What Did You Eat At The Orange County Fair?

Attendance was down for "Farm Fresh Fun" at the Orange County Fair, but it was close to normal according to that agency's Wednesday report.

The official attendance number released for the "Farm Fresh Fun" fair that ended its 23-day run Sunday was 1,334,753. Last year's "Get Your Fair Face On!"-themed fair drew 1,344,996 visitors.

In 2015, the fair's attendance was 1,301,445. The fair has drawn about 1.3 million visitors since 2012.

The record was set in 2011 ,with 1,400,280 visitors. Fair attendance has been steadily climbing since 2006, when it was 924,315.

On Monday, county fair officials touted other more statistics from the event's 127th year, including the downing of 4,900 "Unicorn" legs of pork by fair-goers and 300 gamers taking part in the inaugural e-sports gaming fest on the final weekend.

Fair-goers appeared to like the experience more this year, with a 10-day survey showing the enjoyment rate averaging 4.65 on a 5-point scale, up from 4.45 last year. Of the fair-goers surveyed, 28 were first-time visitors and 48 percent live in the county.

The "Super Pass" was a big hit, with 42 percent more being sold over last year.
Fair-goers were generous too, donating 28.83 tons of food to the OC Food Bank and Second Harvest Food Bank on July 19, along with 94,078 children's books to Think Together on July 26 and 43,995 pounds of clothes to Goodwill on Aug. 2.

Want some of the nitty gritty fair statistics?

Along with those giant pork legs, fair-goers gobbled up 20,000 pounds of bacon, 6,000 fried peanut-butter meatballs from Chicken Charlie's, 4,000 Krispy Kreme Ice Cream Chicken Sandwiches, 4,500 Funnel Cake Burritos, 15,000 Pupu Wings, 6,000 Luau Chimichangas and 40,005 turkey legs from Juicy's.

Perhaps it's time for an antacid.

The most popular ride was La Grande Wheel XL, while Bank A Ball was the top game played.

There was a 20 percent increase in exhibitors over last year and a 112 percent boost in entries over 2016.

Photo, courtesy OC Fair