Though attendance was lower than last year, the 2024 Isle of Wight County Fair still turned a profit.

It’s the fourth year in a row that the fair has seen its revenues exceed expenditures.

Fair Coordinator Jenilee Hallman briefed county supervisors on Nov. 21. This year’s fair, held Sept. 12-15, saw $487,684 in revenue, not counting the value of non-monetary contributions by sponsors, and just over $356,000 in expenses, netting $131,645 in profit.

It’s an 18.7% decrease from last year’s nearly $162,000 profit but well above the roughly $69,800 profit Isle of Wight saw from its 2022 fair. Isle of Wight has traditionally budgeted with the expectation of having to subsidize a loss with tax dollars, but the past four fairs have reversed that trend.

“The county used to continually subsidize the fair about $60,000 to $80,000 per year,” County Administrator Randy Keaton said.

For the past four years, the fair has become “self-sustaining,” Hallman said.

Last year’s fair saw a record-breaking 38,657 attendees. Hallman gave this year’s total as 34,415, which is still higher than the 32,455 attendees seen in 2022.

“We’re still within our range of normal that’s between 30 to 35 (thousand),” Hallman said.

Sept. 14 saw the highest attendance of the four days at 18,294.

Attendance for this year’s Miss Isle of Wight County Fair scholarship pageant, at 254, was up over the 197 who attended last year. This year’s pageant saw five junior contestants ages 9-12, five teen contestants ages 13-16 and five miss contestants ages 17-22, which resulted in Blair Dickens named Miss Isle of Wight, Lana Janas named Teen Miss Isle of Wight and Adriauna Pena named Junior Miss Isle of Wight. Dickens will advance to the 2025 Miss Virginia Association of Fairs pageant on Jan. 5 in Williamsburg.

The county’s Seafood Fest, held the evening of Sept. 11 as the kickoff to the fair, drew 427 attendees, down 8% from the 466 who attended last year, and made a profit of $492 based on just over $12,000 in revenue less expenditures.

The Seafood Fest hasn’t been a money-maker in past years either, but isn’t intended to be. The county hosts the event and provides its fair sponsors free tickets as a means of thanking them for their contributions.

Next year’s Seafood Fest, in a departure from past years, is scheduled for Sept. 6 while the fair will start a week later and span Sept. 11-14.

“We’ve noticed that the attendance has kind of gone down, we’re not getting the number or volume of people that we were … so we’re moving the date,” said Robin Claud, who succeeded Danny Byrum this year as chairman of the Fair Committee. “We’re actually going to do Seafood Fest the week prior to the fair, the Saturday prior to the fair starting. … It’s our understanding that there’s many other food events like this throughout our region that have changed over to weekends versus weekdays.”

The date for the 2025 Seafood Fest would ordinarily overlap with the semiannual tractor pulls Isle of Wight hosts at its fairgrounds, but next year there will only be one tractor pull scheduled during the 2025 Spring Fest, which is set for April 25-27.