Two days of nearly ideal weather means big crowds for the people trying to navigate their way into the Minnesota State Fair.
So far Thursday and Friday, regular parking lots and park-and-ride lots are filling up early, and State Fair spokeswoman Maria Hayden recommends one of their express bus options instead.
"We work with different partners Metro Transit, Southwest Transit, and Minnesota Valley Transit Authority, and they can do express buses that go directly to the fair for a small fee. They're usually around $6," says Hayden.
That $6 could save you a lot of stuck-in-traffic headache too. The park-and-ride lots Friday were full by 8:30 a.m. Traffic on area roads, especially on Snelling Avenue, were extremely backed up.
Hayden also recommends coming to the Fair in the early morning or evening to avoid the peak rush times.
"A lot of times we'll see really peak amounts of people coming here in the later morning, early afternoon," she explains. "So, if you're really trying to avoid that big rush, either come before or after that."
All transit options are listed on the Minnesota State Fair website here.
And those crowds led to a record on opening day. More than 155,000 people passed through the gates, crushing the previous record by 16,000 extra bodies.
Most reports from the fairgrounds on Friday seemed to indicate even bigger crowds. Friday is traditionally more well-attended than Thursday, with that day's record over 170,000 people.
The fair releases attendance numbers between noon and 3:00 p.m. on the following day. You can see those here.
Fair spokesperson Maria Hayden says the best way to avoid traffic headaches is to find transit options
Fair spokesperson Maria Hayden says the best way to avoid traffic headaches is to find transit options
