Minnesota State Fair power outage impacts vendors, briefly traps 2 on Skyscraper ride
FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. — Attendance records were broken on days one and two of the 2024 Minnesota State Fair, but a broken fuse put a big damper on some of Friday's fun.
Parts of the fairgrounds took a major power hit Friday at about 4:15 p.m. and lasted more than 90 minutes.
Some rides came to a stop, with two fairgoers stuck on the Skyscraper in Adventure Park for several minutes.
Fair officials said it was a localized outage that impacted booths and buildings south of the Grandstand, especially along Judson Avenue, and at the Dairy Goodness Bar in the Dairy Building.
On Thursday, 138,875 people passed through the gates, setting a new opening-day record. Then the first Friday's record was shattered the next day with 171,233 fairgoers.
The record holder for the biggest single-day attendance was set on the fair's first Friday in 2019. That year also has the distinction of drawing in the most fairgoers ever, with 2,126,551 total visitors.
With nearly three dozen new offerings and six new vendors, there's plenty for fairgoers to sample. These are some of the WCCO team's favorites.