DALLAS—Nearly a week into the State Fair of Texas, attendance and sales are way down.

Vendors of everything from hot tubs to stuffed jalapeno cookers are reporting up to an 80 percent drop in sales, and there just aren’t as many people walking around.

“Last year you couldn’t get across the aisles,” Brad Collins, who sells custom-built Western furniture at the fair, said in The Dallas Morning News on Thursday. “Now you can shoot a gun in here and nobody would get hit.”

There are no solid numbers available yet on just how much attendance is off. State Fair spokeswoman Sue Gooding said income from food and rides is used to gauge attendance, but no comparisons are made till the last day of the fair.

Some say plummeting stocks and the uncertain economy might cause visitors to clutch their wallets tighter.

“We’re spending a lot less as we watch our money disappear from the stock market and our retirement go down the drain,” said Jeanny Allen, a fairgoer from Corsicana.

While the economy may be a problem, Gooding also blames the lack of early football games. Last Saturday was the first time in five years when there wasn’t one for the fair’s opening weekend.

This Saturday, Prairie View A&M University and Grambling State University play in the Cotton Bowl, and the following weekend the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma renew their rivalry. On the eve of the fair’s closing, Texas A&M-Commerce plays East Central University.