Was the 2024 Minnesota State Fair a Record-Breaking Year?
The Minnesota State Fair wrapped up the 2024 season yesterday. I was able to go twice and on our second day there it was so jam-packed all day I thought, 'this, for sure, is a record-breaking day'.
So just how did the state fair do this year? Also, what's up with all of the people saying the state fair is dead? It's far from that, and I'll show you why.
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Minnesota State Fair Breaks Records in 2024
This year at the Great Minnesota Get-Together we didn't break one, two, three, or even four records. We broke FIVE attendance records throughout the 2024 fair. That's crazy!
The last time five attendance records were broken was in 2019.
It started on opening day with the busiest opening day for the state fair ever. 138,875 people walked through the fairgrounds. It happened the next day too with 171,233 people.
We broke another record on the Wednesday of the fair with 145,531 people. Once again, we broke a record on the second Friday of the fair with 225,521 people (I was there for that!).
And finally, we broke the attendance record for the second Sunday of the fair with 256,015 people.
With all of these record-breaking days, you'd think that we'd also have an overall attendance record on our hands. We broke the overall attendance record in 2019, which was the last time we broke five single-day records in one year.
But we didn't, and it's not surprising as to why. The weather didn't cooperate for a few of the days.
The first Sunday and Monday were insanely hot (Monday only saw 80,546 people. The record is 144,504). We got storms twice during the fair this year, too, but it was especially felt on the second Thursday with only 81,231 people going (the record is 156,764).
However, in total, 1,925,904 people came to the Great Minnesota Get-Together which isn't too far behind the record from 2019 of 2,126,551.
And yet for some reason, people are deciding to say that the Minnesota State Fair is dying.
Why Are People Saying the Minnesota State Fair is Dying?
I honestly don't have a true answer as to why people are saying this but for some reason, it's been going around A LOT this year. I really don't understand how people have come to the conclusion that the fair is dying.
Yes, I'm a huge fair fan, but even without that, the numbers don't lie. Five record-breaking days, plus this is the highest attended the fair has been since COVID. I think the fair is far from dead and as long as Mother Nature decides to cooperate, I could see us getting even higher attendance numbers next year.
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Gallery Credit: Samm Adams
