Star Tribune
Minnesota State Fair holds ticket prices steady for 2024 at $18
Minnesota State Fair entry tickets will cost the same in 2024 — $18 for most, the fair’s board decided Sunday in yet another sign the annual event has overcome the fiscal strain of shutting down in 2020 because of the pandemic.
Fair CEO Renee Alexander said that while the fair budget faces pressures from increased expenses, “We went into the budgeting process with a priority to keep ticket prices the same.”
The board of the State Agricultural Society, which oversees the fair, made the decision at the society’s annual gathering at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Bloomington. The event was the first as CEO for Alexander, who took over in May.
Tickets are the fair’s main source of revenue, and prices often increase year to year. The last time they held steady was in 2017 and 2018 when tickets cost $14 at the gate. A year ago, the board increased admission prices from 2022 by $1 across all categories except toddlers and babies.
This summer, ages 13-64 will again pay $18. Children ages 5-12 and seniors ages 65 or older will again pay $16. Kids ages 4 or younger will still be admitted free. Discounted tickets are already available for $15 online at the fair’s website.
The board also agreed to invest $10 million in upgrades at the fairgrounds. Among them: about $1 million for new windows and doors on the Fine Arts building, a new ticket booth and elevator at the grandstand and more trees.
Alexander is not yet a year into her new job. She succeeded Jerry Hammer, who was in charge for 27 years and steered the fair through the COVID-19 pandemic without a single staff layoff. He was inducted Sunday into the fair’s Hall of Fame.
The State Fair was not held in 2020 for the first time since World War II. It returned in 2021, but attendance fell because COVID-19 remained a threat. The true rebound came in the past two years.
Attendance in 2023 was 1,835,826, the sixth-highest in fair history. However, that was down about 6,000 from 2022, a dip attributed to the oppressive heat in the final days of the event. The attendance record — 2,126,551 — was set in 2019.
Before Sunday’s board session, Alexander addressed several hundred people at a breakfast for the Minnesota Federation of County Fairs.
She briefly described her background, showing a photo of herself as a toddler sitting on tractor in Pittsburg, Kan., where she was raised until the family moved to Coon Rapids. She concluded with a photo of her 12-year-old rescue yellow Labrador, Baxter.
As a longtime fair employee and Hammer’s former aide, Alexander said of her hiring: “The message that’s being sent is that the institution is in the right place.”
Before taking the top job, she had worked at the organization for almost two decades, much of it booking the music acts in venues from the free stages to the grandstand. “To see a sold-out audience at the grandstand still makes me excited,” she said as an image of a concert was shown behind her.
She said she attended “Jerry University” for 18 years, a reference to working with Hammer who, among other things, is credited with upgrading and enhancing the Falcon Heights fairgrounds and buildings, planting trees and keeping the historic structures fresh and safe.
Alexander said the fair has three pillars of success — people, place and community — and spoke of exposing an urban audience to agricultural and working with the community surrounding the Falcon Heights fairgrounds.
“We want to be a good neighbor, not just the big neighbor,” she said. “We know we make a big impact on the communities during the fair.”
Alexander also showed an image of Hmong dancers performing in traditional attire at the fair and said she hoped to add more, similar “cultural days” to the end-of-summer event.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
