page_title: Minnesota State Fair
section_title: Off-season use
hierarchical_section_title: Minnesota State Fair / Off-season use
caption_attribution_description: President addresses "Bean Feed". State Lieutenant Governor Karl Rolvaag (not George Farr as claimed in the NARA title), Minnesota Attorney General Walter F. Mondale, President Kennedy. St. Paul, MN, Hippodrome.
context_page_description: The Minnesota State Fair is the state fair of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Its slogan is "The Great Minnesota Get-Together." It is the largest state fair in the United States by average daily attendance. It is also the second-largest state fair in the United States by total attendance, trailing only the State Fair of Texas, which generally runs twice as long as the Minnesota State Fair. The state fairgrounds, adjacent the Saint Paul campus of the University of Minnesota, are in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, midway between the state's capital city of St. Paul and the adjacent city of Roseville, near the Como Park and Saint Anthony Park neighborhoods of Saint Paul. Residents of the state and region come to the fair to be entertained, exhibit their best livestock, show off their abilities in a variety of fields including art and cooking, learn about new products and services, and eat many different types of food—often on a stick. The fair runs for twelve days from late August into early September, ending on Labor Day. The Minnesota State Fair was named the best state fair in the United States in 2015 by readers of USA Today.
context_section_description: The fairgrounds are heavily used for events beyond the Fair. These include many horse shows in the Coliseum & Horse Barn, the Minnesota Horse Expo and the Minnesota Beef Expo, dog shows, antique & hot-rod car shows, motorcycle shows, model railroad shows, clothing & jewellery shows, gun & weapon collectors shows, comic book conventions, flea markets & swap meets, and more.  Buildings on the grounds are frequently rented for commercial events such as appliance sales, computer & electronics sales, and boat & car sales. Earlier in the summer, some of the fairground's roads are used to host an annual series of bike races during the week, called the State Fair Affair Criterium Series.
  Off-season many of the buildings are rented for winter storage of boats, camping trailers, and similar equipment.  Rental fees for such uses of the fairgrounds are a major source of revenue for the State Fair, often surpassing the profits from the Fair itself.  The Coliseum was the home rink for many college and high school hockey teams. After 40 years and a few thousand games the facility saw its final game played in February, 2014.
caption: John F. Kennedy (center), Lieutenant Governor Karl Rolvaag (left), and Walter Mondale (below and between them) at the Fairground Coliseum, 1962
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