The Minnesota State Fair is Canceled!
Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Minnesota State Fair of 2020 has been canceled. In his heartbreaking statement, Minnesota State Fair General Manager, Jerry Hammer said, “This isn’t a difficult decision. It’s the only decision. It’s the right thing to do. As we go through this strange summer, we’re extremely grateful for the understanding and support of everyone who makes the State Fair possible – especially the millions of fair fans from around the globe. The best thing we can all do right now is to help the world recover and heal. In the meantime, your team of State Fair pros is working hard to come back bigger, better, stronger and smarter in ‘21. We’ll see you next year at the Great Minnesota Get-Back-Together.”
This is an immeasurable sadness for the State of Minnesota. For many, the State Fair is an annual tradition we look forward to year ‘round. Indeed, thoughts of a sunny day at the Fair have gotten many Minnesotans through the winter, with something to look forward to. In the spirit of keeping that torch lit, I offer this blog. Originally it was written as an homage to a Fair I love deeply. But, I am now publishing this for anyone who may want to enjoy the Fair, albeit virtually, from a safe distance. I offer this blog knowing full well I am far from the ideal guide for the Minnesota State Fair. For anyone who bristles at dark humor or grotesque observations, I suggest you just look at the pictures. There are many. Enjoy.
It began with Expo ‘86
I am drawn to fairs in the same way a moth is drawn to an open flame. There is a mysterious gravitational field that surrounds all fairs. I have always been especially helpless against that pull – and prone to hurling myself into fairs – ever since I was nine years old, when my family took several trips to Vancouver Canada to attend Expo ‘86.
The theme of Expo ‘86 was “Transportation and Communication: World in Motion - World in Touch.” The ‘86 World Fair ran for six months, May-October 1986. During those six months my parents drove us north to the Fair as often as possible. We drove from Lynnwood, Washington in our giant, rumbling Chevy Suburban and parked as close to the fairgrounds as possible, where we’d sleep overnight, in the Suburban.
It was me, my brother, sisters, and mom and dad – all crammed in the back and bench seats of the cavernous truck. When dad opened the wide panel doors in the morning, it was like taking the lid off a huge rice cooker – an explosion of hot breath and farts into the chilly air of downtown Vancouver, BC. We showered at a nearby YMCA.
Maybe it wasn’t so glamorous at the time, but what we saved by not staying in a hotel like normal people we blew it on the fair. And even if it was money we didn’t have, it was money well spent – riding the rides and taking in the regional pavilions. I remember, especially, the splitting migraine I got from riding the Scream Machine. And the food! I can still remember the bison burger at the Saskatchewan pavilion that was all mine to enjoy (I had to share most my food with my brother).
It was those trips to Expo ‘86 that galvanized my deadly attraction to all fairs.
Take me to the Minnesota State Fair
I’m not saying we moved to Minnesota to be closer to the Minnesota State Fair. But it also can’t be a coincidence that we landed within a couple miles of the largest, most grand fair in our free United States.
Like Expo ‘86, the Minnesota State Fair has an annual theme: ‘The Great Midwest Get Together.’ Though I believe some alternative themes such as, ‘Why not?’ or, ‘How big can it be?’ or, ‘‘How much food can we balance on a stick, and deep fry?‘ would all be fitting.
At the Minnesota State Fair, exposition jostles with debauchery for a foothold. Sensible clothing, and diets, are left at home. It is a rare place in time, born of a uniquely explosive combination of elements: modest Midwestern stoicism and the breakneck bender that accompanies an entire region’s fevered throes to cram-in as much hard living to the last days of summer, before the return of Minnesota’s legendary winters.
It’s like Las Vegas took a vacation to the midwest and forgot to pack its prostitutes.
Ope, I’m just gonna reach past ya’ there for the ranch dressing
Let’s just knock this one out of the way – the food at the Minnesota State Fair is rad. A friend of mine told me about her mom and her grandma who used to live 114 miles north of the State Fairgrounds. Each year, during the fair, her mom and grandma would drive to the State Fair to eat fair food all day, and then drive back home. It’s best if you don’t crunch the numbers there, what with the gas, time, entrance to the fair and who knows how many meals they may have racked up during their visits.
