If this year’s Minnesota State Fair felt particularly busy to you, you’re right.
With total ticket sales of 1,925,904, this year’s Fair was the best-attended Get-Together since before the pandemic and the fifth-busiest of all time. Compared to last year, the Fairgrounds hosted an average of 7,500 more people per day this year.
Out of the Fair’s 12 days, five — including opening day — broke attendance records. Sunday, Sept. 1, was the second-busiest day in State Fair history, with 256,015 visitors showing up to the Fairgrounds. (The single-day record of 270,426 was set on the second Saturday of the 2018 Fair.)
Gov. Tim Walz, currently on the campaign trail as the Democratic vice presidential nominee, was one of Sunday’s fairgoers; he ate a pork chop on a stick and a milkshake during a short visit.
Massive lines were an unmissable sight at this year’s Fair, with significant wait times for new and popular foods including the buzzy deep-fried ranch dressing at LuLu’s Public House and the Amish doughnuts from Peachey’s Baking Company.
Despite record-smashing days, this year’s overall attendance was sunk by a pair of unusually sparse weekdays that were likely the result of unpleasant weather.
With high humidity and heat indexes in the triple digits Monday, Aug. 26, and rainstorms in the forecast Thursday, Aug. 29, attendance totals on both days barely topped 80,000. That was about half the average daily attendance for this year’s fair.
And a severe storm late Monday into Tuesday morning left vendors and grounds crews scrambling to clean up debris, and the Fair opened two hours late Tuesday — an unprecedented delay. The sun had come out by mid-morning Tuesday, though, and attendance for the day still reached a respectable 124,777.
“This year’s (State Fair) had its share of Minnesota weather, and the State Fair team responded by pulling together to keep people safe and to take care of the fairgrounds amidst episodes of extreme heat and humidity, rainstorms and high winds,” Fair CEO Renee Alexander said in a statement after the Fair concluded. “The Great Minnesota Get-Together is truly a special event where we can celebrate all that is great about Minnesota and each other.”
Few incidents of crime were reported on the Fairgrounds during this year’s Fair.
Late on Aug. 24, State Fair police responded to an altercation on the Fairgrounds and one person was checked for a possible head injury; separately that night, in response to a report of a stabbing, officers found one person with a non-critical leg injury from an undetermined cause, per the Fair.
About 10:20 p.m. on Labor Day, a 17-year-old was shot in the leg several blocks away from the Fairgrounds; that incident took place more than an hour after the Fair had closed for the year.
A 2022 incident in which a person was shot in the leg about 10 p.m. in the Midway area is the only Fairgrounds shooting that State Fair police chief Ron Knafla recalls in his 35 years of working at the Fair, he said last year. In response, security efforts were significantly amped up during last year’s and this year’s Fairs.
Minnesota State Fair by the numbers
The Fair’s creative activities and agricultural competitions, from livestock to flowers to canned fruits, drew more than 34,000 entries and awarded about $2 million in prize money, according to the Fair.
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Although no calves were born at the CHS Miracle of Birth Center due to disease concerns, the popular building still saw the births of 159 newborn animals.
And here are the daily attendance numbers, with comparisons to the 2023 Fair:
Thursday, Aug. 22: 138,875 (32,548 more than last year; a new record for the day)
Friday, Aug 23: 171,233 (6,492 more than last year; a new record for the day)
Saturday, Aug. 24: 184,564 (28,286 fewer than last year)
Sunday, Aug. 25: 134,644 (39,080 fewer than last year)
Monday, Aug. 26: 80,546 (53,600 fewer than last year)
Tuesday, Aug. 27: 124,777 (10175 fewer than last year)
Wednesday, Aug. 28: 145,531 (17,463 more than last year; a new record for the day)
Thursday, Aug. 29: 81,231 (48,270 fewer than last year)
Friday, Aug. 30: 225,521 (35,231 more than last year; a new record for the day)
Saturday, Aug. 31: 207,078 (6,908 more than last year)
Sunday, Sept. 1: 256,015 (114,689 more than last year; a new record for the day)
Monday, Sept. 2: 175,889 (56,158 more than last year)
