New York’s biggest late summer event, the New York State fair is on for this year, the 18 day celebration at the fairgrounds is Syracuse draws in more than a million people

We missed it last year, but it appears the Great New York State fair will be back August 20th through September 6th

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For 173 years the fair has entertained people from all over the state, and the nation, with great food, entertainment, exhibits, rides, games and much more.

Here are some fun facts about the New York State Fair

  • The fair was originally created to promote agriculture and farming.
  • The New York State Fair was also America’s first state fair.
  • The First NYS Fair help on September 29th and 30th 1841 was only a two-day event, and featured animal exhibits, samples of farm and household goods, speeches from dignitaries and even a plowing contest.
  • The next year 1842 the NYS Fair was help in Albany and for the next several years (1842-1889) the fair was featured in eleven different cities in New York State.
  • The first NYS Fair brought in between 10.000 and 15,000 people, in 2019, the fair broke an attendance record with more then 1.3 million people attending, which included a single day record of over 147,000
  • The NYS Fair was absence from 1942 to 1947. as it became a military base during the second world war.
  • In the 1950’s and 1960’s the fair was expanded to nine days and attendance grew to half a million.
  • In 1967 the fair was official titled the New York State fair.
  • One of the big attractions to the NYS fair each year is the live concerts at Chevy Court (also Empire Court) Sonny and Cher preformed in 1972 breaking attendance record, which would be broke again with Lady Antebellum in 2010, and Bruno Mars in 2011.
  • In 2015 the NYS Fair removed the aging grandstand making room for 60 acres of space.
  • A few fun facts, more than 34 thousand pounds of potatoes are sold at the fair each year, that weighs more than eight cars.
  • The NYS fair sells 450,000 cups of milk each year, if you stacked them on top of each other, they would be higher than the Empire State building.

[https://nysfair.ny.gov/about/fair-history/]

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