Great State Fair of Oklahoma or just Ok County Fair

[Urbanized]

^^^^^^^^
According to this article, it was third in the nation in attendance as recently as 2010: http://www.tampabay.com/news/humanin...ndance/1155248

[SOONER8693]

And I am an Oklahoman. Lived in Oklahoma before I moved to Kansas, lived there 9 yrs and grew up there. So, I consider Hutchinson my home town. Since, came back to Oklahoma for college and have been here for 45 yrs. I was in a group that did the gunfight shows at the fair for years, at the Cottonwood Post. There was a time when I considered our fair, Oklahoma, the equal of any fair in any state. Back when there was a Cottonwood Post, Grandstands and track, the airplanes, a Space Needle that worked, the monorail, etc. Now, not much. Not even worth the drive out to the fairgrounds. JMO

[Urbanized]

According to this article from the Oklahoma Historical Society, it first exceeded 1 million attendance in 1975: http://www.okhistory.org/publication...hp?entry=ST021

Granted there are fewer days now, but the attendance is currently hovering around 900K. So it is possible to imagine that other fairs have experienced growth in recent years while OK has stayed relatively flat.

It is reasonable to imagine that 1 million attendance in the seventies, eighties and even nineties would qualify it for top 3-5 status. Especially when you check this out and realize except for Texas and Minnesota, there is a pack around or just over a million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_fair

[Pete]

^^^^^^^^
According to this article, it was third in the nation in attendance as recently as 2010: http://www.tampabay.com/news/humanin...ndance/1155248

Obviously, it depends greatly on where you look.

According to Wikipedia, the OKC fair was 20th in 2012 and I seriously doubt if fell 17 positions in two years, with nearly identical attendance figures.

[Urbanized]

That Tampa article cites CarnivalWarehouse.com as a recognized authority on attendance at fairs, and it is interesting to look at their list: http://www.carnivalwarehouse.com/lists/2015list.pdf

A couple of things you will notice is that the Tulsa fair's attendance is definitely higher (currently) than the one in OKC. Also interesting to note that the San Diego COUNTY fair is actually much larger than the California State Fair in Sacramento.

[Pete]

^

It looks like that Tampa article is excluding anything without State Fair in its title because here is the 2010 list from their website:

http://www.carnivalwarehouse.com/lists/2010list.pdf

Maybe it's as simple as the OKC fair is very high on the State Fair list but nearly so high on the all fair list.

[Urbanized]

Yeah I'm thinking the same thing in looking that over. There are a large number of county fairs and also livestock shows and exhibitions (that's a fair, right?) that have lots more attendance than most state fairs. If you exclude anything that doesn't claim to be a "state" fair and account for the fact that there is a large grouping right around 1 million attendance it seems pretty likely that it could consistently rank in the top 3-4 state fairs without being quite as big of a deal as that is being made out to be. Especially when one or more of them experiences an attendance swing of 100K or so for weather or any other possible reasons.

[GaryOKC6]

I think state fairs in general are losing their appeal. Times change. When fairs started they were a "big deal" , IMO not so much any more. I will go twice. Once to take the kids to ride all the rides and eat junk food. The second time to walk around with my friends, drink beer, eat junk food and people watch. That is good entertainment!

[Jeepnokc]

I think state fairs in general are losing their appeal. Times change. When fairs started they were a "big deal" , IMO not so much any more. I will go twice. Once to take the kids to ride all the rides and eat junk food. The second time to walk around with my friends, drink beer, eat junk food and people watch. That is good entertainment!

The people watching is the best. We have an annual workday at the fair where we shut office down at noon and all the employees go to the fair. Company pays for everything including Uber rides and no spouse/kids allowed until 5 pm. This will be our 5 th or 6 th year and it is always a blast and great team building day.