Who doesn’t love the Minnesota State Fair? Plenty of people, it turns out.

Sean Dillon has tried to love the Minnesota State Fair like a local. Friends have even offered to guide him through it.

But the Fargo native and one-time New Yorker who now lives in Minneapolis doesn’t have nostalgia to fall back on, no baby’s first Skyride pinned to his refrigerator.

Dillon’s first visit in 2019 simply wasn’t a match.

“Seeing animals birthed is not something that especially excites me,” said the 44-year-old. He also cites a disinterest in farm equipment and an inability to eat more than four things before he gets sick as a reason to stay away.

(Note to everyone but Dillon, the CHS Birth Center had newborn lambs lazing about on Thursday, this year’s opening day.)

About a third of Minnesotans go to the event billed as the Great Minnesota Get-Together, assuming everyone who goes is from Minnesota and only goes once. That means two-thirds of Minnesotans don’t.

These people aren’t lured by the seeming lawlessness of parking on a St. Paul resident’s front yard. The idea of beer slushies and deep-fried ranch dressing just seems wrong. And carving Princess Kay’s likeness into 90 pounds of butter seems like a waste when there is so much corn on the cob in this state.

Fair naysayers say there are too many people, and it’s too hot. It has grown expensive (gate admission is $20, and a family of four could spend nearly $50 on floats alone) and there is nothing new to see. They aren’t interested in waiting an hour for a bus to get there, or driving for a half hour only to wait in line to park for an hour.

Derek Martin, 35, tried it once a few years ago. He won’t go back.

“Too many people,” he said, cutting quickly through the West Duluth Super One parking lot. Indeed, even on its least-crowded day last year (the first Monday) there were still more than 80,000 people.

In a call-out on social media, at least one respondent cited celiac disease, an autoimmune disease that flares with the consumption of gluten. There is a lot of gluten at the fair.

The amount of walking and the pace of those doing it is frustrating, people said, then add strollers and wagons and avoiding horse dung and fallen Sweet Martha’s cookies.

Maya Farrell and her family, which includes an 8-year-old, prefer the size of their hometown get-together: the Lake County Fair in Two Harbors. The money she puts toward a bratwurst goes to the local 4-H. And it’s a place where kids can run free.

“Here I can say, ‘Go look at the poultry,’” she said.

Jen and John Ondrik, of Duluth, also found an alternate fair that better suits them: Cornucopia Day in Wisconsin, just more than 60 miles from Duluth along the shore of Lake Superior. This year’s event had a fish fry, beer and, the biggest draw for Jen, a flea market.

“Just enough people,” John Ondrik said.

Skipping the fair is a metro thing, too.

She stopped going 24 years ago.

“Sometimes you’d see unique things there, but a lot of it was the same year after year,” she said. “I’ve seen everything I want to see there.”

Aaron Allen Sr., who lives in the Midway area of St. Paul, said that it has been a few years since he has gone and that he doesn’t plan to go this year.

“You can literally, from the prices they charge, you could get enough food that would last you a week if you went to the grocery store,” he said. “There’s a lot going on in the economy as is. If they do want more people, they should make the prices somewhat fairer. “

Sharon Carlson, 65, of Andover, said she experiences JOMO, the joy of missing out, at State Fair time. In her 20s, she worked as a food server at the fair for several years. And she was in 4-H as a youth.

She said most of the fair food is too unhealthy for her these days. And, “I don’t enjoy eating food in the heat.”

She said she can’t remember the last time she went. “I’m a real big Minnesota fan. But not the State Fair.”

Chris Hewitt and Richard Chin of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.