2026 Minnesota State Fair Forecast Review
Now that the 2026 Minnesota State Fair is over, how did our forecast hold up?
Check out the data for yourself at Stats on a Stick 2026!
Early school start for the suburbs appears to bring record-breaking first fair days
As I expected, the early school start dates (1-2 weeks before Labor Day) had a big impact on daily fair attendance, but not the exact impact I forecasted. The early school start for suburban districts appears to have resulted in a much higher than average attendance on the first Thursday and Friday, also setting all-time daily attendance records.
My mistake was assuming that this shift would cause higher attendance than the last several years because fewer people would be traveling for the holiday if they had to be in town for school. As it turned out, the attendance was front loaded to take place before school started in the suburbs, followed by lower than average turnout during the week.
For total attendance, I forecasted a 4% increase over 2025, but the final tally came in under by about 1%. My furthest forecast from the actual was the second Friday (Day 9) at about 26.5% over, and my closest forecast was on the first Monday (Day 5), at about 2.4% over.
Head swirling with ideas for 2027
In future posts, I’ll take a closer look at some of the other publicly available pieces of information that I could use to improve my forecast for 2027. For instance, I did not consider economic factors and ticket prices. I could also take a different approach by completing the forecast daily to be able to take weather into account. Many things to investigate!
I hope you enjoyed following along with the Stats on a Stick 2026 daily attendance forecast! I’m already hoping we break a few specific records in 2027.
Now it’s on to the wonderful time of year that is a Minnesota fall. I’ll admit, I’ll be thinking about the fair all year, just counting down the days. So more to come!