LA County Fair to celebrate ‘Stars, Stripes and Fun’

LOS ANGELES – The LA County Fair will return in 2024 celebrating the medley of communities that comprise Southern California with its theme “Stars, Stripes and Fun,” organizers announced on Wednesday.

LA County is one of the most diverse counties in the nation, brimming with a mix of cultures and communities, and the LA County Fair celebrates them all. Filipinos are the second-largest group of Asian Americans in the region.

Through song and dance, awe-inspiring exhibits and the enticing aroma of everything from corn dogs to turkey legs, tacos to red beans and rice, plantains to funnel cake, the Fair honors LA County with “Stars, Stripes and Fun.”

The LA County Fair returns in 2024 with the theme, “Stars, Stripes and Fun.” Photo from LA County Fair Facebook

“County fairs are a community celebration, and county and state fairs across the nation reflect the unique characteristics of all their communities. Fairs celebrate people in all our wonderful and intriguing variety,” Walter Marquez, president/CEO of Fairplex, said in a statement. “We are excited to embrace Southern California’s cultural mosaic with Stars, Stripes and Fun.”

The 16-day fair will begin on the first Friday of May, marking the third year of the event’s shift to spring. The event was traditionally in September. The move to spring was prompted by concerns about the late-summer heat. Organizers hope that milder spring weather would boost attendance.

Organizers said next year’s fair will include the return of the Big Red Barn and its array of animals and agricultural programming. It will also feature the Fairplex Garden Railroad, an exhibition by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the NextFext LA independent music festival.

Performers for the fair’s concert series will be announced in December, officials said.

The fair evolved from a commercial-industrial show along the Southern Pacific railroad siding in downtown Pomona in 1921. It proved so successful that the businessmen who produced it put on the first Los Angeles County Fair in October 1922.

The fair has been an annual event at the Fairplex since 1922. The exception is from 1942-47, when the facility was used by the U.S. Army as a prisoner of war camp for German and Italian soldiers. It was also used as a relocation camp for Japanese Americans. It also closed in 2020 and 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.