The famous everything-goes atmosphere of the Fair creates just the right conditions to make the Minnesota State Fair a first testing ground for experimentation with foods that some may consider unnatural. Maybe even unethical. Foods that are more of a dare, than actual food. Foods that are now cornerstone attractions for any fair worth its salt: a deep fried Twinkie on a stick, spaghetti and meatballs on a stick, walleye on a stick. All foods bound by a common goal of balancing as many calories as physics will allow atop a twig.
Fair lore has even foretold of a deep-fried block of butter (on a stick of course). I have never laid eyes on one though. If I did, I’m sorry to say, I’d probably have to try one. If only to tell my grandchildren someday, “We all make mistakes.”
Butter sculpture of a Minnesota Princess
The food at the Fair is perhaps the best example of how, if only for a spell, we are allowed to suspend our better judgement for practical matters. Where else would we willingly fork over $12 for a corndog? Or $9 for beer that’s topped with a heavy layer of foam?
While standing in line for a beer, I watched in horror as beers were poured haphazardly into plastic cups, foaming over the brim. For beer that expensive, I was determined to buy only beer, not foam. So when my turn came to order I asked for an IPA, with no head.
The lady working the taps cocked her head.
I offered a clarification: “No foam please.”
So, when I received a beer that was spitefully half-foam, I suggested she top it off. The people behind me conspicuously noticed (as only midwesterners can conspicuously notice) I was holding up the line.
“How do I do that,” she barked impatiently, “without spilling the foam?!”
People watching at its finest
My love for the Fair is not an ironic obsession. I do not arrive at a fair to mock its goers. Rather, when I am at the Fair, I am there to commune with my people.
Even though we may come from dramatically different lives, and far-flung on the political spectrum, we overlap at the Fair. If only for a little while, we are a polite, and sometimes a not-polite democracy. In all our cacophonic gaudiness, we are smooshed together, for better or worse, and must learn to negotiate one another, in lines and claustrophobic walkways. We all pay the same obscene price for deadly rides. We’re all trying to get through this, preferably together. And if no togetherness can be found then hopefully we’ll meet up wherever we parked the car. Somebody's lawn I think.
On one visit to the fair with my daughter, I stopped to fiddle with the dials on my camera. While I was standing there, I noticed a small, feral child seize upon a matted pile of Martha’s Cookies on the ground. The cookies looked like they’d been dropped there days earlier, and trampled under countless shoes into oblivion. Still, the determined child clawed a handful of the cookie mat and gleefully wadded the whole thing into her mouth.
This was in a crowd, and I was not the only one who noticed this horrifying little vignette. But nobody said a word. Nobody even attempted to hold back the child. As for myself, I had my hands full with my camera and was trying to hold back my own daughter from helping herself to the mat of cookie.
Beyond the Fair flair: the good stuff
If you would have asked little me what I liked the most about Expo ‘86, I probably would never have thought of the educational or international pavilions. But these days, by far my favorite places to visit at the Fair are the educational and expositional pavilions (which I visit in this order): Creative Activities, the Educational Building, the 4H Building and finally the Agriculture Horticulture Building.
Here is where the best of Minnesota comes to display everything from arts and crafts, to school projects, prize crops, and hobbies from every corner of this great state. A visitor could spend days wandering just these buildings before they’ve seen everything.
(Bonus tip: because the rest of the Fair does such a good job at attracting people, with its loudness and glitz and food and flair, the crowds in what I heard a boy complaining are the “boring buildings” are dramatically reduced.)
For me, the “boring” buildings are the heart of the Fair. They are an annual celebration of craftsmanship from every community. From the creative to the industrial, from 4H to technology, and farming to freakshows these expositions are a showcase of talent and brilliance, beauty and imagination that is both heavily romantic and routinely breathtaking.
