California Business Minute™

Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.

Have the economic realities of the downturn caused less travel?  Californians,
while they make up the largest segment of tourists in the state, apparently are
traveling less and are taking ‘stay-cations’. And county/state fairs are the
recipients of this change in attitude.

For example, the San Diego County Fair set a new attendance record for its 22-day
run of 1,274,442. The previous record was 1,265,997 in 2007. To attract budget-
conscious visitors, the fair offered new discounts, including a $22 pass good for
22 days.

The Alameda County Fair drew a record 432,000 visitors, 87,000 more than in 2008
and 1,000 more than the record number in 1997.  In part its success came from
offering for the first time a $30 pass for all 17 days.  The fair added horse
races and promoted a balloon ride that had been at Michael Jackson's Neverland
Ranch.

The ticket sales for the recently held Paso Robles- based California Mid-State
Fair exploded this year, thanks to special promotions, new outreach efforts and
stay-cations. As part of a special promotion Mid-State patrons could purchase
season tickets on a buy-one-get-one-free basis. More than 2,000 season passes
were issued just in the month of May – twice what was sold in all of 2008. The
California Mid-State Fair – the first fair in the nation to have its own iPhone
application, gave users up-to-date news on concerts, maps, contact information
and ticket pricing for events. The application came in addition to the telephone,
e-mail, text messaging, Twitter and Facebook services officials set up to
distribute information and answer fairgoers’ questions in real-time.

The California State Fair in Sacramento opens August 21 and goes through the
September 7.  The Fair officials report that the total attendance was approximately
790,000, an increase of nearly seven percent over 2007.  And hopes are running high
for double digit increases for this year.

California has several fairs that ranked in the Top 50 Largest Fairs in the Nation
for 2008:

Los Angeles County Sept 5 –Sept 28     1.3 million
San Diego County June 14 - July 6   1.2 million
Orange County July 11 - August 3   1    million
California State Fair Aug 15 – Sept 1      790,000
Big Fresno Fair Oct 1- Oct 13       543,000

I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.