Blue Ribbon Group 
2025 “Top 30 State Fairs” List
Just in time for this year’s state fair season, we’re publishing our 2025 “Top 30 State Fairs” list, now an annual tradition, three years running.
This list is based exclusively on two factors: per day attendance numbers (total 2024 attendance divided by total days open) and their baking competitions (history of past Blue Ribbon Group special contests). Our other criteria? They have to take place the second half of the year, the Blue Ribbon Group official state fair season. In fact, the majority of the best state fairs happen in a three month window: August, September, and October.
Top 5: Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Texas and Tulsa State Fairs
The Minnesota State Fair lands in the #1 spot for the third year in a row. The Iowa State Fair comes in second. The Wisconsin State Fair moves up two spots from #5 to #3, versus last year. The State Fair of Texas consistently has the highest total attendance. With their daily average attendance number, Texas lands in the #4 spot, followed closely by the Tulsa State Fair. (Texas wins the tiebreaker with Tulsa, given their higher total attendance). The North Carolina State Fair swapped rankings with the Big E Fair, landing in the #6 spot. Here is the complete list.
The other biggest changes with our list:
- At the Tennessee State Fair, which officially combined with the Wilson County Fair in 2021, attendance leapt from 739K to 861K, a bump of 122,000 people.
- Total attendance for the 30 top fairs grew again, for the third year in a row. The increases were from 22 million (2022), to 23.5 million (2023), and 24.1 million (2024).
2025 Honorable Mention U.S. Fairs
The biggest fairs in the country are not all state fairs, so we now make an annual Honorable Mention List. This compilation recognizes the largest county and regional fairs we have worked with over the years, giving our list the best representation of the entire country. We have managed special recipe contest at each of these fair in the past. They are tried, true and extremely popular events, just like the official state fairs, but with a different label.
Daily average attendance numbers range from 94K to 10K per day, which is how they are ranked here.
