Fair Sweet Fair Shines in 2025

DES MOINES, IA (08/18/2025) (readMedia)-- Despite rain, heat and humidity, the 2025 Iowa State Fair was packed with fun, food, livestock, contests, competitions, entertainment and top-notch sweet memory-making moments.

The 2025 Iowa State Fair welcomed a total of 1,160,121 Fairgoers. While the all-time record of 1,182,682 Fairgoers was set in 2024, this year's turnout was the third-highest in history despite all the weather challenges. Along with multiple days of rain, the average daily temperature at the 2025 Fair was 8 degrees higher than the 2024 Fair.

Some highlights of the 2025 Fair included:

Sweet, all-time record attendance in the Grandstand: From Christian artist Forrest Frank's standing room only performance on August 7, to country, rock and hip hop the remaining nights, Fairgoers had a diverse lineup to buy tickets to throughout the Fair. Record-breaking crowds filled the Grandstand for unforgettable nights of music and memories. The 2025 Iowa State Fair Grandstand recorded 131,755 concertgoers. The old record of 128,504 was set in 2019.

The Sweetest Giant of Them All: A giant pumpkin shown by Pete and Alba Caspers of Peosta was pumpkin was one sweet showstopper, weighing in at 1,409 pounds. It weighed more than the biggest boar this year!

Delicious Wins: Two years running, Winn & Sara's Kitchen's food in the Best New Food Contest was voted People's Choice. The Bacon Chicken Ranch Eggroll won the People's Choice Best New Food Award, with 44.7% of the votes. A whopping 10,711 votes were counted in the Best New Food competition, while thousands more tried the more than 60 new foods offered at the Fair in 2025. Fairgoers also voted for their favorite new drink on the official Iowa State Fair app. The winner of the Best New Drink (with alcohol) went to JR's SouthPork Ranch for the Pink Pony Cooler, and Jada's Funnel Cakes received Best New Drink (without alcohol) for their Watermelon Lemonade.

Scratching Up a Sweet Record: Partnering with the Iowa Lottery, the Iowa State Fair helped achieve a Guinness Book of World Records title, bringing together 1,380 people to simultaneously scratch a lottery ticket on August 14 in Elwell Family Park. The Iowa Lottery celebrated 40 years of scratch tickets, too.

Sweet Ride: An amazing record-breaking number of six-horse hitches were shown in the Jacobson Exhibition Center on the last day of the Fair. Twenty horse teams took over one hour to fill the arena with 120 big, beautiful horses.

Ribbons, rewards and results: Other 2025 Iowa State Fair numbers are still being tallied. Watch for the 2026 Iowa State Fair theme soon and mark your calendars for August 13-23, 2026.

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Frequently ranked as one of the top events in the country, the Iowa State Fair is the single largest event in the state of Iowa and one of the oldest and largest agricultural and industrial expositions in the country. Annually attracting more than a million people from all over the world, the Iowa State Fair located at East 30th and East University, just 10 minutes from downtown Des Moines, is Iowa's greatest celebration with a salute to the best in agriculture, industry, entertainment and achievement. For more information, visit www.iowastatefair.org.