{"id":451305,"date":"2026-09-02T18:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/451305\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T18:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:24:11","slug":"fact-brief-is-the-santa-clara-county-fair-put-on-by-a-private-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/451305\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact Brief: Is the Santa Clara County Fair put on by a private organization?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/sanjosespotlight.com\/news\/gigafact\/\" class=\"cmsmasters_cat_color cmsmasters_cat_541\" rel=\"category tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gigafact<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/sanjosespotlight.com\/profile\/donovan-farnham\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-del=\"avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/donovan-150x150.jpg\" class=\"avatar pp-user-avatar avatar-100 photo \" height=\"100\" width=\"100\"\/><\/a>September 2, 2026September 1, 2026<a href=\"https:\/\/sanjosespotlight.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/12162349\/Fairgrounds-7-scaled.jpeg\" title=\"Fact Brief: Is the Santa Clara County Fair put on by a private organization?\" rel=\"ilightbox[cmsmasters_open_post_img_6a985661679b7] nofollow noopener\" class=\"cmsmasters_img_link\" target=\"_blank\"><img width=\"1160\" height=\"560\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Fairgrounds-7-1160x560.jpeg\" class=\" wp-post-image\" alt=\"The entrance to the fairgrounds in Santa Clara County, California\" title=\"Fairgrounds - 7\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Santa Clara County Fairgrounds entrance archway, which has stood at the site since 1956. File photo.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t miss a story.<\/p>\n<p>Get San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight headlines delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 150px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/factBriefImage.jpeg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Santa Clara County Fair is hosted and run by a private organization, the Fair Management Corporation since 1995. FMC is a nonprofit five-member board of directors that is separate from the county, where two directors are appointed by the county Board of Supervisors and three directors are county employees appointed by County Executive\u2019s Office. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0This change was made in May after the county argued there was too little oversight of FMC and long-term planning for the fairgrounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The first fair took place in 1944 and grew in popularity peaking in 1967 when attendance topped 360,000 over the 10-day festival. At one point, it was the third largest in California.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1990s, financial instability and mismanagement of the fairgrounds led FMC\u2019s predecessor to declare bankruptcy in 1994.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/SanJose\/comments\/1vnvlq4\/comment\/p3kyvjp\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight partners with <a href=\"https:\/\/gigafact.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Gigafact<\/a> to produce fact briefs \u2014 bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our <a href=\"https:\/\/gigafact.org\/guidelines-principles-and-methodologies\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">methodology<\/a> to learn how we check claims.<\/p>\n<p>Sources<\/p>\n<p>\t&#13;<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe To Our Newsletter<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tComment Policy (updated 5\/10\/2023): Readers are required to log in through a social media or email platform to confirm authenticity. We reserve the right to delete comments or ban users who engage in personal attacks, hate speech, excess profanity or make verifiably false statements. Comments are moderated and approved by admin.&#13;\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; GigafactSeptember 2, 2026September 1, 2026 The Santa Clara County Fairgrounds entrance archway, which has stood at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-451305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}