“Weird Al” Yankovic is the first act announced for the 2026 Minnesota State Fair Grandstand series.
Tickets for his Aug. 28 show — which will be the seventh time the pop parodist has played the Grandstand — are priced from $89.25 to $54 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday through Etix and by phone at 800-514-3849. Puddles Pity Party opens.
Yankovic, 66, began playing the accordion at the age of seven and grew up listening to Elton John, Spike Jones, Allan Sherman, Stan Freberg and Frank Zappa. When he was 16, radio DJ and Minneapolis native Dr. Demento spoke at his high school and Yankovic gave him a cassette recording of a song he wrote about his family’s Plymouth Belvedere. Dr. Demento played it on his syndicated comedy show, which Yankovic credits as the launch of his musical career.
While studying architecture at California Polytechnic State University, Yankovic began writing parody songs starting with “My Bologna,” a riff on the Knack’s hit “My Sharona.” He continued to get played on Dr. Demento’s radio show and, in 1981, joined the DJ’s stage show on tour. The following year, he signed a deal with Scotti Brothers Records.
Yankovic’s self-titled debut album arrived in 1983 and featured the parody singles “Another One Rides the Bus,” “Ricky” and “I Love Rocky Road” alongside seven original songs. He broke to a wider audience with his follow-up, “ ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic in 3-D,” thanks to his hit Michael Jackson parody “Eat It.” MTV put the video into heavy rotation and aired a series of specials starring Yankovic.
While it seemed like Yankovic’s shelf life would be short, he continued releasing albums through 2014’s “Mandatory Fun,” his first to hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts. He has said that’s his final record, although he has since issued a series of singles. Yankovic has won five Grammy awards out of 17 nominations and stands as the biggest-selling comedy artist in history.
In 2018, Yankovic embarked on what he called the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour. On it, he scaled back his multimedia concerts to a more intimate series of theater shows with a set list filled largely with his original songs, not the parody numbers that made him famous. It turned out to be a hit with his fans, and he revisited the concept in 2022.
Last year, Yankovic returned to his large-scale set list and stage, with a giant video wall, multiple costume changes and an eight-piece ensemble featuring his original band. More than 500,000 fans attended 75 concerts across 67 cities. Next year’s tour is even bigger and will hit 90 cities. It includes numerous other stops in the region, including Rapid City (June 24), Duluth (June 26), Sioux Falls (June 30), Cedar Rapids (July 1), Grand Forks (Aug. 29) and Green Bay (Oct. 16).
The 2026 Minnesota State Fair will run Aug. 27 through Labor Day, Sept. 7.
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