Bad weather may have kept people away from this year's Spring Fling, but UA clubs and organizations earned about $70,000, almost as much as last year, the executive director of the carnival said.

Executive Director Kirk Seeley said that, although he is not sure whether the event made a profit overall, he is sure many UA clubs and organizations profited from the booths they ran during the carnival.

Since carnival-goers used tickets for purchases at Spring Fling, clubs will not get their cash until May 1. After the Spring Fling's business office finishes processesing the receipts, it will distribute the money to clubs and organizations according to how much each made at its booth during the carnival.

The amount is a decrease from last year when the food, beverage and entertainment booths received between $73,000 - 75,000, Seeley said.

He said he is unsure if ASUA will end up with a profit from Spring Fling because it takes months to calculate revenue and pay off the carnival's expenses to determine that.

But Spring Fling organizers do know that total attendance, calculated through the carnival's turnstyles, was almost 29,000, compared to last year's 33,000.

The number of people who bought tickets at the gate this year was down about 12 percent from last year.

But, Seeley said, the number who prepurchased tickets at Fry's Food Stores increased from last year.

This was the second year the carnival has done the presale program with the food store chain.

The exact numbers of tickets sold through Fry's could not be released, Seeley said.

Despite higher numbers of tickets sold, Seeley said the carnival's overall attendance was down because of the cold and windy weather during the carnival weekend, April 4-7.

Lisa East, the spring fling chair for Pi Beta Phi sorority, which had a food booth with Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, said the weather hurt their sales a little.

"The weather wasn't great, it was cold, but overall we did well."

The turnout on Friday and Saturday was low compared to last year, Seeley said. Spring Fling also had a lot of people who purchased tickets but walked away because of the weather.

Seeley said, "We are very pleased with our progress this year, with the changes we made."

Seeley said the food court, which had tables where people could sit and eat, and the commercial game booths were the two most successful changes this year.

Tom Jull, president of the UA student organization, Financial Management Association, said he was happy with the Material Science and Engineering/FMA's "Rising Water" booth at the carnival.

"The only complaint we had with running a commercial game booth was that the carnival workers who helped us were rude and obnoxious," said Jull, a UA graduate student.

Seeley said one addition, the laser show, was unsuccessful because of the weather.

He said that Thursday the laser machine blew a fuse and Friday the wind kept them from getting the screen up.