2021 Minnesota State Fair total attendance tops 1.3M

The final day of the Minnesota State Fair saw 123,578 fairgoers walk through the gates, bringing the 12-day attendance total to 1,301,584.

Labor Day’s attendance was over 61,000 fewer people than 2019’s record-setting final fair day when 184,740 people attended.

Overall, fair attendance was down dramatically from the last five state fairs. No single day saw attendance equal or exceed numbers from the 2015 through 2019 fairs. The closest day was Day Five of the fair when 91,568 fairgoers attended in 2021 compared to 96,716 in 2019.

The Minnesota State Fair saw over 2 million fairgoers enter the gates over the span of 12 days for the 2019 and 2018 fairs, including an overall all-time attendance record set in 2019 of 2,126,551 people, far greater than the 1.3 million people who went this year.

The pandemic and multiple rainy days are both presumed to have attributed to the lower attendance this year. No COVID-19 rules were in place in order to attend the 2021 fair. However, more than 3,000 people got vaccinated at the fair.

The 2022 Minnesota State Fair starts Aug. 25.