Nearly 188,000 active users and more than 907,000 app visits during the 12-day fair, with substantial growth over last year.
In our third year powering the Official MN State Fair App, Grandstand helped visitors explore the fair through a familiar design, connected content, and new ways to find what they wanted.
During the 2026 Minnesota State Fair, August 27 through September 7, nearly 188,000 active users generated more than 907,000 app visits. Both the number of active users and overall app usage increased considerably over last year.
Those figures cover only the 12 days of the event. They do not include the browsing, discovery, and planning that happened in the days, weeks, and months before the gates opened.
Building on a Familiar Experience
Three years of working together has provided opportunities to refine the app while preserving the experience returning visitors recognize.
Minnesota does not use a changing annual theme for its app design. Its visual identity stays consistent from year to year, creating a familiar starting point for visitors as new schedules, foods, vendors, and features arrive.
That consistency gives improvements a clear purpose: make the app more useful while building on what visitors already know.
This year, one of the most meaningful changes was placing search directly on the home page.
Bringing Search to the Front
Embedding search on the home page made a major difference in how visitors used the app.
Visitors could begin looking for something as soon as they opened the app. Whether they had a food, vendor, event, or location in mind, search offered a direct starting point alongside the app’s established navigation.
That placement mattered. It made search a more prominent part of the experience and helped visitors discover content across the app without first deciding which section to browse.
Improvements to search relevance supported that change. Searches could find matches through vendor descriptions, tags, and subcategories, while clearer Top Matches and better handling of typos helped surface useful results.
Together, the prominent search box and improved matching gave visitors more ways to reach the information they wanted—and made the content maintained by the fair more discoverable.
The Experience Starts Before Opening Day
For many visitors, the fair begins with anticipation: exploring new foods, checking entertainment schedules, and deciding which familiar favorites to visit again.
The app gives that planning a home. Visitors can browse available listings, explore the grounds, and save favorites ahead of their visit. When fair day arrives, those saved choices are ready to help guide their day.
The nearly 188,000 active users and more than 907,000 visits measure activity during the fair itself. Advance planning extends the app’s usefulness beyond that reporting window.
Connecting Discovery With Location
At a large fair, knowing what you want to see is only part of the planning process. Knowing where to find it matters just as much.
Minnesota’s app connects schedules and vendor information with the fairgrounds map. Visitors can select a location to explore associated vendors and see current or upcoming events, then open those listings for more detail.
Favorites make those connections personal. Visitors can save vendors while browsing and filter the map to show only locations associated with their favorites. A list of foods discovered before opening day becomes a set of places to find across the grounds.
These capabilities bring planning and exploration closer together, helping visitors move from an idea to their next stop.
Celebrating the People Behind the Fair
The app also connected visitors with another important part of Minnesota’s fair: competition results.
Minnesota became the first major rollout of Grandstand’s Open Class Results experience, giving participants, families, and other visitors a way to explore results within the app. Shareable result graphics offered a way to celebrate accomplishments with others.
Results gave visitors another reason to use the app and connected it with the exhibits, achievements, and traditions that make the fair meaningful to them.
A Partnership That Keeps Improving
The third year of the Official MN State Fair App brought considerable growth in users and usage, alongside improvements that made information easier to discover.
A consistent design provided familiarity. Embedded home-page search changed how visitors found content. Connected maps, favorites, and results expanded what they could do once they found it.
We’re proud to continue our partnership with the Minnesota State Fair and build on that experience year after year.
Planning your next event app? Contact Grandstand to explore how a familiar design and thoughtful improvements can support your visitors before and during your event.
Grandstand respects our clients’ data privacy. We only share client usage statistics that the client has already made public. The usage totals featured here were included in the Minnesota State Fair’s official 2026 wrap-up press release.