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Workers at Fairplex spent this week putting the finishing touches on the 2015 edition of the Los Angeles County Fair, which is scheduled to begin Today.
The giant ferris wheel is up, the concert series is in place, the exhibition halls are ready and the Flower and Garden Pavilion is ready to go.
All that’s needed now are some patrons.
This year’s fair, which is scheduled to run through Sept. 27, is expected to draw around 1.4 iillion people. If that forecast holds, it would be slightly more than the number of people who passed through the turnstiles in Pomona one year ago, said Mike Seder, Fairplex’s chief financial officer.ke
Given the state of the economy, Fairplex officials are more confident than they’ve been in years about putting on a successful fair, Seder said.
“We haven’t been this confident going into a fair since 2007 or 2008, which was right before the economy fell apart, ” Seder said. “The economy is doing better now and employment is up, which means people have more discretionary income to spend.”
One thing that does have Fairplex officials a little nervous is the one element they can’t control: the weather.
“We need to catch a break with the weather and keep the temperature in the 80’s,” Seder said. “When it gets over 100 degrees it can really hurt our gate. There are only so many things people are willing to do when it gets to be 100 degrees.”
Even though the Los Angeles County Fair is one of the largest county fair’s in the country, and is larger than several state fairs, workers are able to get Fairplex ready for the big even in about three weeks.
Most of the heavy lifting is done during the final week, Seder said.
Fairplex will hire about 2,000 people to work at this year’s fair in various departments, but the actual number of jobs created by this year’s fair could be as high as 6,000 once the vendors make their hires, Seder said.
