It’s getting more expensive for Orange County residents to attend their local county fair as executives sock away extra cash and spend millions on upgrades for themselves.
At this year’s fair, visitors looking to buy a single-day admission ticket on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays will have to hand over $18 per person starting on Friday.
Weekend admission tickets are $15 if purchased before the fair officially opens, but when the fair opens at the Costa Mesa Fairgrounds on Friday, they will increase to $18 until the fair ends Aug. 16.
This is the first year that the pre-fair price is available. Last year, weekend tickets were $15 before and during the fair’s run.
The OC Fair is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
Fairgrounds spokesperson Terry Moore said that pre-fair price was added to give families a discount if they plan ahead.
“To help local families find a way to help make the OC Fair fit their budgets, we added pre-fair special pricing deals to give fairgoers more affordable options by pre-planning to take advantage of bundles available prior to the start of the Fair,” Moore wrote in an email to Voice of OC.
Prices to park and enter the fair have been slowly increasing after remaining steady for several years.
It costs a standard vehicle $15 to park on site at the fair this year. That’s the same as last year, but it used to cost $10 before jumping up to $12 in 2023 and $15 in 2024.
Weekday admission is $13 per person while weekend admission is $18. Admission for kids and seniors is $9 this year. When the fair opens on Friday, admission costs for seniors will increase to $10.
That means if a family of four — two adults, two kids — decided they wanted to attend the fair on a Saturday, it would cost them $69 just to park and enter; before they spend any more money on food, drinks, ride tickets or souvenirs.
Michele Capps, the OC Fair’s Chief Business Development Officer, said the event center is seeing a $2.46 million increase in labor costs from last year, along with increasing utility and operating expenses.
“These costs, in addition to numerous other fair-related expenses, have gone up annually while admission prices remained fairly steady and below similar events and venues,” Capps said in a statement sent to Voice of OC.
She said the increase in weekend admission aims to close that gap.
“By adjusting adult weekend admission by $3, the Fair aims to increase revenue by $1.5 million,” she said in the statement.
“The Board is working proactively to create a solid financial foundation to move the fairgrounds forward, providing more events and educational opportunities for the community year-round. As a self-funded entity, we must budget in a way that allows us to continue to operate in a responsible manner while funding property improvements and increasing programming.”
Fairgrounds Executives Get $25 Million HQ, Reserves Continue Growing
As the fair gets more expensive, fairgrounds leadership are enjoying new upgrades to their administrative building on site at the OC Fair & Event Center.
The building underwent a $25 million expansion as part of the fairgrounds’ multi-phase master plan to upgrade various buildings and officially opened earlier this year.
Upgrades to the administrative building added over 15,000 feet of space for employee use, featuring meeting rooms and storage areas. The expansion more than doubled the size of the building’s original layout.
At the same time, the fairgrounds’ reserves have been steadily increasing after a dip in 2020 and 2023.
At the end of 2022, the center’s investment balance reflected over $67 million in reserves, which had been steadily growing since 2009.
That balance dipped to about $53 million as of Dec. 31, 2024, and as of the end of last year, the fair’s reserves were sitting at about $60 million.
OC Leaders Get Free Event Tickets
While ordinary people are forced to hand over more to go to the fair, Orange County politicians and their allies get to attend private, catered dinners paid for by tax dollars.
Dubbed “Business Development Dinners,” the fair hosts exclusive dining nights for local officials and guests to enjoy meals like short ribs, salmon and beef tenderloin, according to the 2025 dinner menu.
Such food isn’t typically available to fairgoers.
Each year, the fair hosts four of these dinners with guests decided by the fair’s CEO.
While this year’s dinners haven’t happened yet, last year’s guests included Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, Assemblywoman Diane Dixon and the mayors of Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Huntington Beach, Laguna Hills, Lake Forest, Orange, Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Westminster and Yorba Linda.
[Read: Who Gets a Free Ticket to the Orange County Fair?]
Every year, fair board members also get free access to a host of shows that come through the fairgrounds’ event spaces, and last year they took in about $22,000 worth of free tickets, according to ticket disclosure forms reviewed by Voice of OC.
Board member Natalie Rubalcava — also an Anaheim councilmember — took home the most tickets last year, totalling over $6,600 worth of admissions to live events featuring T-Pain, Ludacris, Indigo Girls and KC & The Sunshine Band.
OC Fair Board Chair Dimetria Jackson came in second, taking about $5,500 worth of free tickets in 2025.
Board member Nick Kovacevich took just under $4,000 worth of free tickets.
While board member Robert Ruiz took just under $2,000 worth of free tickets, board member Tanya Bilezikjian took about $2,800 worth of free tickets.
Barbara Bagneris took home just about $1,500 worth of free tickets.
Board member Newton Pham took home about $300 worth of free tickets.
About 4,500 admission tickets to the fair were also donated last year to organizations like the Girl Scouts, OC Rescue Mission and various Boys & Girls Clubs.
Angelina Hicks is the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service Editor. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.
