Aug 27 – Sep 7, 2026 · twelve days, ending Labor Day
1,764,224 people came through the gates in 11 of the fair’s twelve days.
The twelfth is still being counted. The fair posts each day’s number the following afternoon, so Labor Day, and the year’s real total, land Tuesday, September 8. This page fills itself in when they do.
MN Fair Guide is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Minnesota State Fair or the Minnesota State Agricultural Society. Every figure below is sourced, and the sources are listed at the bottom.
Aug 27–28
It started with two records, then the heat arrived.
The fair opened to the biggest first Thursday and the biggest first Friday it has ever had. Then every day but one from the first Sunday to the second Thursday came in under 2025, through a stretch that ran as much as 14 degrees above normal and topped out at 93°.
- Biggest day — Sat, Sep 5
- 217,929
- Short of the all-time single day, 270,426, set on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2018.
- Quietest — Thu, Sep 3
- 107,159
- The quietest day of the fair. Storms crossed the grounds in the afternoon and the temperature fell about ten degrees.
- Records set
- 2
- Thursday and Friday of the opening weekend. The marks they beat had both stood since 2024.
- Rain, first 11 days
- 0.32″
- Measured at the airport through Sep 6. Most of it fell before nine on the first Saturday.
Twelve days
Eleven posted, one still counting
Two records to open, then seven of the next nine days under 2025 — though Sunday closed 5,780 ahead of the same day last year.
Every figure is in the table below. Bars are this year, the dashed line is 2025 — it carries on across Sep 7, which the fair has not counted yet. Daily highs are along the bottom; red marks a day that reached 90°.
The widest swing was Friday, Aug 28 — +50,077 against 2025.
The fair publishes each day’s attendance the following day between noon and 3 p.m. Central. Nothing above is estimated. The figure in the headline is the sum of the 11 rows the fair has posted, and the remaining row stays empty until it posts one.
For scale
Where 2026 sits
The record still belongs to 2019: 2,126,551.
2026 stays open until the last day is posted: ranking a running 11-day subtotal against finished years would place it artificially low, and it would read like a fact.
2026
What was different this year
The America Wheel
A 230-foot observation wheel with 45 gondolas replaced the retired Great Big Wheel — 75 feet taller, and billed as the largest travelling wheel in the world.
The Coliseum reopened
The Lee & Rose Warner Coliseum reopened after the first major renovation in its 75-year history: new roof, wider aisles, accessible seating and restrooms, rebuilt mechanicals.
Prices held
Admission stayed at $20 at the gate, $17 in advance, and parking at $25, held flat after 2025’s $2 rise.
A new food district
“Eat Together” opened beside the Giant Sing Along with nine vendors and shaded seating.
Eleven vendors did not come back
Among them Harry Singh’s Caribbean, a Food Building fixture for decades. Harry Singh died in July, at 81. Oof-da Tacos, Spring Grove Soda, Thelma’s and Island Noodles also sat the year out.
The 4-H Building’s last fair for a while
The 85-year-old WPA building closes after this run for a $35 million overhaul, aiming to reopen in 2027.
An earlier last call
Labor Day closing moved up an hour, to 8 p.m.
36 new foods, 9 new vendors
What the reviewers actually agreed on
I don’t rank the food. I’m a map, not a critic. So this is a count of other people’s work: how many of the eight lists at the bottom of this page named each item — the Star Tribune, MPR, Racket, Sahan Journal, Minnesota Monthly, Axios, Mpls.St.Paul and CBS Minnesota. Worth knowing before you read the counts: two of those lists share a critic. Jason DeRusha reviewed the new foods for both Minnesota Monthly and Mpls.St.Paul, so eight lists is not eight independent palates.
-
Hmong Corndog
Union Hmong Kitchen
Ginger and lemongrass pork sausage in cornmeal batter. It was on seven of the eight lists, at or near the top of every one.
-
Apple Fries
Minnesota's Original Apple Fries
A first-year vendor, and the one the Star Tribune called the breakout of 2026.
-
Tanghulu
Iemochi Japanese Confections
Candied fruit on a stick, in four varieties, from another booth in its first year.
