Tulare County Fair

Never knew Tulare had a county fair. We came into town from Los Angeles for a quick day road trip so my husband's Grandmother can visit her the town she was born. We drove around, checked out a couple areas, and on our way out of town happened to come across the fair after dinner.We love a good spontaneous adventure and ending our little road trip at the fair sounded like the perfect idea. We purchased our tickets and parking pass online which was a quick and easy process. Glad we opted for that because the lines for ticket sales were ridiculously long.The fair was larger than what I had expected. Tons of rides and games. I was impressed with the number of kiosks available for purchasing ride/game wristbands. The kiosks were in multiple locations which made it a lot smoother to purchase. We watched my son enjoy a couple rides, we walked the entire space, and picked up some lemonades for the road on our way out. Looks like the party grows as the night goes on. Bands play, beer flows, and dancing commences. We got there a little too late and missed some vendors and didn't get a chance to see any of the animals. But coming across the fair certainly was a pleasant surprise for this trip.

I'll go ahead and Yelp review the Tulare fair just for the heck of it. This is an event I attend annually and look forward to, however this year was a bit awkward and was not enjoyable. The food was meh, the games and rides had to be purchased with a prepaid game card instead of just cash and tickets. It sucked the fun and tradition right out of it for me and to top it off the hours of operation were all out of whack. It's hard to tell if I'll come back next year or ever.

TLDR: Get you kids into strength training early cause you never know when 9 year old kids will need to bust out their hulk strength. Do your family a favor and just go to Six Flags.Let's be honest, no one yelps a fair but screw it, I'm venting.Ok lets start with the cons...The few rides they do have, are kept in poor working order. Constantly breaking down or causing issues when being operated. Ride employees are undertrained and management is useless. We waited in-line over an hour for bumper cars and the car the kids chose would not power on. Literally stuck in the middle with cars driving around them. And honestly, if we hadn't of waited in-line for so long, i probably would of just moved along and laughed about it later.So after the ride was over, we told the kids to get out of the broken car and told them to grab a working one. Figured it wouldn't be an issue. Wrong! The guy wanted us to get back in-line or atleast i assumed by the way he was flailing his arms. I don't speak spanish and he didn't speak english so we were at a crossroad. Another patron came by and helped with translation, which was nice.The employee blamed my friend's son for not reaching the pedals. Seriously?? The kid was almost as tall the employee. So clearly thats not the issue here. So things got a little heated, and we wanted to see the employee jump in and get it going. Back and forth we went. Dude blaming the kid, Us blaming the ride. Management came by and finally the employee was going to try to prove us wrong. He bends over to press the pedal from outside the car. Nothing. I dunno, maybe he couldn't reach the pedal. Then what happens next is so frustrating that its hilarious. This GROWN ADULT employee uses his physical strength to physically move the bumper car a foot over so the pole makes an electrical connection. Once he finished pushing the car over a foot over, the headlights turned on. He then proceeds to jump in the car and drive around, thinking he proved his point. Seeing the car moved pleased management despite the fact the employee almost popped a blood vessel moving the vehicle. Uselessness all around.And don't even get me started on the "fastpass" express shit, trying to act like they are doing us a favor by giving us options to waste our money. Here's an idea. Get more than 7 rides and maybe the lines won't be so long. Ok I'm exaggerating but seriously, I thought this was the the Tulare County Fair, not the Tulare County Carnival!And now for the pros...They are here only 5 days of the year.

TERRIBLY RUDE LADY WHEN YOU CALL NUMBER LISTED! I called the number listed to get information about the swap meets they hold there, not only was the lady RUDE she hung up on me and refused to give any information regarding days/times of their swap meets. I have head of their RUDE behavior toward vendors before but thought I would try calling for information...I guess they were correct! Safe to say I will not be a vendor here

This is hard to write. If you like busy fairs with lots to do this is NOT the fair for you.If you like slower paced NOT ghetto kind of quaint fairs this IS the one for you.No lines for rides, no gangster ass wannabe kids shouting and being annoying starting fights or whatever. It's a good honest what you see is what you get kind of fair. No more, no less.

The fair appears to be making some nice changes. It appears to be better set up with ample cleaning crew. The set up and decor is really nice this year (2015). Big shout out to those that volunteer to teach our children about farming. It is the heritage of our community and enriches these children's lives. Awesome displays and demonstrations. The volunteers do an excellent job engaging the children.

This fair has really turned itself around! Nice busy layout, the grounds look great, 3 main stages plus the grandstand. Kelli pickler, fog hat, Marty Stuart, plus monster trucks, demo derby and a rodeo. Nice selection of food vendors, not a lot of duplication. Some of the displays were great! SO much better than 3 years ago! Nice job!

It's the fair. It's packed, messy, and full of people. But the fair food. That's what it's all about. And maybe the live band.

Drove all the way from Fresno to attend their Winter Wonderland event...We bought their online ticket special 2 for $25 which had mandatory days you can attend. Unfortunately it rained when we arrived and they closed down. Management only would give return vouchers and refused cash refunds...worthless to people like us who drove an hour to come and won't have an opportunity to return...a very poor customer service policy and very unlikely to return. Also will be filing a report with the better business bureau.

We recently rented one of the buildings for our wedding reception due to the amount of guests we had it was the only reasonable venue we could afford. The positive notes I have is a couple of the staff members that were there helped us out a lot the day of and tried to make the day less stressful. Marcus was good to us and we appreciated him. The office manager we had to deal with a couple of times was one of the most rudest individuals we have ever had to deal with. Being a manager myself I have no idea how she has that position. She was horrible to deal with. We had to make a few changes and they always seemed to forget we had agreed upon. Cecilia was nice to deal with she is one of the office staff members. Luckily all guests complimented our decor for the wedding from our sting lighting to the chairs we rented made such a difference. The fair should consider letting vendors comingin it makes such a difference.