Arizona State Fair

I attended the state fair again this year and was pleased with my experience. However, the fair can get expensive so here are some tips to save money for your next visit. Thursday : unlimited wrist bands for 50 bucks! Noon till 8pm and can get free admission from noon to 1pm (saves you 15 bucks!) Fridays are the best days to go if you live for fair food! There are some food items that only cost $3! You can also get free admission with ten (no glass) cans! St. Mary's excepts, 10 cans per individual that gets you a free admission ticket into the fair! Fridays included college student admission! College students can get into the fair for free on Fridays if a non-college student admission is purchased. I went to the fair this past Thursday with the unlimited bands for the rides and got in for free! Look up more events and promotions for the fair to save money this year! :)

If you play your cards right, you could get out with limited wallet damage. Entry was free with 10 cans on Friday and all booths have a $3 food choice on Foodue Friday from 12-6. Parking was $15. Best bets were Banana Puddin, mac and cheese, doke whip and aquas Frescas.

Went on Sunday admission is $15 for 8 years and older and the food and tickets did get a bit expensive I had got a fried cream cheesecake which had cost $10 and for tickets I had got the 40 tickets which 40 tickets cost $50 so I had to refill my fun pass twice that was $100 games and rides depends what you get on or play cost 4-7 tickets

Yelp won't combine the 2 state fair pages, so I copied and pasted my review here, too. Other page: https://www.yelp.com/biz/arizona-exposition-and-state-fair-phoenixI was going to give three stars, but the more I think about it, I just can't.I looked up the AZ fair info before coming into town, so I knew, for the most part, that this fair was going to be tiny, but I was excited to go because I have never been to another state's fair. I am biased to my own fair, in Wisconsin. It's HUGE. Probably AT LEAST 10 times the size of this fair. Size was not the only let down.Let's start with cost. At home, I can get tix for $10 or under, but they get you with parking at $15. AZ? $15 per person admission and $8 to park, but I had to cross a busy street to even get onto the fairgrounds!Food. At home, various local restaurants have food stands AND provide live entertainment. Duplicate drink (lemonade and soda) purveyors abound, but not for food. Food runs the gamut of everything you can imagine. AZ? The same vendor of turkey legs, brisket, and pulled pork at at least 3 or 4 locations around the grounds. Ditto the lemonade stands. AZ DOES have a couple of locations where you can get full on liquor drinks, like a whiskey neat. There are also a ton of taco and corndog stands.Rides. At home, the giant ferris wheel is $6 or $7 per person, and you're on it for at least 5 minutes. AZ? The giant ferris wheel was smaller, was $11-$13 per person, and went around 2 times. TWO!!! Every ride was at least $4 per person, minimum, where as at home, you could ride some for $3 per person.Vendors. Both were the same: bathroom remodel, overpriced and poorly made dresses, bags, jewelry, kids toys, basket of pick-your-own candy at $6.49 per half pound, AZ just has waaaaay fewer of these things.Animals. Arizona, come on. You had, and yes, I counted: 2 cows, 4 chickens, 1 turkey, 2 sheep, 2 pigs, 2 piglets, 4 camels, a donkey, a llama, an alpaca, and at least 4 breeds of goats, of which you probably had 100 total. Horses? Rabbits? Ducks? WHAT. THE. HECK.Do you offer a physical map of the grounds, or of the food vendors? Nope. You have a map of the fairgrounds at all the entrances, and also on your app. Which was near impossible to see in the sun that shines ALL DAY, CAUSE WE'RE IN ARIZONA!And finally, Arizona. I love you, but you can do better. There wasn't one piece of fair merchandise I could buy as a souvenir. Not even a post card. I had to settle for asking a stranger to take our picture in the picture frame thing set up in the coliseum. But hey, you had monster trucks!We went on $3 food day, where certain food items were only $3 a pop, and that was definitely enjoyable, barring the Chamoy pickle. Word on the street is that it was terrible.All in all, the Arizona state fair was pretty much what I expected, except for the food. I am definitely happy I went, I did have a nice time, but I do not see myself coming back unless it gets a drastic makeover.Honestly, you could be in and out in 3 hours or less. Wow!59/2023

