Your Minnesota State Fair
guide, in your pocket.
The free, unofficial guide to the Minnesota State Fair — an offline map of every food stand, barn and gate, the Grandstand lineup, and a guide you can just ask.
- Always free — no account
- Works offline in the gates
- Live on iPhone & Android
- Independent & unofficial
- 889+
- food & vendor booths mapped
- 190
- buildings on the grounds
- 2M+
- neighbors, every year
For fairgoers
So much fair.
So little time.
You came for something specific — don’t spend the day hunting for it. MN Fair Guide holds the whole grounds in your hand, and it keeps working after your bars don’t.
A phone showing the Ask screen: a microphone button, and suggested questions such as “Closest cookies”, “Bathroom near me” and “Where’s the cattle barn”.
Ask, don’t hunt
Just say what you’re after
Tap the mic and talk, or type it in plain words. You get a real answer — the place, how far it is, and a tap to the map. No menus to dig through.
A phone showing the fairgrounds map inside the app.
The offline map
Working at zero bars
The whole grounds ride along inside the app, so the map keeps going when the network doesn’t.
Where you actually are
Standing in a line, holding a phone that won’t load
That’s the moment this is built for. Everything above works with no signal at all, because the whole directory rides along inside the app.
A map that knows the grounds
Every booth, barn, gate and restroom pinned where it actually stands — with walking directions to the window.
Search in plain words
Type “deep fried”, “vegetarian” or “on-a-stick” and get exactly where to go, sorted by how close it is.
This year’s new foods
The brand-new debuts, tagged and mapped the moment the fair announces them.
Grandstand nights
The full nightly concert lineup, set times and ticket links — plan the show before you plan the snack.
Today at a glance
Save your favorites, build a route, and catch the judging and shows you actually care about.
Barns & blue ribbons
Livestock schedules, breeds and the day’s winners for every barn on the grounds.
Gates & parking
Park-and-ride, the lots, and the closest gate to wherever you’re headed first.
Stay the night
Campground rates, rules and how to reserve a site right on the fairgrounds.
Photographs: Tony Webster, Runner1928, Chad Davis, Lorie Shaull and Thomson200 (CC BY 2.0, CC BY-SA 2.0, CC BY-SA 4.0, CC0), via Wikimedia Commons.
Late August to Labor Day
Come hungry. Stay till the lights come on.
Corn dogs and cattle barns, the sky ride and Sweet Martha’s, your neighbors from all eighty-seven counties, and one very good corn roast. MN Fair Guide just helps you find your way through it.
Photos: Tony Webster (CC BY 2.0 / CC BY-SA 2.0) and USDA (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Inside the app
Built to be useful in the crowd
Real screenshots, taken from the app as it ships today. Here’s what each screen is for.
Type a craving. Get every booth that sells it.
No categories to dig through — type “cheese curds”, “on-a-stick” or “parking” and every match comes back tagged with its building. Not sure what you’re after? Browse Food, Drinks, New foods, Free things and Livestock instead.
- Plain-language search
- Or browse by category
A real map of the grounds, working with no bars.
Every street, barn and building drawn where you expect it, with restrooms, first aid and your own saved stops one tap away. The whole thing rides along inside the app, so it still works at two in the afternoon on the middle Saturday, when nobody around you has a usable signal.
- Filter to restrooms, first aid & more
- Fully offline in the gates
A plan that knows the schedule, the barns and the weather.
Open to a countdown, then step through any day of the run — the shows and judging on it, and what the sky’s about to do — so you catch the stuff you came for and dodge the afternoon downpour.
- Any day of the twelve
- Weather built in
Save the must-eats. Walk them in the right order.
Star anything as you browse and it lands on one list the whole group can share. Hit “Plan my walk” and your stops get ordered into a route that doesn’t double back — then you tick them off as you go.
- Tick items off as you go
- Best-route walking plan
- Share the list with your group
Why MN Fair Guide
The honest way around the Get-Together
This isn’t the official app and it never pretends to be. It works when the network doesn’t, it costs you nothing, and it hands you to the official sources the moment they matter.
Independent & unofficial
Not affiliated with the Minnesota State Fair. For tickets and official word, the app links you straight to mnstatefair.org.
Free forever for fairgoers
No account, no sign-up, no trackers following you around the grounds. Vendors claim and manage their booth free as well.
Works when the towers don’t
The whole directory and map ride along inside the app. Search and pins keep going at zero bars, which is where most phones spend the afternoon.
A directory that's been checked
889+ food and vendor booths, and 190 buildings and venues, each one checked against the fair's own printed map. It's the same data the app runs on.
For vendors
Two million people come through the gates. Make sure they find you.
You’re one window in a sea of them. Claim your booth and you decide how people find you, what they see first, and what you’re known for. Claiming takes about a minute; filling it in properly takes a few more. Both are free.
Pin your exact window
Drag a marker to your booth — that’s the spot fairgoers get walked to, down to the aisle.
Lead with your best
Upload a gallery and pick the one photo hungry crowds see first.
Put your menu up
Type a rich menu or snap a photo of your board — whatever’s faster for you.
Get found by craving
Add the tags people search — “cheese curds”, “vegan”, “on-a-stick” — and land in their results.
A filled-in booth is a findable booth
A pin, a photo, a menu and a few tags are what turn a name in a list into somewhere people can walk to.
And here’s what the crowd sees
Sweet Martha’s Cookie Jar
Carnes Ave · a 2-minute walk
Your pin, your photo, your tags — the same booth you set up, dropped right into their results.
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1
Claim your booth
Make a free account and find your booth in the list. About a minute, no paperwork.
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2
Make it yours
Drop your pin, add photos, your menu, and the cravings people should find you by.
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3
Go live instantly
Every edit shows up for fairgoers right away. No review queue. Claiming and filling in your booth is free — the only paid thing on the site is an optional Featured placement.
Good to know
Questions, answered
Is MN Fair Guide free?
Yes, and free for vendors to claim and fill in their booth. The one thing that costs money is an optional Featured placement for vendors who want more visibility. Fairgoers never pay anything.
Is this the official State Fair app?
No — MN Fair Guide is independent and unofficial. For tickets and official announcements head to mnstatefair.org, and the app links you there wherever it matters.
Does it work when the network is jammed?
Yes. The full directory and map ship inside the app, so search and pins keep working at zero bars — which is roughly the state of things once a couple hundred thousand people are on the grounds. Vendor updates sync whenever you do have a connection.
When can I download it?
Right now — it's live on the App Store and on Google Play, free, no account. Vendors can claim and set up their booth right now too.
I run a booth — what does claiming it get me?
Control of your listing: the exact pin fairgoers walk to, your photos, your menu, and the search tags that bring hungry crowds to your window.
My booth is already claimed, or I can’t find it
Email hello@mnfairguide.com and I’ll sort it out — usually the same day.
Get MN Fair Guide
Free on iPhone and Android, in time for the 2026 fair. Vendors can set up their booth right now.
Independent & unofficial — always free for fairgoers, and we’ll always point you to mnstatefair.org for tickets and the official word.