State Fair’s opening day draws nearly 139,000, shattering first-day record set in 2019

One day into this year’s State Fair, the Great Minnesota Get-Together was already setting records.

The fair drew 138,875 people Thursday, breaking an opening-day record previously set in 2019 by more than 5,000 people, according to fair officials.

Meanwhile Friday, an area south of the grandstand lost power for nearly an hour and a half, affecting a number of vendors and attractions, according to a statement from fair officials.

The 2019 fair was the most well-attended in Minnesota State Fair history. More than 2.1 million got together that year over the course of the 12-day event — the last one held before the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020.

This year’s opening day also hosted considerably larger numbers of fairgoers than last year’s, besting it by more than 32,000 attendees. Despite its slow start, the 2023 fair finished strong and drew more than 1.8 million people, breaking into the Top 10 Minnesota State Fairs in terms of attendance.

The 2023 fair also set a record for Day 2 attendance, at 164,741.

On Friday, two people were aboard the Skyscraper ride when the power went out at 4:19 p.m., but they were lowered to the ground and got off the ride safely within five minutes. Power was restored by 5:39 p.m. and normal operations resumed. No cause for the outage had been determined as of Friday evening, according to Xcel Energy.

The State Fair has been on the rebound since it was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. The fair drew 1.3 million people in 2021 and 1.8 million in 2022.