2024 Mid-Fair Check-In

Yesterday marked Day 6 of the Fair - the halfway point! I thought I’d do a quick check-in midway through.

Attendance

The Fair started with a bang, setting attendance records on the first two days. We were there both days (don’t remind me of the day 1 parking debacle), and although there were 171k people there on Friday, the 139k on Thursday felt more crowded to me (maybe the first-day’ers arrived earlier, plus the rain forced us all inside).

Weekend attendance was low for a weekend, and then it fell off a cliff Monday (only 80k attendees!) This was weather-related; things returned to normal on Tuesday as the weather cooled off.

Transit’s been running smoothly, no waits for busses!

Weather’s Been a Factor

Weather’s been a storyline all Fair. On Day 1, what was forecasted as spotty showers turned into a steady rain for much of the afternoon, forcing the record crowds indoors, making all of the buildings very unpleasant.

Weekend attendance was down because of the excessive heat warnings, and Monday’s weather was truly miserable - the nastiest humidity I’ve felt in Minnesota. I suspect that caused the shift in attendance to the first two days.

Then, the main event on Monday night, storms with 70 MPH winds hit the Fairgrounds, closing the Midway and Kidway, flooding the area near the corn roast, toppling vendor displays and port-a-potties, and cancelling the evening grandstand concert. The damage was extensive enough to force the Fair to delay opening Tuesday morning by a couple of hours, the first time in memory that’s happened.

Let’s hope the second half is quieter!

New Food Vibes

This feels like an off year for new foods. I’m just not hearing as much buzz, and there haven’t been many wow moments so far. The closest I’ve come is RC BBQ’s Sweet Heat Bacon Crunch, but the pricing on that was a bit of a damper. I still have several things to try though, so maybe it’ll finish strong.

Where the Lines Are

The long lines have been at:

• Nordic Waffles. Their lines are always long, the kitchen is just not big enough. Can’t really rush waffle-making, they just need more stations, but maybe they’re maxed out on space.
• Amish Donuts. Still going strong in year two. Which means I still won’t be trying one in year two.
• Rick’s Pizza for the dill pickle pizza. I was really surprised by this - the lines are just as long this year!
• LuLu’s. This one baffles me. LuLu’s is an alcohol-centric place. The lines were like 45 minutes long on Tuesday afternoon! There are so many places you could walk to, get a drink, and be back to LuLu’s twice in that amount of time.
• Seed Art. They advertised improvements to traffic flow in the crop art. It’s worse than ever.

Otherwise, lines have been pretty great everywhere else!

What’s Left?

Tomorrow (Thursday) Katie and I will be making our date day visit, and then we’ll most likely fit in one more family visit. We’ve yet to see any of the free concerts, so that’s really high on my list, plus we have some new foods (swedish sliders, paella, waffle burger, PB bacon cakes) and classics (steak tips, onion rings, lemonade sorbet) to get to. And Katie wants to make sure we do the Sing Along!