Casey’s Highlights from the 2015 N.C. State Fair

The 2015 State Fair ended just over a week ago with attendance topping the 1 million mark. This week Casey Cardinal is offering a trip down memory lane to look back at his top five highlights from the fair. Friday Frenzy and record attendance days: The fair started with two record attendance days. Preview Day on Thursday brought in a record 50,327 people. Friday’s new promotion, Friday Frenzy, brought in 90,954 people, many who took advantage of the $5 admission for students and an unlimited ride wristband promotion. It was a great kickoff to 11 days of strong attendance. Opening…

Continue Reading

Thank you for helping us Celebrate What’s Great!

The final fireworks have exploded and the gates have closed on the 2010 N.C. State Fair. This year was one for the record books. Over our 11-day run, 1,091,887 people visited the Fair to enjoy the rides, food and exhibits that have become family traditions. On behalf of the entertainers, vendors and employees of the Fair, we want to say thank you for coming to the 2010 N.C. State Fair. Note: If video doesn’t appear, try refreshing browser.

Continue Reading

Moving into the final weekend.

Today is Day 9 of the N.C. State Fair and we’ve already broken five attendance records. Yesterday alone, we shattered last year’s record attendance by more than 16,000 fairgoers. The amazing thing is that 59,088 people brought four or more cans for Food Lion Hunger Relief Day at the Fair, which earned them free admission yesterday. The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina also reports the 246,779 pounds of food was collected, breaking yet another record. Fairgoers really answered the call to “Stuff the Warehouse.” Thank you for helping! The weather is going to be fantastic for the…

Continue Reading

Counting is fun

Every year, we get lots of questions about attendance at the N.C. State Fair. And every year, we base attendance figures on the number of admission tickets sold plus the count for children and senior citizens who get in free. But every year, there are days when we’d swear on a funnel cake that there are more people on the fairgrounds than the official numbers show. The reason for that, of course, is that there are A LOT of people working or volunteering at the Fair, competing in livestock shows and other contests, or covering the Fair for media outlets….

Continue Reading

Good weather = good crowd

You could say those of us who work in the State Fair Press Office are obsessed with attendance. Every morning during the fair, we eagerly await word of the previous day’s crowd. We’re interested in this information for various reasons: 1) we know the news media will be asking for it, and 2) our boss, Ag Commissioner Steve Troxler, talks every year about wanting a million people to visit the fair, and we want to see how close — or far — we are to that milestone. But the real reason we want these numbers is because, every night before…

Continue Reading