The 2025 San Diego County Fair in Del Mar concluded its month-long run on Sunday, a bittersweet reminder to San Diegans that summer\u2019s end is inching nearer.<\/p>\n
The fair attracted over 874,200 guests throughout the course of its 20 operating days, fair officials reported, averaging around 44,000 attendees per day \u2014 numbers that are nearly identical to the attendance levels at the 2024 fair, indicating its firm place as a San Diego summer staple.<\/p>\n
\u201cFair season is the most joyous time of the year \u2014 a time when we get to celebrate our community, with our community,\u201d said Carlene Moore, CEO of the 22nd District Agricultural Association (DAA), which manages the fair. The 22nd DAA hired over 1,200 local temporary employees to run the event in addition to its 80 full-time employees, a number that does not include the thousands of employees hired by vendors, concessionaires and other contractors.<\/p>\n
The theme this year was centered around pets and pet ownership, actualized by the main 20,000-square-foot exhibit called \u201cPets Rock: Live on Tour, presented by Kahoots.\u201d An immersive journey through the eyes of a pet, the exhibit featured educational talks, a pet store and adoptable animals from the San Diego Humane Society. Half of the batch of 42 adoptable animals went home with new families, according to a news release from the fair.<\/p>\n
There were a plethora of pet-themed showcases, including a corgi and weiner dog race, stunt shows, DockDogs (swimming) competitions, flyball competitions, scent detection races and puppy yoga. Despite the theme, attendees were not permitted to bring their own pets to the fairgrounds for safety reasons, apart from a Pooch Fun Run (or Walk) it held at 6:30 a.m. on July 5 before the gates opened to the public.<\/p>\n
Beyond household pets, the fair also held the annual Junior Livestock Auction, which earned over $664,000, bolstered by a large group of buyers who spent over $10,000 each. The junior auction is the culmination of \u201cMarket Week\u201d at the fair, in which agriculture students from across the county who are members of 4-H, FFA or Grange show off their market animal project.<\/p>\n
One student from the Fallbrook High School FFA raised a lamb for the auction, but learned on auction day that her father in the Marine Corps was being relocated to Florida the following day. As a result, a group of concessionaires decided to purchase the lamb for $10,000 for the family\u2019s benefit.<\/p>\n
The fair incorporated other agriculture-related activities such as the Farm 2U educational exhibit, highlighting local farmers and farm-to-table produce, as well as providing cooking sessions to attendees to expand their culinary know-how.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest draws of the San Diego County Fair, however, has always been the music. Many a musical legend has graced the Grandstand stage over the years, including Bob Dylan, Van Halen, R.E.M., Sarah Vaughn and Johnny Cash to name a few.<\/p>\n
This year was a mixed bag of headliners, two of which sold out: the first-ever EDM show featuring Zedd, and country singer-songwriter Jon Pardi. Other acts included the neo-soulful Maxwell, the 2000s indie-alternative group Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a modern lineup of Foreigner, Mexican norte\u00f1o band Los Tucanes de Tijuana and reggae royalty Ziggy Marley, son of Bob Marley.<\/p>\n
The fair also held a K-Pop Festival, featuring dozens of dance groups, singers and DJs, for the first time in the fair\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what the fair does best \u2014 bringing joy to the lives of all San Diegans,\u201d said Moore, the CEO. \u201cWe already can\u2019t wait to do it all over again next year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2025 San Diego County Fair in Del Mar concluded its month-long run on Sunday, a bittersweet reminder…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":47132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,171,1370,728,3549,7264,1072,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-47131","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-things-to-do","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114814408768991652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}