Attendance dips at N.C. State Fair. A look at the numbers

Food vendors and carnival workers are packing up their candied apples, cotton candy, games and giant stuffed prizes, marking the end of the 2025 North Carolina State Fair season.

This year, there were 946,811 total fairgoers during the fair’s 11-day run, according to figures from the state’s Department of Agriculture.

That is nearly 8,000 fewer than the past 10-year average and more than 50,000 less than last year.

“It’s been a very strong year, and we are happy with that,” Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said in a statement. “A lot of attention gets focused on attendance figures, and we do want to see strong numbers, but that is not the only barometer we use to measure success. Across the fairgrounds and throughout the fair we saw a lot of smiles and a lot of happy people. And that’s what makes all the hard work worthwhile – every day and every year!”

Fair attendance has not seen a linear recovery since it returned after missing 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In 2019, attendance was 938,029. In 2021, fewer than 825,000 people went. The following year saw a bounce back with more than 960,000 people, but then numbers dipped in 2023.

Last year, attendance almost reached more than a million fairgoers, which would have been the first time it had hit seven figures since 2017, but it was just shy by a little over 1,000.

The record for the highest number of total fairgoers in a single North Carolina State Fair season is still held by 2010, which saw 1,091,887.

Attendance per day ranged from 41,287 to 116,426, the latter being attendance on the last Saturday and the former on the first Thursday of the fair. This stayed consistent with trends that the first day typically sees the fewest and the last Saturday the most fairgoers.

Often, the culprit for low attendance levels is the weather. In 2023 when the total number of fairgoers was nearly 30,000 less than the year before, it rained on Oct. 14, which was the first Saturday of the fair season. 

That day, 62,501 people went to the fair compared to 115,586 on Oct. 15 in 2022, which was the first Saturday that year and saw sunny weather with temperatures in the mid 70s.

This year’s discrepancy between attendance numbers cannot be as easily explained away by the weather, though since temperatures and conditions were largely similar to last year.

North Carolina’s State Fair will return next year Oct. 15-25, 2026.