The Western Fair has endured declining attendance for more than four decades, but this year is the first the association behind the event won’t say how many people came through its turnstiles.

“That’s too much of a business question to be answering,” fair manager Kris Dinel said Sunday. “This will be the first year we don’t disclose our attendance.”

It was 1976 when fair attendance peaked at 448,000. By 1999, that figure stood at 288,597. Since then, attendance has tumbled as low as 155,514 in 2014, rebounding last year to 170,000.

“The fair today is not what it was 20 or 30 years ago,” Dinel said. “It will continue to evolve. I can almost guarantee it will look different five years from now.”

While fair officials won’t disclose attendance this year, they faced added challenges, one of their own making as they reduced days of public admission from 10 to eight— Monday and Tuesday were limited to school tours.

The other challenge was the return to London after 12 years of an air show that drew about 20,000 people over the weekend and left many more watching along streets near the airport.

Airshow London hit some turbulence — Saturday’s program was rained out — but organizers say the event exceeded expectations.

“It was the first year having an air show in London in 12 years, so we had some growing pains, but all in all, I’m very happy,” Event Director Dave DeKelver said. “We built a great foundation for the future.”

Highlights included an F-22 Raptor, a CF-18 Hornet and ground displays with more than 50 planes.

He hopes that future includes an aviation trade show, too, so that more people get involved in the industry, including students in Fanshawe College’s aviation program. “We think there’s an opportunity to grow,” DeKelver said.

At the Western Fair, Dinel says there is an ever-present need to adapt, a pressure that led to a major shift last year with the selection of a single midway operator, creation of the Imagination Park family friendly play area, and the replacement of grandstand music acts that could be found at many clubs with entertainment unique to fairs, like acrobats on sway poles — the Nerveless Nocks.

The goal is to appeal to families, so, for example, the fair opened an hour earlier on weekends, he said. Dinel wouldn’t say if it was realistic for the Western Fair Association to aim to break even on the fair.

Asked how the association measures the fair’s success, Dinel said there are three metrics — safety, agricultural education and the customer experience based on in-person and electronic surveys.

He was unsure what effect, if any, the airshow had on fair attendance, but said the event is clearly a benefit to London.

jsher@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/JSHERatLFPress