The Minnesota State Fair has standards to keep stages as safe as possible for concert-goers and performers, fair officials said Monday, but acknowledged that the company that erects its temporary stages faces charges in Canada for a fatal stage collapse during a storm two years ago.

Renee Pearson, deputy general manager for entertainment and marketing, said two of the nine stages on the Minnesota fairgrounds are temporary structures like the one that collapsed Saturday night at the Indiana State Fair, killing five people before a concert by the country duo Sugarland. One is the largest venue at the fairgrounds, the 13,000-seat Grandstand.

Staging and lighting company Premier Global Production, of Nashville, Tenn., oversees local union stagehands who set up the temporary stages according to written standards, she said.

Premier did not work on the Indiana stages, but its Canadian subsidiary was one of three companies charged last month after a stage collapse during a fierce storm killed a woman attending the 2009 Big Valley Jamboree annual country music festival near Camrose, Alberta, and injured an additional 75 people.

"We knew about it when it happened," Pearson said of the accident in Canada. "That was another ... fluke weather incident."

Premier, which has done work at the fair since 2003, has taken steps since then to improve the safety of its stages, said Pearson. "I know they hired an engineer to come up with additional policies and procedures for their stage structures," she said.

Premier's chief financial officer, Kevin Blevins, said the company isn't commenting on the Canadian charges because they're still before the courts. But he supplied a report showing that the Alberta government certified that the company's stages passed inspection last month before the 2011 Big Valley Jamboree. He said they passed last year, too.

Minnesota State Fair officials also monitor the weather closely and work with local meteorologist Dave Dahl of KSTP-TV, who warns them of any potential dangers, she said. New for this year, she said, fair officials will also get localized e-mail alerts on their cellphones from WeatherSentry, a service of specialized weather information provider Telvent DTN. She said that was already in place before the Indiana accident.

Specific buildings are designated as storm shelters on fairgrounds maps and officials have a detailed evacuation plan for getting people into them if severe weather strikes, she said.

"We have had severe weather here in the past. The one thing we can't control is the weather," Pearson said.

The Minnesota State Fair opens Aug. 25.