-
Mango Sticky Rice Refresher
Chan's Eatery
-
Cracklin' Corn Ribs
The Blue Barn
The one nobody was neutral about
Pickle Pie — LuLu's Public House
Pickles, pickle juice and cream cheese in a pie crust, under a ranch-and-Cholula whipped topping. Five outlets panned it; the Star Tribune put it among the year’s most memorable.
Twelve nights
Two sellouts, one cancellation
Rod Stewart pulled out and Hairball played it free. Quinn XCII came off the AJR bill the day before the show.
| Night | Act | With | Attendance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, Aug 27 | Bonnie Raitt | Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen | 12,011 |
| Fri, Aug 28 | "Weird Al" Yankovic Sold out | Puddles Pity Party | 14,018 |
| Sat, Aug 29 | Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis | — | 6,050 |
| Sun, Aug 30 | Sierra Ferrell | Tanya Tucker | 8,645 |
| Mon, Aug 31 | Tommy James & The Shondells · Herman's Hermits | — | 5,730 |
| Tue, Sep 1 | Hairball Free | Slave Raider | Not released |
| Wed, Sep 2 | AJR | Avery Cochrane | Not released |
| Thu, Sep 3 | Brad Paisley | Jake Worthington, Laci Kaye Booth | Not released |
| Fri, Sep 4 | HARDY | McCoy Moore | Not released |
| Sat, Sep 5 | TLC · Salt-N-Pepa Sold out | En Vogue | Not released |
| Sun, Sep 6 | Amateur Talent Contest Finals Free | — | Not released |
| Mon, Sep 7 | CeCe Winans | — | Not released |
The fair has released attendance for 5 of the 12 nights. The rest say “not released” because that is what they are. Not zero, and not a guess.
If you ran a booth this year
Claim your booth before next August.
Getting in here is brutally hard and almost nobody leaves. 800 food and beverage applications sit on file against ~300 food stands. Between 95–98% of vendors come back, so 5–10 new ones get in a year.
What I can help with is the other 351 days. Claiming your booth is free. Drop the pin on your actual window, put your menu up, and add the words people search when they’re hungry. It’s live in the app immediately, and it stays up all year.
Free, and it stays free. The only paid thing on the site is an optional Featured placement.
What I had mapped this year
The first two are counted live out of my own database. The rest are the fair’s own published figures.
Next year
The 2027 Minnesota State Fair runs
Aug. 26 through Labor Day, Sept. 6.
The app stays up in the meantime. Your saved list survives the winter, and next year’s foods land in it the day the fair announces them.
Took a photo this year of something I don’t have a picture of? Send it over — there are a lot of booths in here still wearing a placeholder.
How this was counted
Attendance is the fair’s own published daily figures, added up. Nothing is projected, averaged forward or filled in. Where the fair hasn’t posted a number, this page says so. As a check on the transcription, the 2025 column of the same table adds to 1,940,869 — exactly the total the fair publishes for 2025. The test suite re-runs that check on every build.
Weather is the National Weather Service’s Twin Cities climate reports for the airport, about seven miles from the fairgrounds. The food ranking counts other outlets’ published lists; those are their opinions, and all eight are linked below. Sales figures are deliberately absent: per-vendor gross sales are released roughly a year in arrears, so no 2026 sales data exists yet anywhere.
Sources
The fair
- Minnesota State Fair — daily attendance
- Minnesota State Fair — Grandstand lineup
- Minnesota State Fair — 2026 updates & changes
- Minnesota State Fair — 2026 new foods
- Minnesota State Fair — fairgrounds & concessions trivia
- Minnesota State Fair — free live music & shows
Weather
The food lists counted
- Star Tribune — more than 100 new foods, ranked
- MPR News — global flavours on the 2026 menu
- Racket — the best, worst and most middling new foods
- Sahan Journal — new foods reviewed
- Minnesota Monthly — the best new food of 2026
- Axios Twin Cities — 2026 fair food guide
- Mpls.St.Paul Magazine — every new food, reviewed
- CBS Minnesota — new foods ranked
Vendors
- Mpls.St.Paul Magazine — how vendors get a spot at the fair
- Minnesota State Fair — concessions & exhibits
Minnesota State Fair® is a registered trademark of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society. MN Fair Guide is independent and unofficial. First published the night the 2026 fair closed; last updated September 8, 2026. — Keith