ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – On Sunday, the 96th annual U.P. State Fair came to an end.
“It was a great fair,” said Vickie Micheau, Executive Director of the Delta County Chamber of Commerce. “This tradition keeps going. We are so proud to be able to host an event like this that the community looks forward to every year.”
The U.P. State Fair always sees a strong turnout, with about 104,000 attending in 2023. This year’s numbers were a bit lower, which organizers largely credit to rain on Thursday and Friday that delayed some events and caused others to be rescheduled.
“Overall, we’re thinking that we’re probably going to be about 4% down in attendance,” Micheau said. “We’ll be just shy of 100,000 guests, but that certainly isn’t bad for a one-week event where you have Mother Nature who cooperates sometimes but sometimes does not.”
A brief power outage on Wednesday also caused some challenges, impacting several parts of the fairgrounds including the ticket gates and main office. According to Micheau, U.P. State Fair electrical subcontractor Freedom Electric, the City of Escanaba, Sunbelt Rentals, and Skerbeck Entertainment Group all responded quickly to get the power back on.
Despite the dip in attendance, Micheau says the Jr. Market Livestock Auction was a particularly big success.
“That’s very important to this fair,” she said. “It’s very important to our young exhibitors. The auction income was over $156,000. That money goes directly back to these young kids as they think about their college education and investing in another animal for next year’s fair.”
Events like the U.P. Veteran of the Year Ceremony and the Lieutenant Governor’s Luncheon were also well attended.
“All in all, it was just a wonderful week of celebration,” said Micheau. “We had a lot of happy people on the grounds, and we’re just really happy we can provide an event that still is affordable family fun.”
Although the rides and attractions began coming down on Monday, Micheau says preparations are already underway for the 2025 U.P. State Fair.
“There are so many notes that we take during fair week so that we can continuously improve what we offer to fairgoers,” she said. “This year, we definitely improved parking, we improved our camping procedures, we listen to all of our fairgoers and really implement the things that we believe will help improve the fairgoers’ experience.”
WZMQ 19 was proud to be a Reserve Champion Sponsor of the 2024 U.P. State Fair. Search “U.P. State Fair” on our website to see more stories from fair week.
