COLUMBUS – As it has nearly every year since 1850, the Ohio State Fair will open Wednesday morning. For the next 12 days, about 900,000 visitors and more than 87,000 lemon shake-ups, it will attract visitors and exhibitors to the Ohio Expo Center on the Northeast Side.
164th Ohio State Fair: July 26 – Aug. 6; Ohio Expositions Center, 717 E. 17th Avenue: • Fair admission gates open: 9 am – 10 pm. Admission: Adults (13-59) $10, Seniors (60+) $8, Children 5-12 $8, Children under 5 are free; Ride-All-Day Wristband Vouchers $25
The 164th edition of the fair (held every year except 1888 and 1942-45) offers most of the traditions that have become synonymous with is arguably (Texas does the arguing) the nation’s largest state fair.
Key dates in Ohio State Fair history
1850 – First Ohio State Fair (Camp Washington, Cincinnati)
1886 – Ohio Expo Center becomes fair’s permanent home
1896 – First fair with electric lighting
1903 – First butter cow and calf
1925 – All-Ohio State Fair Band is formed
1942-45 – Fair cancelled during World War II
1968 – First Sale of Champions livestock auction
1969 – Sky Glider and Giant Slide built
-Source: Ohio State Fair
As it has since for 103 years, Schmidt’s of German Village will be serving up Bahama Mamas and cream puffs. The fair’s oldest continuous food concession, Schmidt’s has already cooked up 1 million brats and 870,000 cream puffs.
Fair officials hope good weather will help them top last year’s attendance of 921,214, well short of the record set in 2015 (982,305). In 2003, 1 million visitors walked through the turnstiles, but that was the last year in which the fair lasted 17 days.
Attendance records
17 days: 1.01 million (2003)
12 days: 982,305 (2015)
Single-day: 115,288 (Sun., July 28, 2013)
First Ohio State Fair: 25,000 – 30,000 (est.) Oct. 2-4, 1850
-Source: Ohio State Fair
Along the midway during the run of the fair, vendors will serve 194,356 orders of French fries; 35,994 ice cream cones and 32 different kinds of food on a stick, including chocolate-dipped cheesecake and deep-fried manicotti.
Other fair-food delicacies making their debut: Deep-fried tacos and specialty tater tots, including Greek, bacon, gumbo and buffalo, among others.
Fair food by the numbers (2016 sales)
139,553 slices of pizza
96,657 corn dogs
37,335 ears of roasted corn
32,840 barbecue meals
2.3 million glasses of iced tea
-Source: Ohio State Fair
Wednesday’s lineup includes the first Hometown Sounds & Craft Beer Fest at the Celeste Center, featuring 12 Ohio brewers. Columbus Brewing Co. and Four String Brewing will be representing central Ohio.
New competitions for fairgoers include a tie-dye T shirt competition.
The fair remains true to its agricultural roots with the Ohio Farm Bureau’s “Country Cruise,” where children can ride pedal tractors on a closed course, watch a 600-pound squash and a 40-pound cheese carving and meet animals from the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium on Thursdays and Fridays.
The entertainment lineup feature Alabama on July 29, Cole Swindell on Aug. 1, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, with .38 Special on Aug. 2, Rascal Flatts on Aug. 3 and Pentatonix in a sold-out show Aug. 5.