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The state fair is a big deal in Indiana.
Launched back to 1852 to tout the state's agricultural output, the fair has offered Hoosiers the opportunity to showcase their livestock, food, and crafts, and enjoy all sorts of entertainment over the years. Typically, the event goes down during the month of August, taking place at a designated fairgrounds in Indianapolis. In 2020, the fair was canceled due to COVID-19, but it's back up and running this year.
The 2021 fair is also a momentous occasion for me since it's the first year I attended. See, I'm a native New Yorker. I married my Hoosier husband in June, and we settled in Indy. As the summer heated up, it seemed like everyone was talking about the fair. Friends even texted me about rookie mistakes to avoid, like attending on weekends or "free" days when the fair is at its most crowded.
It's not like I've never been to a fair before. When I was a kid, I went to a Strawberry Festival in Long Island a few times. More recently, I hit up Westchester's Winter Wonderland.
But the Indiana State Fair was much bigger and more elaborate that I imagined. Here's everything I saw and experienced at the fair:
I started off the day with high hopes for the fair. I was ready to see farm animals, enjoy some rides, and snack on unhealthy food.
In 2019, 878,857 visitors from around Indiana and beyond attended the fair. No one attended the fair in 2020, as it was cancelled due to COVID-19. When I attended, the fair didn't feel jam-packed.
The crowd seemed respectable, though, especially given that I was visiting during the daytime on a Wednesday. I saw plenty of families enjoying a last adventure before school.
Only 44% of Hoosiers have been fully vaccinated as of August 8. But with the exception of an un-staffed booth from the state's Department of Health, the whole atmosphere felt strangely like a pre-coronavirus celebration. Most fair-goers remained unmasked, with the exception of a small handful of mostly older individuals.
Source: USA Facts
For me, the event felt a bit like stepping back in time. I think if I dropped my 2018 self down into the fair without any introduction or fanfare, they might not have immediately guessed that a pandemic was ravaging the world.
Source: WRTV
Even though I've been fully vaccinated for months, this was the first public event where I found myself truly relaxing.
Another aspect of the fair to really strike me was the sheer size of the fairgrounds. This place is massive.
The event space stretches over 250 acres, spread out in a rough oval shape around the infield parking area. As a point of reference, Vatican City sits on 100 acres.
To get around, fair-goers rely on a shuttle that reflect the fair's agricultural roots. This tractor shuttle fascinated me, and my husband made fun of me for snapping a photo of it every time it rumbled by.
Basically, these shuttles were tractors tasked with pulling around what looked like rolling benches. If you were tired, you could hop aboard for a ride. By the end of fair — when we felt too tired to do much more walking — these shuttles became a real lifesaver.
As a reporter on the business beat, another aspect of the event I was especially interested in was gauging how small Indiana businesses were doing at the fair's expo.
Most of the entrepreneurs we encountered were understandably more interested in aggressively hawking their wares and making eye contact with potential customers than dishing on their business woes.
Still, we saw a few possible examples of the labor shortage that's hit so many small businesses. One group didn't even have enough people to staff two booths. A few other "help wanted" signs dotted the fair.
Then, of course, there were the animals. Hoosiers from around the state bring their prize livestock to the state fair to compete for ribbons and bask in the admiration from other fair-goers.
We visited animals at the fair's various livestock halls, and also encountered other animals as we made our way around the grounds, like this horse named Big Duke.
In some of the halls, we got to get up close to the animals, with their owners keeping a careful watch nearby.
We saw horses, pigs, lambs, goats, turkeys, ducks, chickens, and this rather insistent gray cow who didn't stop mooing until we came over to interview her.
The weirdest moment at the fair came when we wandered into a big building to escape the heat. The place was mostly empty, and a reverent hush had fallen over the small group inside.
We had come across a very quiet cat judging competition. "It feels like we weren't meant to see that," my husband said, as we quickly marched out the door.
As someone who grew up in the suburbs of New York City, I don't pretend to know how exactly these livestock competitions work. But for me, the animals were a highlight of my time at the fair.
Of course, throughout the fair, we kept nibbling on different food items. To avoid overdoing it, I tried to stick to a strict policy of sampling everything and finishing nothing. But that's easier said than done when you're wandering around a fair for hours.
I tried this ridiculous deep-fried Milky Way bar ...
... a grilled cheese sandwich shaped like a waffle ...
... this exquisite funnel cake ...
... and in terms of refreshing beverages, we enjoyed lemon shake-up after lemon shake-up as well as some retro cherry soda from the Hook's Drug Store Museum.
I also got my hands on some delicious, freshly-made saltwater taffy that I popped while waiting in line for the Ferris wheel.
I also sipped on a pineapple whip to cool off at the end of the day.
Needless to say, the food and heat demolished me. I tried to pace myself, but I ended up crashing for three hours shortly after arriving back home.
Source: Insider
Overall, the experience was overwhelming but fun. I enjoyed the feelings of "normalcy" that the fair elicited. It was almost like a little bubble, one that blocked out all the stress and strife that have so defined our world since the pandemic.
