Essex Junction, VT – People are packing into the Champlain Valley Fair in record numbers, helped out by clear weather.

Jeff Bartley with the fair says more than 16,000 people turned out Sunday and if you add in the concession areas, the total was more than 18,000 people. That’s the highest-attended Sunday in the Champlain Valley Fair’s history.

Bartley says, “I mean, the weather helped a little bit.  Saturday they probably stayed home.  They saw the weather on Sunday. But, we had the monster truck show, that was sold out.  We have a ton of free entertainment.  Our midway is celebrating their 100^th anniversary, so they opened up the midway for 100 minutes, absolutely free.  So it’s kind of a perfect storm.”

Bartley says they parked 5,000 cars Sunday, so many that they opened up off-site parking.   

The big concert event of the fair is coming up Friday. Ludacris is scheduled to perform. About 6,000 tickets have already sold with a capacity of 7,700.