Prepped by a pandemic, organizers make tentative plans for 2021 OC Fair

If there’s one thing Orange County Fair & Event Center officials have learned during the coronavirus pandemic it’s that things can, and will, change at a moment’s notice.

The small group of organizers responsible for planning the massive OC Fair changed course in late April, canceling the regional attraction — which draws some 1.4 million visitors each year — at the expense of $36 million in lost revenue.

Planners retooled yet again this summer, offering a Virtual OC Fair that allowed teens to auction off livestock online and featured juried competitions where locals showed off photos of their best Zoom backgrounds, pandemic haircuts and shelter-in-place baking attempts.

The O.C. fairgrounds at Costa Mesa has since offered Drive-Thru Fair Food weekends and played host to a stream of drive-in concerts, shows and spectacles, most recently the holiday light extravaganza “Night of Lights OC,” which opens Thursday and runs through Jan. 10.

“If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that you have to stay on your toes,” OCF&E Chief Executive Michele Richards said Tuesday. “You have to stay fluid and ready to change direction at any given moment. And, to the extent you can, you need to be able to look ahead and have lots of contingencies.”

Now, Richards and her colleagues are preparing to let pandemic uncertainty carry them into a new calendar year, daring to imagine how a 2021 OC Fair might look and remaining ever hopeful that, in one way or another, the show might go on.

In an Oct. 12 meeting of the OC Fair & Event Center Board, Richards presented a rough sketch for a modified 18-day fair that would run from July 16 through Aug. 8 and limit capacity to 30,000 visitors per day — about 50% of the event’s traditional attendance.

Richards said Tuesday that attendance level reflects the capacity of outdoor areas with 6-foot social distancing in place and provides a good middle ground from which organizers could pivot in either direction if needed.

Tickets would be purchased in advance, and gate transactions would be contactless, she told board members. Super passes could not be sold, because crowd counts would have to be predetermined.

Indoor exhibits, competitions and merchants would move outdoors, and the number of concessionaires would likely be reduced, while attendance in the Pacific Amphitheatre would also be capped at 50%.

Fair officials are in ongoing talks with Orange County Health Care Agency Director and Public Health Officer Dr. Clayton Chau, who’s helped organizers understand how several different state reopening guidelines — pertaining to retail shopping, dining and outdoor events — could be applied to fair operations.

“When you begin to break it down into different pieces, you begin to see the possibility of a fair happening next year,” Richards said.

THINK Together’s Shalimar Learning Center students, from left, Nataly, Alma, Kimberly, Leslie and Alondra react to a goat’s sniffs during their visit to the Orange County Fair in July 2017.

(Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)

Of course, with the coronavirus pandemic still ongoing, health officials have indicated to organizers several criteria would have to be met for an in-person fair to take place.

For example, there would have to be an approved COVID-19 vaccine on the market, and it would have to be widely distributed and accepted in Orange County, to the point where the county’s immunity level was between 65% and 80%.

Fair officials are already considering how plans might be adjusted if virus rates were to suddenly decrease or continue unabated.

In a Nov. 13 budget study session, officials looked at the center’s 2021 budget and considered the impacts of a 50%-capacity modified OC Fair. Estimates place expenses at around $13.9 million and revenues as high as $20.3 million — for $6.4 million in net proceeds.

That’s a bit of good news in a fiscal-year budget still operating at a loss from typical years. Officials anticipate $35.3 million in expenses and $23.5 million in revenue, forecasting an $11.8-million deficit in the year ahead.

During the November study session, OCFEC Board Vice Chair Doug La Belle expressed cautious optimism about a modified fair, the plans for which will be formalized in the months ahead.

“Well, half a pie is better than no pie at all,” he surmised. “I would also suggest that we look at one-third of the pie.”

Richards acknowledged Tuesday plans are still very tentative. In a worst-case coronavirus scenario, the 2021 OC Fair could be reconfigured into a drive-through event.

But one thing is certain, she said. “There will be something, absolutely — we will not let summer go by without some celebration of the OC Fair,” she vowed. “We understand how badly people want the fair back, because we feel the same way. And we’re working to make that happen.”

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