Since the first time I walked through the turnstile, I‘ve loved the carnival of excess that is the N.C. State Fair.
This story has been told before in these pages. My future father-in-law, a happy-go-lucky gent, had squeezed a dozen relatives into the back of a minivan and drove from his home in Durham to Raleigh. As we tried not to sit on one another's vital organs, he belted out the family anthem, "The Chicken Song" at the top of his lungs.
A year later, my wedding was held on a Saturday night during the fair. We didn't get hitched on the Ferris wheel. But we did ferry out-of-town guests to the fairgrounds to provide the full Tar Heel State experience, including pig races, demolition derbies, clogging contests and the 21-foot-tall Smokey Bear.
Imagine their delight upon chowing down on calorie bombs like Cheerwine funnel cakes, deep-fried Reese's Cups, Krispy Kreme cheeseburgers and the Twinx - a Twinkie stuffed with a Twix candy bar, wrapped in bacon, batter-dipped and deep-fried.
And food is the perfect place to start this review of the N.C. State Fair by the numbers.
Big eats
- More than 100 food vendors serve everything from deep‑fried pumpkin pie to bacon‑wrapped grilled corn.
- Dozens of fresh delights debut each year in the “New Foods” competition - often the most‑clicked page on the fair’s website.
- Tens of thousands of deep‑fried Oreos are sold each year.
Rides and midway
- More than100 carnival rides and attractions take center stage.
- The largest traveling Ferris wheel in the U.S. has appeared at the fair multiple times.
- More than 30 games challenge fairgoers on the midway.
Portly produce
- Record pumpkins often weigh more than 1,000 pounds.
- Giant watermelons regularly top 250 pounds.
Livestock
- Thousands of animals are shown across cattle, goat, sheep, poultry and swine competitions.
- Hundreds of ribbons are awarded daily in youth livestock contests.
Entertainment and events
- There are 11 nights of fireworks - every night of the fair.
- Dozens of free concerts take place on multiple stages.
- More than 40 entertainers, including stilt walkers, jugglers, magicians and living statues, roam the grounds.
Competition
- More than 10,000 entries across categories cover contests such as quilts, cakes, photography, woodworking and vegetables.
- The decorated cakes competition is so popular it usually draws double lines just to view the entries.
Operations
- More than 30,000 parking spaces are offered in official lots.
- Hundreds of buses run daily for park‑and‑ride.
- Millions of steps are logged by fairgoers because the fairgrounds covers 344 acres.
Attendance
- Total attendance last year was 946,811 when 95.8 percent of tickets were sold online.
- Daily records include Saturday at 151,647 (2010), Wednesday at 109,077 (1990) and Friday at 109,396 (2018).
And finally…
- 900 miles of toilet paper is used during the fair - enough to stretch from Raleigh to New York City.