There is a kind of reassurance in these exhibits—that for all our awfulness, people still have the potential to be quite lovely. Give us a small, insignificant corner of the world and many of us will find a way to destroy it and turn it into suck. But some of us will take our little corner of the world and we’ll polish it to a shine.
To be sure, these buildings serve as monuments of achievement and beauty, an impression that takes a beating the rest of the year. But then, just before it’s pummeled into hopelessness like that mat of Martha’s Cookies, the Fair comes around again. And we return again and again to get a glimpse of our better natures which, I am happy to report, are in abundance. If cut through the crowds, have a closer look – focus-in on an intricate quilt or portraits made of seeds, and well… it’s a thing.
Tips to a successful visit to the Minnesota State Fair
Go early and go often. Last year I visited the State Fair only twice, once with my wife and daughter and once just with my daughter. In 2021, I plan to go once by myself as well. Not because I don’t like going places with my wife and daughter, it’s just easier to dawdle if other people aren’t waiting on you. And this is especially true if you’re there to take pictures.
Here are some quick tips for ensuring your visit to the Fair is fun, safe and won’t turn you into a misanthrope:
Sunscreen. Never enough sunscreen: Start with the eyes, just get that out of the way first. Even if you only put sunscreen on your feet, somehow the stuff still finds it ways into your eyeballs. Bring a big tube of sunscreen and apply it multiple times through the day. And a hat, bring a hat.
BYOC - (bring your own condiments): This year I may visit the fair with my own BBQ sauce. My first visit to the fair I got some of the best BBQ brisket I’ve ever had. Until I realized they didn’t have any sauce. Then it turned into some of the worst BBQ I’ve ever had. Why bring just BBQ sauce? Because I’m not bringing the whole pantry okay? So you bring the universal condiment, which everybody knows is cheap-ass BBQ sauce.
Prepare yourself for lines: The lines at the Minnesota State Fair are nothing compared to Disneyland or the epic lines of the aforementioned Expo ‘86. But there are lines, and lines have rules. (This isn’t Russia, people!) Linecutters at the Fair count on Minnesotans to hold their disapproval at conspicuously noticing their cut in line. But if we learned anything from the Coen Brothers, it’s that there’s no sense in testing the limits of ‘Minnesota Nice.’ Take your place at the end of the line like a law-abiding American or you might find yourself at the end of a stick, deep fried.
Earplugs: Once, long ago, while standing in line at the grocery store a woman tapped me on the arm. I assumed this was a mistake and continued looking forward. But she tapped me on my arm again. To my horror I discovered she wasn’t trying to get my attention, but rather, already thought she had my full attention and was just yammering away. She was mid-story, something about her stupid niece doing a skit at her elementary school. I had to interrupt her and tell her I had in earplugs and couldn’t understand anything she was saying. Ever since, I’ve almost never left the house without a pair of earplugs. They come in extra handy at the Fair. With earplugs, oddly, you can hear more of what’s going on while turning down the more jarring shrieks and screams.
Buy the food: Yeah, the beers are expensive, and are maybe served with lots of foam. But there’s nothing quite like strolling down the Fair’s Midway on a crisp early morning with 20oz of ice cold Grain Belt beer in your hand. Maybe the Pronto Pups cost $12, but they’re crispy and delicious. If you can get over paying through the teeth for glorified mini-mart fry food, you’ll have a much better time at the fair. Cynicism aside, food vendors pay an incredible amount of money to serve food at the Fair. Maybe they’re passing on those costs to the customer, but they didn’t get into food service for charity, people.
Ibuprofen: Or, prescription willing, bring something stronger. The Fair is an assault on the senses (see: Earplugs). Over the day, that barrage can take its toll. Bring painkillers, over-the-counter, recreational, whatever you can get your hands on.
Come with an open mind: The people who have the worst time at the Fair came with rigid expectations and probably wore white pants. First off, just don’t wear white pants (see: BBQ sauce). Secondly, as in life, the Fair is best enjoyed without expectations or entitlements. Keep an open mind. Prepare to be surprised, amazed, horrified and reassured that we’re all part of something bigger than ourselves, and if we can just hold it together, we might just have the time of our life.
