FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. -- It seems like they dip everything into the deep fryer at the Minnesota State Fair.
This week, the state fair has witnessed a pretty significant attendance dip. By Sunday morning, attendance was down 60,000 people when compared to 2010.
Fair Spokesperson Brienna Schuette says an oppressively hot day and a rain day last week didn't help, but she puts the numbers into perspective. "Attendance is down a little bit compared to 2010. 2010, though, was the second best attended state fair of all time," she noted.
In 2010, they set 3 single day attendance records. In 2009, 1,790,497 people got together for the get together and that's a 12 day record for the fair. "You can't break records every year. You want to, you try," Schuette said. "There's sort of this fascination with attendance because the Minnesota State Fair is so incredibly well attended. It's the largest 12 day event in North America."
Fair officials are also projecting that the attendance figures for Sunday will big, if not, huge.
The folks at the Ye Old Mill say those two weather-troubled days were tough to take, but overall things are still looking pretty good. "This year our line started earlier and lasted longer. Our ride is doing outstanding. We're having a good year, we've put in some new scenes this year," Jim Keenan said, before telling KARE 11 that this is probably the 40th year he's worked at the fair.
At the pronto pup stand down the block we found a different story, though Jim Nelson will tell you attendance hasn't been the problem. He blames the economy. "It might look busy but the numbers are down a little bit, not drastically but like you say, 10 percent," Nelson explained.
Nelson, a 38 year vet of the fair himself, says the boom days might be gone as the tough economic times continue. "It's pretty slow compared to the old days we went through. We went crazy, crazy, crazy in the 80s and 90s."
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