1M Visitors, 20K Oreos And 11 Sold-Out Days: 2022 OC Fair

COSTA MESA, CA — This year's Orange County Fair, which wrapped up on Sunday, drew nearly the same number of visitors as last year.

A preliminary accounting of attendance showed that 1,055,173 visitors attended this year's "Feel the Sunshine" fair. Eleven days of the fair were sell-outs.

Last year, the fair drew 1,055,770 visitors and had 16 sold-out shows.

OC Fair officials last year decided to limit attendance to align with efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19, after the fair was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. It went so well that organizers decided to do limit attendance again this year because fairgoers said they liked having more room to move and shorter lines for events and attractions.

OC Fair CEO Michele Richards said fair organizers are not aiming to break attendance records anymore, preferring to enhance the experience for fairgoers.

Fair officials also kept ticket prices the same this year.

"The annual OC Fair is very special and important to the community," Richards said. "It gives us such pleasure to present it every year. It's a thrill for our team to plan and produce an event that resonates with our guests throughout Southern California and beyond. It's always sad to see the annual OC Fair end each year, but rest assured our team is already working on next year's fair. We can't wait to welcome back all our guests again in 2023."

Twelve concerts in the Hangar were sold out, and 11 events in the Action Sports Arena were also sold out. So far, eight Pacific Amphitheatre concerts have sold out, with six more to go in the summer season.

Here's a look at more OC Fair numbers:

This year, there were 10,000 competition entries from 3,068 exhibitors vying for blue-ribbons. In Home Arts, there were 399 entries, 1,292 entries in Culinary, Visual Arts had 3,754 entries and there were 4,426 entries in Horticulture. Entries were up 20 percent over 2021.

70,600 fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies were made from scratch at Mom's Bakeshoppe.

16,682 hot dogs were sold by Pink's, along with 13,754 orders of fries and 1,272 veggie dogs.

5 top food items from Biggy's were pizza, fried Oreos, Dole Soft Serve, corn dogs and funnel cakes.

8,800 pounds of Ten Pound Buns were served up at this year’s OC Fair.

20,000 deep-fried Oreos, 2,000 Kool-Aid chicken sandwiches, 9,000 Canadian lobster tails, 5,000 bacon-wrapped pickles and 3,000 fried avocados were served up at the Chicken Charlie's stands throughout the fairgrounds.

City News Service contributed to this article.