Aug 27 – Sep 7, 2026 · twelve days, ending Labor Day
1,923,325 people came through the gates over the fair’s twelve days.
The seventh-best-attended fair there has ever been.
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 passed through early in the afternoon, then it climbed to 90°.
- Records set
- 2
- Thursday and Friday of the opening weekend. Both beat marks set in 2024.
- Rain, all twelve days
- 0.35″
- Measured at the airport through Sep 7. Most of it fell before 8 a.m. on the first Saturday.
Twelve days
All twelve, counted
Two records to open, then seven of the next ten days under 2025 — though the last two days both beat it.
Every figure is in the table below. Bars are this year, the dashed line is 2025. Daily highs are along the bottom; red marks a day that reached 90°.
The widest swing was Friday, Aug 28 — +50,077 against 2025.
Every figure is the fair’s own, unrounded. The twelve rows add to 1,923,325, the total the fair published.
For scale
Where 2026 sits
The record still belongs to 2019: 2,126,551.
2026 finished at 1,923,325. Six fairs have ever drawn more, and all six are on this chart.
The chart starts at 2016, but nothing earlier comes close. Going into 2016 the record was 1,824,830, set in 2014.
2026
What was different this year
The America Wheel
A 230-foot observation wheel with 45 gondolas took the Great Big Wheel’s place. It’s 75 feet taller, and the fair bills it as the world’s largest traveling observation wheel.
The Coliseum, rebuilt
The Lee & Rose Warner Coliseum finished a $24 million renovation, the first major one in its 75 years: a new roof, new seats and wider aisles, rebuilt accessible seating, more restrooms, and new mechanical systems.
Prices held
Adult admission stayed at $20 at the gate and $17 in advance, and parking at $25. In 2025 admission had gone up $2 and parking $5.
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, in the Food Building for more than 15 years. Harry Singh died in July, at 81. OOf-da Tacos, Spring Grove Soda, Thelma’s Handmade Ice Cream Sandwiches and Island Noodles Surf Shack were among the eleven too.
The 4-H Building’s last fair before its overhaul
The 85-year-old WPA building had the first phase of a $35 million renovation done this year. Most of the work starts after this fair, with the aim of finishing it in time for 2027.
An earlier last call
Labor Day closing moved up an hour, to 8 p.m.
36 new foods, 10 new vendors
What the reviewers agreed on
I don’t rank the food. I’m a map, not a critic. This counts how many of the six published reviews that sort the new foods into tiers put each one in their top tier.
Top tier means Star Tribune: 4 stars; Racket: “Scarf!”; Minnesota Monthly: Blue Ribbon; Axios: Blue-ribbon bites; Mpls.St.Paul: “Get It” from both critics; and CBS Minnesota: 4, “best of the best”.
-
Hmong Corndog
Union Hmong Kitchen
Pork sausage with ginger, lemongrass, garlic, fish sauce and chili, made with Kramarczuk’s, in a cornmeal batter. Top tier on every list.
-
Peri-Peri Bowl
Afro Deli & Grill
Peri-peri hot chicken with mini beef sambusas and fried plantains.
Racket, Mpls.St.Paul, CBS Minnesota
-
Elote Tots
Tot Boss
Tater tots in Tajín under an elote-style corn and cheese sauce.
Star Tribune, Axios, Mpls.St.Paul
Top tier on two lists each: Apple Fries, Bao Belly, Cracklin’ Corn Ribs, Longanisa Cheese Curd Lumpia, Mango Sticky Rice Refresher, Savory Cones, Tanghulu, Ube Cheesecake Wontons, Walking Chopped Italian Grinder and When Pigs Fly.
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. Four of the six lists put it in their bottom tier. The Star Tribune’s team was “universally delighted.”
