
Determining the featured exhibit is a big deal each year because it frames advertising for the whole fair, Morrison said. Although dinosaurs will always be popular, fair leaders are planning to field some new ideas for featured exhibits to keep things “fresh,” he said.
“I do need to make sure I offer something new each year, so we’ll be looking at everything,” Morrison said. “I don’t want to give in to the, ‘Oh, it’s the same thing every year,’ thing about fairs.”
Despite this year’s success, Morrison said he’s hoping to address a few barriers to entry he’s noticed — namely issues with parking and grandstand capacity.
“Motor sports have become so popular on the last weekend that we had to close the grandstand for capacity,” he said. “I want to find a way to get more people in there without worrying about grandstand safety.”
As for parking, Morrison said the biggest issue is stalled traffic flow with the lone entrance and exit on Northeast Delfel Road. Establishing a second entry point and finding a way to speed up parking validation, he said, will help handle the bigger crowds the fair hopes to attract in the future.
