Weather ups State Fair attendance

• By STEVEN WARD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 2, 2009

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Mark Sclafani and his wife and son have lived in Baton Rouge for 11 years but had never gone to the State Fair until Sunday.

“We try to do as many Louisiana festivals as we can. We knew it was family-oriented and gives us a chance to get out of the house,” he said.

Crowds started lining up on the last day of the Greater Baton Rouge State Fair on Sunday just as the gates opened at 1 p.m. The cool temperature and blue skies may have played a large role in the early attendance burst.

“Usually the crowd comes in later on the last Sunday,” said State Fair Chairman and Chief Executive Officer J.H. Martin.

Just as Sunday’s weather promised a strong turnout on the fair’s last day, rain also caused the 11-day event to close on two days: the first day, Oct. 22, and Oct. 30, the second Friday.

“We were going into this year with three years of perfect weather,” Martin said.

Martin said the two days of rain that forced the fair to close this year caused attendance to go down from the last few years.

Martin said he’s expecting total attendance this year to be about 44,000 people. That’s the number of people who paid for tickets and does not include children who are part of families.

Last year, Martin said, the total paid number was 62,000 people.

In 2007, the total paid number was 60,000 people, Martin said.

The year before that, in 2006, the total paid number was 48,000 people, he said.

Martin said the fair was not held in 2005 because of Hurricane Katrina.

In 2004, there were about 40,000 people who paid to attend the fair, Martin said.