Minnesota State Fair sets post-pandemic attendance record

Fairgoers, you took advantage of beautiful weather and flocked to the Great Minnesota Get-Together this year, setting a post-pandemic record of 1,940,869 for the 12-day run.

You also set a new attendance record on the first Monday of the fair, when 145,022 of you beat the 2017 record — by about 500 tickets. But it was the only daily record set this year.

Folks descend on Falcon Heights to marvel at giant produce and baby animals, crop art and quilting, milk(shakes) and butterheads, giving us the highest average daily attendance of any of the nation’s competing State Fairs (we see you, Texas and Iowa), clocking in this year at 161,739.

Fairgoers in 2024 set five new daily attendance records. The first day of the fair this year got within about 1,700 tickets of hitting a record. And the first weekend of the fair surpassed last year by nearly 64,000 fairgoers.

Almost all of the current daily records were set in 2018, 2019 or 2024 — with a notable exception. The first Sunday record was set in 1994 and still stands, more than 30 years later.

It’ll stand yet another year. The first Sunday’s attendance was far above 2024’s level, but was still 25,000 shy of the mid-’90s record.

Apart from the day of the week (more on that later), one of the biggest factors to fair attendance is weather. The hotter and more humid — or rainy — a forecast fair day, generally the lower the attendance. Weather this year was clear and cool, a pleasant respite from a smoky and hot July.

The attendance data from the last 12 years shows us the best days of the week to hit the fair depending on your vibe. If you want to experience the State Fair without 250,000 of your best friends, our advice is to go during the week.

The fair draws more people than ever, but it wasn’t always 12 days long.

It began in 1859, the year after Minnesota was granted statehood, and was a much smaller endeavor, rotating locations around the state. The first year on the current grounds was in 1885, when the fair ran for six days. Gradually, more days were tacked on until reaching the current dozen in 1975.

The 2020 cancellation for COVID-19 was the sixth time the fair was called off. Not shown below are two years it was canceled for the Civil War, not long after the fair began.

Attendance records started to be collected in 1887, but even those early methods — reports of counting cars or families instead of individuals — are a bit dubious. The fair has always been popular, but take those older specifics with a grain of seed art.