So Was It the Price of Turkey Legs? State Fair of Texas Attendance Dropped by 400,000

[douglas9]

It turns out that attendance at the State Fair of Texas was not doing just fine this year.

After viral posts at the beginning of the month showed fewer crowds at the fair and many online commenters blamed higher prices, State Fair representatives downplayed concerns and assured Texans that fair attendance always picks up after the first week.

But after the fair closed up shop on Sunday, official attendance numbers show that at 2 million visitors, 2025 had the lowest fair attendance in seven years, excluding the drive-through fair of 2020. Attendance dropped by 400,000 people compared to last year.

“We always plan the fair for around somewhere in between 2 million and 2.5 million, so we’re within that range,” State Fair spokesperson Karissa Condoianis told Fox4. “You know, there’s a lot of things going on in the world right now and so we expect also that that is going to have an impact on the attendance at the fair.”

While Condoianis preferred to keep things vague, U.S. Senate nominee and current Texas state Rep. James Talarico got right to the point.

https://thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/21/texas-state-fair-attendance-drop-high-prices/

[efhmc]

1. I like that Barbed Wire. Thank you for pointing me to it.

[NCDem47]

2. Maybe:

1.) Abbott, with Noem's help, has turned Texas into a police state = NO FUN!

2.) Trump's economy is hitting the wallets of everday Americans. Heard prices were through the roof!

[Danascot]

4. Also

Texas has a large population of Hispanics. Maybe they stayed home because if they went to the fair they could very easily be rounded up by ICE.

[Ritabert]

3. Never going through that state again even the mere 3 hours on I-40

[Skittles]

5. I went, first time since before the pandemic

I thought the parking lot was not as filled as I remembered it......attendance picked up later in the day but I think that was because all the Texas / OU riff raff descended on us........I had a good time but yes, it is indeed pricey. Certainly people fearing imminent jacked health care costs, for example, would not go.