More than a million people attended the 2008 Orange County Fair and the Department staffed the 21-day long event with 954 shifts, including Deputies, Sergeants, Reserves and Bike Patrol Teams.

Department services were provided under contract to the 32nd District Agricultural Association of the State of California. The fair ran from July 11th through August 3 and attendance ranged from a low of 31,433 on Thursday, July 24 to a high of 70,767 on Saturday July 19th.

Photo taken at OC Fair 2008 by Deputy William Nelson

A total of 1,043,467 people attended the fair, making it the 13th largest of all of the state and county fairs in the country. There were fewer people at this year’s fair than in 2007 but this year still ranked as the third highest attendance record for the Orange County Fair.

Calls for service were up by 25 percent over 2007. Department personnel responded to 620 incidents and/or calls for service.

There were 323 incident reports written, including 124 for criminal activity. Of the 124 criminal activity reports made, 74 resulted in arrests. Of those, 69 were for misdemeanors and five for felonies.  During the 2007 Fair, there were 51 arrests, 47 misdemeanors and four felonies. In 2007, there were 199 incident reports filed at the Fair.
                               
A total of 954 shifts were staffed for the 21-day duration of the fair.  An overview of uniformed field deployment is as follows:

 544 shifts were staffed by Sergeants and Deputies assigned to operations for a total of 5,474.50 hours

 57 shifts were staffed by the Bicycle Patrol Team for a total of 456 hours.

 410 shifts were staffed by Reserve Bureau Personnel for a total of 3,068 hours.