CALI Strong at the San Diego County Fair / Del Mar Fairgrounds 2015

Start your summer of 2015 with CALI Strong at the San Diego County Fair! For the first time, CALI Strong is releasing our new 2015 product lineup. This will be the public’s first chance to buy the latest CALi Strong skateboards, surfboards, snowboards, beach cruisers, shoes, t-shirts, hats, hoodies and socks. All of CALI Strong’s Kicks come with free designer limited edition socks in the box.

The San Diego County Fair (formerly referred to as the Del Mar Fair) is an annual fair held every summer in Del Mar, California. You can understand why it was once called the Del Mar Fair! More than one million people attend annually! That dwarfs the attendance numbers of the nearby Ventura County Fair. Almost 1.5 million people visited the San Diego County Fair.

The San Diego County Fair was first held in 1880, just six short years after the Ventura County Fair opened. County fairs were all the rage in the mid to late 1800s. It’s interesting that many of the county fairs from the time are still held to this day. It was just an agricultural fair when it opened in 1880, and it moved from venue to venue until it finally arrived at Del Mar in 1936. The name, San Diego County Fair, wasn’t popularly used to refer to the fair until 2002. Before that it had been called the Southern California Exposition and San Diego County Fair, the Southern California Exposition, and the Del Mar Fair. Some locals still refer to it as the Del Mar Fair.

One of the signature features of the fair used to be a beauty pageant. It was an annual feature from 1936 to 2003. The winner was called the Queen of the Fair. The winner’s title was then changed to the Fairest of the Fair. It was discontinued in 2004 because of a legal squabble and the high cost of maintaining the beauty pageant.

The fair has had a theme every year since 1998. In 2015, it was “A Fair to Remember”, and in 1998, it was “Camping”.

For the 2015 fair, attractions & exhibits include the following:

• Wild West Turkey Stampede – You won’t believe your eyes when you see these wacky birds chasing a radio-controlled trucked filled with their feed, barreling toward the finish line.
• Swifty Swine – Watch as tiny piglets race around the track. The winner gets an Oreo cookie reward!
• Magic Shows – Southern California’s finest magicians perform at the nightly magic shows.

Organizers say there will be more than 100 food vendors sprinkled across the fairgrounds cooking up more than 1,000 different items. Some of the foods added to this year’s lineup include sweet pork tacos, Chocolate-Covered Pork Rinds, Cajun Hushpuppies, a grilled French onion soup sandwich, Wasabi Bacon Bombs, and a deep-fried Slimfast bar.

There’s a lot more to be seen & experienced at the fair. See the animals, go on rides and play games, and enjoy delicious meals & drinks. The San Diego Fair is attended by hundreds of thousands of people, and there is a ton of stuff to do. It’s a good idea to go more than once each season.

• $15 for adults
• $8 for children ages 6 to 12
• $8 for adults 62 and older
• Free for kids ages 5 and younger

Parking at the Fairgrounds costs $10 per vehicle and is cash-only. Preferred parking is also available for $20 per car in a specially-marked parking zone just past the main entrance.

Free parking is available at three off-site lots, too, and then attendees can take a free shuttle service into the fair that leaves from the lots every 15 to 20 minutes. Those lots are located at Horsepark (14550 El Camino Real), MiraCosta College’s San Elijo Campus (3333 Manchester Ave.) and Torrey Pines High School (3710 Del Mar Heights Rd.).

The dates for the 2015 San Diego County Fair are June 5 through July 5. The Fair is closed Mondays and the first two Tuesdays. (Closed dates are June 8, 9, 15, 16, 22 and 29).