The San Diego County Fair, long popular with locals, now wants to broaden its reach with a marketing campaign aimed at attracting visitors outside of the immediate region. But it needs some financial help to do so.
Toward that end, representatives of the fair pitched their plan Friday to San Diego’s hotelier-run Tourism Marketing District (TMD) in hopes of securing $50,000 in funding for a broader advertising campaign. While a number of local organizations return year after year to the marketing district seeking financial support for their yearly events, Friday’s presentation marked the first time the fair organizers had ever made such an appeal.
Board members wondered, why now?
“I would say this, which is I think the organization in the past was a little insular in its thinking,” said Tristan Hallman, chief communications officer for the Del Mar Fairgrounds. “We want to both grow and re-engage with our community. We are an important economic generator for the region, and I see opportunity just because of the uniqueness of the fairgrounds, and especially as we’ve seen horse racing attendance decline.
“We can still take advantage of what they’ve built in terms of the reputational aspects of the fairgrounds, but in terms of continuing to attract people for that purpose, it’s a straight line over time, so this is the area that we see for growth.”
Fair officials estimate that 20% of their annual attendance comes from outside the county, but what’s unknown is whether those non-locals are coming to San Diego just to go to the fair or they’re already here and included the fair as part of their visit.
While the fair’s overall annual budget is roughly $52 million, its spending plan for media marketing is just $1.2 million, and $50,000 of that would go directly toward an “out-of-market media spend with the goal of not only increasing out-of-market visitation, but targeting those visits to the first two weeks of the fair” in June, when attendance is weaker because some schools are still in session. A large part of the campaign would focus on people living in Arizona.
The funding request would be to market the 2026 fair, which is tentatively set for June 10 to July 5.
Organizers estimate, conservatively, that their media plan could yield 800 room nights at hotels within the city of San Diego. That translates to a return on investment of $4.80 in hotel room night revenue for every $1 of grant funding. The 22nd District Agricultural Association, which runs the county fair, is competing with 12 other applicants for TMD funding. The total requested amount for all 13 requests is $51.3 million, said Colleen Anderson, executive director of the marketing district.
The Tourism Marketing District generates its revenue via a 2% room surcharge that applies to all San Diego hotels of 70 rooms or more. During the last fiscal year, the TMD allocated nearly $51.5 million in marketing money to 13 organizations, although the vast majority of that money — more than $48.7 million — went to a single entity, the San Diego Tourism Authority, which is responsible for promoting all of San Diego. Among the other organizations seeking TMD money on Friday were the Concours d’Elegance, a luxury and classic car show, and Mission Bayfest, an annual music festival.
Evans Hotels CEO Robert Gleason, a member of the TMD board, questioned how much of an impact an out-of-town marketing campaign might have, given that people may likely be already coming to San Diego for other reasons.
“I think the additional challenge to overcome is it’s in that time period where it’s already busy,” Gleason said. “I know you’re trying to grow the early part of the fair. And how do you really make sure people are coming to TMD hotels (in the city of San Diego) because I think a lot of that advertising ends up going to people who are coming anyway.
“So I’d be more comfortable in a situation where there’s some proof that there’s effectiveness to that advertising.”
The fair’s appeal for marketing money comes at a time when it continues to rebuild from the devastating impacts of the first year of the pandemic in 2020 when revenue was down 88%. Since then, attendance and revenue from the fair has been growing, but Hallman said the fair’s finances are not yet back to where organizers would like.
During last year’s fair, there were 877,420 attendees, which is down from almost 1 million in each of the two years before, the Del Mar Times reported last September. Average daily attendance also declined from a little more than 46,000 in 2022 to 45,351 in 2023 to just under 44,000 in 2024.
In its application to the marketing district, the fair said its ultimate goal is to reach an average daily attendance of 60,000.
The TMD board is expected to make a final decision on funding requests in early March.
Originally Published:
