---
title: "Fair & Multi-Day Attendance Forecast | Ticket Fairy Free Tools"
description: "Enter your fair days, weather, ticket prices, passes and parking to forecast daily visits, gate peaks, cars against spaces and income at risk from rain."
canonical: "https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/fair-attendance-forecast"
---

# Fair & Multi-Day Attendance Forecast | Ticket Fairy Free Tools

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    Festival Producers · No signup required

# Fair & Multi-Day Attendance Forecast

Enter your fair days, the weather you want to plan for, ticket prices, passes and parking to forecast visits, gate queues, cars and the income rain would put at risk.

## Your fair

Pick your currency. If you know the total visits you expect across the whole run, enter it here and leave the daily numbers blank below.

   Currency    Total visits in good weather (optional)  Days you leave blank share this total by day type. Count every visit, including pass holders.

## Your days

Add a row for each day you are open. Enter last year's visits for that day if you have them, or leave the number blank to share the total. Pick the weather you want to plan for.

Blank days share the total by weight: weekday 1, Friday 1.4, Saturday 2.2, Sunday 1.8, holiday 2. Weather changes each day's visits: good 100%, mixed 85%, wet 60%, severe 25%. These are directional starting points, not measured rates. Replace them with your own history when you have it.

## Tickets and passes

Advance tickets are paid before the weather is known. Gate tickets are bought on the day.

   Day tickets bought in advance % The share of day-ticket visitors who buy before the day, in a normal year.   Children's tickets % The share of day tickets sold at the child price.   Advance adult price $   Gate adult price $   Advance child price $ Enter 0 if children go free.   Gate child price $   Season or multi-day passes sold  Enter 0 if you only sell day tickets.   Visits per pass  How many days the average pass holder actually comes. Your scan data shows this.   Pass price $

## Parking and gates

How people arrive, how much room you have for their cars and how the crowd reaches your gates.

   Visitors who arrive by car %   People per car  Families fill cars. Adults-only days fill fewer seats.   Parking fee per car $ Enter 0 if parking is free.   Parking spaces  All the lots you control, including grass fields you can open.   Cars per space each day  1 if cars stay all day. 1.5 means half the spaces are used twice.   Opening hours each day    Visitors arriving in the busiest hour % The share of the day's visitors who come through the gates in the busiest hour.

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### Run this with live data

Connect this calculation to your event sales, add-ons and check-ins in Ticket Fairy, then follow the results in a live dashboard instead of a one-off snapshot.

 [See the platform](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/)

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           TL;DR

To forecast fair attendance, start from last year's visits for each day type, then adjust each day for the weather. Weekend days often draw about twice a weekday, and a wet day can cost around 40% of that day's visits. In the example below, a five-day fair expecting 74,000 visits loses 25% of its ticket income if every day is wet, instead of 40%, because 37% of its good-weather ticket income is paid in advance or through passes.

## How fairs forecast attendance

Most fair managers forecast from their own history. Three inputs matter most:

1. **Prior years by day type.** Group past days into weekdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, and take a typical good-weather figure for each. A yearly total hides the daily pattern that staff and parking depend on.
2. **Weather.** Note the weather on each past day, so a wet Saturday does not drag down your Saturday baseline. Plan for good weather, then test mixed and wet days.
3. **Competing events and your programme.** A big game, a school term date, a heatwave or a rival festival can move a day by thousands. So can a grandstand headliner, a livestock show or a demolition derby of your own.

In this forecast, enter the days you know and leave the rest blank to share a total by day type.

## Weekday and weekend attendance at a fair

Weekends and public holidays carry most fairs. Weekdays depend on schools, seniors' days and local workers. The weights below are directional starting points for sharing a total, not industry statistics.

| Day type | Weight | Share of 74,000 visits over Wed to Sun | What drives it |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Weekday | 1 | 10,000 each | School groups, seniors' and discount days, evening visitors after work. |
| Friday | 1\.4 | 14,000 | An evening crowd, often for a grandstand show or carnival rides. |
| Saturday | 2\.2 | 22,000 | Families all day. Usually the busiest day, and the one parking must be sized for. |
| Sunday | 1\.8 | 18,000 | Families, with an earlier finish. |
| Holiday | 2 | Not used here | A public holiday behaves like a weekend day, even midweek. |

## How much does rain reduce fair attendance?

Walk-up visitors are the first to stay away when the weather turns. This forecast applies four directional multipliers to each day's good-weather figure:

- **Good: 100%.** Dry and comfortable.
- **Mixed: 85%.** Showers, a cold wind or heat that keeps some families at home.
- **Wet: 60%.** Steady rain for much of the day.
- **Severe: 25%.** Storm warnings, extreme heat or a part-day closure.

Your own fair may differ a lot. A fair with big indoor halls loses less on a wet day than a field site. Replace these figures with your own history when you have it, and check the forecast from a source such as the [National Weather Service](https://www.weather.gov) or the [Met Office](https://www.metoffice.gov.uk) as the dates get close. On Ticket Fairy, an event with a physical venue shows a weather card on the event page: a live forecast within about 8 days of the date, and typical conditions for the date further out.

## Why advance tickets protect you against weather

A ticket bought in advance is paid for before anyone knows the weather. When it rains, some advance buyers stay home, but the money is already yours. Gate sales carry the whole weather risk. That is why this forecast counts advance tickets from the good-weather figure and lets only gate sales fall with the weather.

If every visitor bought at the gate, a wet day at 60% would cut ticket income by 40%. Each share of income you collect in advance takes that share out of the weather's reach. A lower advance price is often worth it, because it moves buyers from the gate into money you hold before the fair opens. The [presale timing planner](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/presale-timing-planner) helps you decide when to open advance sales.

## Season and multi-day pass holders

A pass is paid once and used on several days. What matters for your forecast is how many visits each pass actually produces, not how many days it allows. A pass valid for 10 days might be used 3 times. This forecast spreads pass visits across your days in line with each day's attendance, and counts pass income once, in advance.

On Ticket Fairy, multi-day tickets carry per-day scanning validity, so each scan shows door staff the correct day's wristband. Payment plans can split a higher-priced pass into 2 to 6 instalments. See [multi-day event ticketing](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/multi-day-event-ticketing-system).

## Parking: cars, people per car and turnover

Cars per day = visits × share arriving by car ÷ people per car. Families bring 3 or more people per car, while adults-only evenings may bring fewer than 2. Turnover is how many cars use each space in a day. When people stay for 4 hours of a 12-hour day, a space can be used more than once. Cars parked at the busiest time are about cars per day ÷ turnover. When that is higher than your spaces, you need overflow fields or a shuttle. On Ticket Fairy you can sell parking as an add-on alongside tickets, so prepaid cars are counted before the day.

## Gate peak and staffing

Arrivals are uneven. At many fairs, 15% to 20% of a day's visitors come through the gates in the busiest hour. Divide that hour by 60 to get people a minute, then divide by what one scanning lane handles, about 6 people a minute in this forecast. Size your gates for the busiest hour of your busiest day, then use the [event staffing calculator](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/event-staffing-calculator) for the full team. Ticket Fairy's check-in dashboard shows arrivals and entry rates for each gate as they happen, and timed-entry tickets can cap each arrival window. See [timed-entry ticketing](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/timed-entry-ticketing).

## How the answer changes with size

For a 2-day, 3,000-visit food or craft fair, the day-type split gives 1,650 visits on Saturday and 1,350 on Sunday. At 18% in the busiest hour, that is about 5 people a minute on Saturday, so one scanning lane copes. Parking is a few hundred cars. For an 18-day state fair with 1,000,000 visits, a big Saturday can pass 80,000, with over 250 people a minute in the busiest hour across many gates, and parking across several lots. The formula is the same. What changes is how many gates, lots and days one wet forecast can affect.

  Worked example

#### Five-day county fair, Wednesday to Sunday, 74,000 good-weather visits

All days left blank, so they share the total. Friday is mixed, Saturday is wet, the other days are good. 40% of day-ticket visitors buy in advance, 30% of tickets are for children. Advance prices: $12 adult, $6 child. Gate prices: $15 adult, $8 child. 1,000 passes at $40, used 3 times each. 85% arrive by car, 2.8 people per car, $10 parking, 4,000 spaces used 1.5 times a day. 12 opening hours, 18% in the busiest hour.

- Weights add up to 7.4, so each weight point is 74,000 ÷ 7.4 = 10,000 visits. Wednesday and Thursday 10,000 each, Friday 14,000, Saturday 22,000, Sunday 18,000.
- Average ticket prices: advance 70% × $12 + 30% × $6 = $10.20. Gate 70% × $15 + 30% × $8 = $12.90.
- Saturday: pass holders account for about 892 of the 22,000 good-weather visits. Advance tickets: 40% of the other 21,108 = 8,443. Rain cuts the day to 22,000 × 60% = **13,200 visits**, of which 535 are pass holders and 5,066 are advance buyers who still come, leaving **7,599 gate tickets**. The other 3,377 advance buyers stay away, but their tickets are already paid for.
- Saturday day-ticket income: 8,443 × $10.20 + 7,599 × $12.90 = **$184,146**. Busiest hour: 13,200 × 18% = 2,376 visitors, 39.6 a minute, 7 scanning lanes.
- Saturday parking: 13,200 × 85% ÷ 2.8 = 4,007 cars, about 2,672 parked at once, $40,070.
- Sunday is the busiest day in this weather: 18,000 visits, 54 a minute in the busiest hour, 9 lanes, and 5,464 cars with about 3,643 parked at once. That is over 90% of 4,000 spaces, so the status is **Parking is tight**.
- Whole fair: **63,100 visits**, 28,400 advance tickets sold, 36,326 gate tickets, **$798,285** of ticket and pass income and **$191,560** of parking income.
- Good weather every day would bring $879,220 of ticket and pass income. Rain on every day would bring $659,391, a loss of **$219,829 (25%)**. The $289,680 of advance tickets and $40,000 of passes, 37% of good-weather ticket income, are paid either way.

Had every visitor bought at the gate, the same rain would have cut ticket income by 40%.

## Common fair forecasting mistakes

1. **Forecasting from last year's total.** One wet Saturday last year pulls this year's forecast down. Build each day type from good-weather days.
2. **Counting passes as visitors.** 1,000 passes are not 1,000 visitors a day. Use visits per pass from your scan data.
3. **Sizing parking for the average day.** Parking fails on your busiest day at its busiest hour. Plan overflow for that day, not for the weekly average.
4. **Setting a small gap between advance and gate prices.** If advance tickets save visitors little, most wait for the forecast, and you carry the weather risk.
5. **Staffing gates for the daily average.** Queues form in the busiest hour. Divide peak arrivals by 60 and staff to that rate.

### Further reading

- [Event staffing calculator](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/event-staffing-calculator)
- [Festival capacity calculator](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/festival-capacity-calculator)
- [Presale timing planner](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/presale-timing-planner)
- [Event cash flow planner](https://www.ticketfairy.com/tools/event-cash-flow-planner)
- [State and county fair ticketing](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/state-county-fair-ticketing-system)
- [Ticket Fairy pricing](https://www.ticketfairy.com/pricing)
- [International Association of Fairs and Expositions](https://www.fairsandexpos.com)

## Frequently asked questions

  How do you estimate attendance for a county fair?

Start from your own history. Take a typical good-weather figure for each day type (weekdays, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holidays), then adjust each day for the weather and for anything competing that week. If you only know a total, share it by day type. This forecast uses weights of 1 for a weekday, 1.4 for Friday, 2.2 for Saturday, 1.8 for Sunday and 2 for a holiday, so 74,000 visits over Wednesday to Sunday gives 10,000 on each weekday and 22,000 on Saturday.

   How much does rain reduce attendance at an outdoor fair?

It varies a lot by site. As a directional starting point, this forecast keeps 85% of a day's visits in mixed weather, 60% on a wet day and 25% in severe weather. A fair with large indoor halls usually loses less than a field site. Replace these figures with your own records of past wet days when you have them.

   Why should a fair sell tickets in advance?

An advance ticket is paid before anyone knows the weather, so the money is yours even if the buyer stays home on a wet day. Gate sales carry all the weather risk. In the worked example, rain on every day would cut ticket income by 40% if everyone bought at the gate, but only by 25% because 37% of good-weather ticket income comes from advance tickets and passes.

   How many parking spaces does a fair need?

Cars per day equals visits times the share arriving by car divided by people per car. Cars parked at the busiest time are about cars per day divided by how many times each space is used in a day. For 18,000 visits, 85% by car, 2.8 people per car and each space used 1.5 times, that is 5,464 cars and about 3,643 parked at once, so 4,000 spaces are over 90% full.

   How many people arrive at a fair in the peak hour?

At many fairs 15% to 20% of a day's visitors arrive in the busiest hour. At 18% of 18,000 visitors, that is 3,240 people in the hour, or 54 a minute. At about 6 people a minute per scanning lane, you need 9 lanes open at that hour.

   How many times do season pass holders visit a fair?

Fewer than the pass allows. A pass valid for every day of the fair might be used 3 or 4 times. Use the visits per pass from your own scan data. This forecast multiplies passes by visits per pass, spreads those visits across your days in line with attendance and counts the pass income once, in advance.

Reviewed and updated September 2026 by the [Ticket Fairy](https://www.ticketfairy.com/about) events data team. Benchmarks in this tool are directional — for real-time analytics against your own event history, use [Ticket Fairy Intelligence](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/).

---

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