Iowa State Fair (2024)
An informal guide.
This month I officially broke my one-year streak of not going to the Iowa State Fair, which is a streak I hate to maintain for any length of time. I don’t really have happy places but if I did the Fair would be one of them. We went to the Fair every year when I was a kid, though my earliest memories of it don’t go back very far. I think that’s because my brain can’t distinguish any of the twenty-five-ish Fairs I’ve attended and so instead of cataloging a highlight reel of memories it merged them all into one giant meta-Fair, a mental representation of what I think the Fair is and how I feel about it. And since that meta-Fair pretty much feels like joy, I’ve concluded that I must like it.
I’m putting this out late, obviously. The Fair has already happened. I meant to throw it together beforehand so I could use it as an actual guide, but life and so forth and so I’m only finishing it now. I was originally thinking of it as a PLAN OF ATTACK but now I’m more thinking of it as a collection of reflections and helpful hints. So all in all it’s pretty informal.
Ground Rules
- Travel light, but be prepared. It pays to have a few essentials with you. For me, that’s a small backpack, a fanny pack, a water bottle, camera, hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, and a light shirt or jacket if the weather calls for it.
- Slow and steady wins the Fair. My family likes to run the Fair gamut, so we generally need two days to sate ourselves. You want to leave plenty of time for breaks (see Rule 2.1), and you don’t want to rush. Nothing like the stress of rushing to really suck the joy out of an endeavor.
- Sit. The Fairgrounds are huge, and a day spent at the Fair is a day spent walking. Breaks are essential. If you need air conditioning, your best options are Jacobson, the 4-H Building, and the Pavilion. Varied Industries, the Cultural Center, and the Knapp Center are also air-conditioned but offer limited seating. (Also, Knapp smelled awful this year, which I don’t think is normal but bear it in mind all the same.)
- Share. If you have your eye on three Fair foods or more, you’ll want to split them with somebody else. Not only will this allow you to sample more Fair fare, but it will also leave you decidedly not feeling like a sweaty bag of fried butter at the end of the day.
- Download the app. The official Iowa State Fair app has gotten a lot better over the years. You can pretty much find anything on there, and you can save your favorite events and foods for later. An essential tool in the Fair toolbox.
The Food
Every year the Fair releases a list of new foods, which is definitely their best and possibly their last marketing gimmick. In any case, it’s the only gimmick anybody cares about, probably because it’s the one that involves eating. You could say the Fair is a hedonic outlet for people who like to eat as much as Burning Man is for people who like to do drugs and have sex. (Or so I imagine. I’ve never been to Burning Man.)
I’ve never been a foodie (that’s my brother’s purview), but a day at the Fair, as we’ve said, is a day of walking. To walk, you need energy. If that energy happens to come in the form of a Mocha Bar from the Bauder’s ice cream stand, so be it. Not only do you get to indulge yourself but you get to rightfully call it a matter of survival. If that’s not a win-win, I don’t know what is.
The only new food I tried this year was the Butterbeer Ice Cream from Coney Corner (which is also called Nathan’s Hot Dogs?), and it was good and fine and I won’t get it again. Again, not the foodie in the family. But here are my favorites:
Bauder’s Ice Cream. We used to be faithful patrons of the Dairy Barn, but my parents jumped ship when shakes went up to seven dollars. Bauder’s was presumably cheaper at the time, but I don’t know that they are now. In any case, I do actually believe it is the best ice cream on the grounds. I like to get either the Peppermint Bar, the Mocha Bar, or the Cookie Mountain. I had the Mocha Bar and the Cookie Mountain this year. The first was good as ever, the second had an M&M cookie instead of a chocolate chip cookie, so it was a little disappointing.
Barksdale’s Cookies. I didn’t get to these this year, which is very sad, but I did have them at the Iowa Horse Fair in April so it’s not as heartbreaking as it might have been. Some of the best cookies money can buy, in my opinion.
Corn Dog. No further explanation required. I usually get mine from Coney Corner (Nathan’s Hot Dogs?), but I can’t say with a straight face that they do it any better than any of the other bajillion corn dog vendors on the grounds.
Kettle Corn. I don’t know what these guys are officially called, but they’re over by the Knapp Amphitheater on the way to the Pioneer Village. The kettle corn is delicious, and the folks who run it get bonus points for being from Kahoka, MO, which is where my mom’s side of the family is from.
Honey Lemonade. You’ll find this on the upper floor of the Ag Building by the bee people. It’s light and refreshing, not too sweet and because of that I think some people might find it underwhelming, but I think it’s just perfect.
Pickle Dog. A fried dill pickle spear wrapped in pastrami and stuffed with cream cheese. You can find them on the south side of Varied Industries or in the triangle, just off the Grand Concourse across from Ye Old Mill.
