Attendance at the 2026 New York State Fair exceeds 925,000

WAER | By Scott Willis

Published September 2, 2025 at 1:59 PM EDT

Early NYS Fair patrons wait for the opening of the gates at the NYS Fair on Tuesday, August 20, 2021. — The 2025 NY State Fair saw record number attendance following Covid era, but still shy of pre-pandemic attendance.

Nearly 926,000 people visited this year’s New York State Fair, a 7% increase over 2024’s total. Attendance was buoyed by strong turnout Saturday and Sunday, with more than 100,000 crossing through the gates.

The fair has yet to attract a million or more visitors since before the pandemic. In 2019, more than 1.3 million people flooded the grounds, the fourth consecutive year of over a million visitors.

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Scott Willis

Scott Willis covers politics, local government, transportation, and arts and culture for WAER. He came to Syracuse from Detroit in 2001, where he began his career in radio as an intern and freelance reporter. Scott is honored and privileged to bring the day’s news and in-depth feature reporting to WAER’s dedicated and generous listeners. You can find him on twitter @swillisWAER and email him at srwillis@syr.edu.

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