LaPorte Fair Sees Historic Attendance
Published: Friday, July 26, 2024
It appears the LaPorte County Fair set an all-time attendance record this year.
Brett Kessler, a member of the LaPorte County Agricultural Assn. board that runs the fair, said attendance topped more than 100,000 people for the first time in the history of the fair, based on a review of attendance records kept from previous fairs.
The fair ending July 13 ran for eight days.
"All in all, it was a great week," he said.
The record attendance is even more impressive considering how much it's gone up since 2017 when the number of people entering the gates was about 68,000.
Last year, attendance was 91,454.
Kessler credited good weather, except for rain on July 9 when fair attendance was still fairly strong, as the primary reason for the record turn-out.
He said the most heavily attended day was on July 12 when over 14,000 people entered the fairgrounds on S.R. 2 just west of the LaPorte city limits.
Kessler also felt new attractions in recent years, like the Curious Kids Tractor Trail along with a sand shark show and sting ray petting zoo, have factored into the rising attendance.
Children ride small battery powered tractors on the trail and fill baskets with various items along the way before returning.
Two sand sharks were in a see-through tank resting on the trailer of a semi-truck.
More than a dozen species of sting rays kept in a shallow pool were available for fairgoers to pet at no cost or feed with food provided at a minimum cost.
"Those were all very popular," he said.
Kessler also noted the fair this year included more than 1,100 4-H youth exhibiting over 4,000 entries, including over 1,000 open class entries ranging from dairy cows and rabbits to home and family arts related entries.
An outreach also resulted in more than 700 children with organizations such as the YMCA and local Boys and Girls Club branches coming to the fair.
"Hopefully, some of those kids went home and said mom and dad let's go back to the fair," he said.
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