The San Diego County Fair announced Tuesday the theme for next year's fair, "Once Upon a Fair."
Del Mar Fairgrounds spokesman Tristan Hallman said it's a celebration to the joys of reading.
"It's a theme that's all about storytelling, about books, about our favorite narratives jumping off the page and coming to life," he said. "So this was a theme that we're very excited about."
Meanwhile, the fair closed the book on the 2025 fair with lower revenues and lower turnouts for some grandstand concerts. Attendance for this summer's fair was 874,263, which was essentially flat from last year when attendance was 877,420, Hallman said.
Part of the reason, he said, was the federal immigration enforcement ramp-up in May, such as the raid on the Buona Forchetta restaurant in South Park a few weeks before the fair began.
“We knew that there was a real fear about some people being in crowds and being out in public and in these kinds of events," Hallman said. "At the time, when there was heavy federal law enforcement action going on, not just here, but in Los Angeles as well.”
He said there were noticeably lower turnouts at the grandstand concerts featuring Hispanic acts.
"Some of the Hispanic acts that we've had in previous years did not perform as well," Hallman said. "It was about half of the attendance that we would have expected, based on when we've had them at the fair in the past."
Previously, these acts would have been a sellout. That was one of the factors that contributed to lower revenue for the fair. Fair staff had projected a net profit of $12 million. The actual revenue was around $10.1 million.
“So this just means that ... this is money that we are not able to maybe invest back into certain projects on this property, or we need to defer, or we need to look at other areas to cut,” Hallman said.
Hallman said the fair was still financially successful, which allows the fairgrounds to invest back into the property and fund year-round operations. This includes planning for next year’s fair with its storybook theme.
“It’s about the stories that we tell and the stories of our community,” he said.
The fair is already part of San Diego County’s story.