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 | 7,599 |
| Wed, Sep 2 | AJR | Avery Cochrane | 7,533 |
| Thu, Sep 3 | Brad Paisley | Jake Worthington, Laci Kaye Booth | 7,113 |
| Fri, Sep 4 | HARDY | McCoy Moore | 9,335 |
| Sat, Sep 5 | TLC · Salt-N-Pepa Sold out | En Vogue | 14,018 |
| Sun, Sep 6 | Amateur Talent Contest Finals Free | — | 6,000 |
| Mon, Sep 7 | CeCe Winans | — | 4,628 |
All twelve nights came to 102,680, counting the two free ones. That’s the same total the fair gives for the series, so no night is missing.
Barns, ribbons, buses
The rest of the fair
Straight from the fair’s wrap-up on Sept. 8. Where it said “more than” or “nearly,” so does this.
- 38,000+
- Competition entries, livestock to butter, for nearly $2.5 million in prize money
- 4,141
- Baked goods entries, up from 3,156 in 2025
- 593
- Crop art pieces on display, up from 450 in 2025
- 343
- Fine art pieces accepted, out of 3,185 submitted. A record 121 sold.
- $1.35M+
- Raised at the Purple Ribbon Auction for 115 4-H members, with six record prices set
- 160
- Animals born at the Miracle of Birth Center: 10 calves, 125 piglets and 25 lambs
- 120,158
- SouthWest Transit rides, a record for the second year running
- ~155,000
- MVTA rides from the south metro, up about 4.2% (the fair calls this preliminary)
Jena Hanson of Owatonna, representing Steele County, was crowned the 73rd Princess Kay of the Milky Way.
If you ran a booth this year
Claim your booth before next August.
Getting in here is brutally hard and almost nobody leaves. Up to 800 food and beverage applications sit on file for about 280 vendors. 95–98% of vendors come back each year, so only 5–10 new ones get in.
What I can help with is the other 293 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 daily figures, added up. Nothing is projected or filled in. The totals are checked against the fair’s: the 2025 column adds to 1,940,869, the total it published for 2025, and the 2026 column adds to 1,923,325, the total it published for 2026. The Grandstand nights add up to the fair’s series total too. The test suite re-runs those checks on every build.
Weather is the National Weather Service’s climate record for MSP airport, about seven miles from the fairgrounds. The food counts are other outlets’ opinions, and every list is linked below. There are no sales figures because none exist yet: per-vendor numbers show up in the press about a year after each fair.
Sources
The fair
- Minnesota State Fair — daily attendance
- Minnesota State Fair — Grandstand lineup
- Minnesota State Fair — 2026 updates & changes
- Minnesota State Fair — fairgrounds & concessions trivia
- Minnesota State Fair — free live music & shows
- Minnesota State Fair — 2026 wrap-up release (Grandstand, competitions, new vendors)
- Minnesota State Fair — attendance page as archived in May 2015 (the pre-2016 record)
Weather
- NWS Twin Cities — August 2026 climate report
- NWS Twin Cities — September 2026 climate report
- Iowa Environmental Mesonet — NWS Heat Advisory, Sept 4
- MPR News — stray storms, high heat at the fair, Sept 3
The food lists counted
- Star Tribune — more than 100 new foods, ranked
- Racket — the best, worst and most middling new foods
- Minnesota Monthly — Jason DeRusha’s review
- Axios Twin Cities — what to eat and skip
- Mpls.St.Paul Magazine — every new food, reviewed
- CBS Minnesota — new foods ranked
Food, also read
- MPR News — global flavors on the 2026 menu
- Sahan Journal — new foods reviewed
- Minnesota State Fair — 2026 new foods
What changed
- Minnesota State Fair — the America Wheel
- Minnesota State Fair — 75 years of the Coliseum
- Minnesota State Fair — Eat Together
- Minnesota State Fair — 2026 prices held (annual meeting)
- Fox 9 — the 2025 price increase
- MPR News — Harry Singh dies at 81
- Minnesota State Fair — the 4-H Building
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 October 7, 2026. — Keith