Hot Beef Sundae. I’ve been getting the Hot Beef Sundae from Cattlemen’s Beef Quarters ever since they introduced it ten or fifteen years ago. It’s mashed potatoes, roast beef, and cheese, all doused and gravy and served with a grape tomato on top. There’s absolutely nothing remarkable about it and at ten bucks a pop it’s probably one of the worst deals on the Fairgrounds, but what can I say, I’m a loyalist.
Tenderloin. You can get a good tenderloin at a few places. We usually opt for Coney Corner (Nathan’s Hot Dogs), but two years ago I had one from Chuckies by the Craft Beer Tent and loved it, though I think it was grilled instead of fried, which apparently matters to some people.
Miller’s Mini Donuts. I didn’t have these this year but I think I did have them one year and I think I did love them. Will confirm next year.
Events
Cowboy Mounted Shooting. Mounted Shooting has only been around since the nineties and they only started doing it at the Fair recently, but then again it has to have been at least ten years ago now that they had the first State Fair shoot because I was in it and I was in high school. My mom was in it this year. She took her horse Ginger, but Ginger was acting up a little (she’s young) and so my mom borrowed a friend’s horse and did really well. She shot clean, which is more than I could ever say for myself. Any case, if you’ve never watched Mounted Shooting it’s a bizarre thing to imagine. I won’t lay it all out here, but you can watch the PBS Coverage on YouTube.
Draft Horse Hitches. I hate horse shows but I make an exception for the draft horse hitches, maybe because I like Westerns.
Draft Horse/Pony Pulls. You have a team of two horses or ponies. You hook them up to a giant sled and load it with cinder blocks. Somebody yells go and the horses lunge forward and pull the sled as far as they can. This is one of those events which seems to provoke a lot of crowd investment. Maybe that’s because the physical strain on the horses is so obvious, so there’s some especially salient empathetic tendrils going out.
Bill Riley Talent Show. A State Fair staple. We saw an eight-year-old pianist this year who in my opinion blew everyone out of the water, even the older kids. We saw some incredible singers too. I wish lyrical dancing wasn’t so popular, but for some reason I don’t make the rules.
Ron Diamond (hypnotist). The first time I ever saw a hypnotist was at the Fair probably ten years ago now, and it blew my goddamn mind. I assume the dude’s still got it because they keep having him back.
Cowgirl Queen Contest. It’s a horse show, but it gets an honorable mention because I’ve been to so many of them. Growing up it was often the case that we knew one or more of the entrants. A friend was even planning to use my horse one year but then she didn’t. I like the part where they run really fast in a circle.
Rides
I don’t do rides, but two are worth mentioning: Ye Old Mill and the original Sky Glider. The first is, in my dad’s words, a “two-minute boat-ride in the dark”. And look, he’s not wrong. But it’s a great one for the kids, if you have those.
The other is the old Sky Glider. Nothing against the new one, but the old Sky Glider is more fun and also a brilliant tactical decision. You can take it up the hill and save yourself a hike, and it drops you off at the best building on the grounds, Pioneer Hall.
For Kids
Ag Building. The second level of the Ag Building is filled with vendors selling cool stuff and sometimes also giving out samples. It’s basically a miniature version of Varied Industries, but with more bees. (Make sure you stop and see the bees.)
Ag Building Garden. This has an official name, but I forget what it is. Any case, if you find the Ag Building you’ll find the garden. Not only is it beautiful, it also features a cool vine-covered tunnel for the kids to climb through. And just beyond it, between the Ag Building and Pavilion, there’s a plaza with mist-fountains and benches. A great pit stop if you need a break.
Fun Forest. Up the hill behind the Ag Building. It’s a big tree-shaded area with a wood chip playground and a few benches. There’s a stage where they do silly performances geared toward probably preschoolers, but occasionally they have some really good acts there. (One year we watched a guy sit on his very-well-trained-horse’s belly and pretend he was riding in a canoe.) The Fun Forest also features a few animal statues (fun to sit on!) and a life-size wooden locomotive (fun to climb on!). Overall a good place for kids to run around and parents to sit.
Cultural Center. Just past the Fun Forest. Features lots of art and crafts, kid-friendly but not kids-only. I like the dollhouses, personally.
Varied Industries. It might not seem like the kid-friendliest place at first, but the Varied Industries Building is a goldmine of free swag and tattoos. There’s tons of stuff to look at, and lots of the booths offer some kind of interaction, like the aforementioned tattoos or raffle sign-ups.
Knapp Animal Learning Center. A giant building filled with baby animals. What’s not to like? I’ll tell you what’s not to like: the smell. But like said up top, I am 99.9% sure it has not smelled nearly that bad in the past, so maybe they’ll get their act together next year.
Thrilltown. It’s the midway for kids, and now that I’m thinking about it they definitely should have called it the Kidway. There’s also Thrillville, which features a maze/scavenger hunt and a rock wall.