As others have said, the parking situation is really atrocious in and around the fairgrounds. I would highly suggest taking an Uber or a Lyft or Waymo if you can, although I'm sure at closing time it'll end up being pretty pricey.If you are going to a concert, I would also highly highly recommend you go several hours early and enjoy the fair versus thinking you are going to find a spot at 6 PM. We went around three in the afternoon and waited at least 20 to 25 minutes to get into the west lot, which was the only remaining lot that had parking spaces. This was at 3 o'clock on a Friday for a 7 PM concert. The cost for parking was just eight dollars, which was great, but we saw a lot of signs for $30, $40 and such to park in the front of peoples yards. When our daughter was going to the fair in the evening last year, there were people later in the night charging as much as $100 per car for their yard.The fair itself is fine although I continue to be absolutely amazed by the incredulous price that some of these vendors charge for their food. I'm assuming it's all one company as everything was the same price such as beer was $12, wine was $14 etc. I thought I wanted a giant turkey leg, lol and my husband went to get me one and he came back with it letting me know it was $21, wow! He had a pork chop on a stick at the incredible bargain basement price of $15, ha. we did try to eat some items from the three dollar menu, my daughter was able to get a pretty decent size Agua Fresca for three dollars. I've uploaded the map. Most of the items are mini corn dog or very small bites. I'm not sure how you'd make a meal out of it but maybe you could?It's just really sad how much it cost for a family to be able to go and enjoy the fair. We did not ride any rides due to back issues but I can't imagine how much more that would have been. The place was super busy, so people are willing to pay it, and so be it!The highlight of the night was the Walker Hayes concert and many months ago I was able to jump online and buy front row seats right when they went on sale, so that was nice not to have to deal with a scalper. The seats were great and they even had a bit of cushioning which was awesome! He did put on an excellent show, and it was well over an hour and a half, it was staffed really well, and other than the sound was quite distorted, most likely, because we were sitting in the front, can't complain at all. He puts on a fun show, and we would see him again in a minute, I will say the place was absolutely freezing, so if you're going to a concert yet this year, you may want to bring a jacketWe love taking the time to walk around the Barns as I grew up a 4H kid and we were able to watch part of a sheep showing and a cattle show, so that was really interesting to share that experience with my daughterIt is also fun to walk through the Colosseum itself as this is where they highlight all of the local artistic competition so you can see everything from art drawings to blankets and all sorts of things that are in competition. I'm always impressed by talented people.

They have value meals! $9.99 for a chicken tender, fish or hamburger with fries and a drink. It came out fast. There are so many ways to get in to the fair for free or discounted. There is so much to see and do but come with a credit card or cash. Parking found at 4pm on a Friday for $10. It wasn't very far from an entrance, maybe about 1/4 mile. It felt safe as it got darker since there was heavy police presence.

I LOVE THE FAIR! We had a time! Plenty of food and rides to choose from! Fair food is always great! My kids first time and she loves it

Senior Day was so much fun!!! Of course, no one believed me and for that I'm grateful and Blessed! One booth asked if they could see my ID because they didn't believe me but then, she said she couldn't ask but I showed them anyway, since it became a scene and since entire booth of workers didn't believe me. ‍ ‍ Senior Day went so well and was definitely worth it! You could've gotten in for free, if you were to bring in 10 non-perishable food items. 98% of the food vendors had at least 1 item for $3. Most of the $3 items were full sized but, there was 1 food vendor where their $3 item was a joke! This was such a fun day! I recommend that you guys try to attend on promotional days such as Kids, Senior, and Donation Day. Seniors humans can apply online for free tickets which covers general admission for entry. Parking was $15 but, if you're going, park in the actual fairs parking lot, as others, are charging $30 and up! My reviews are to help save money and to give my honest opinions based on my own experiences. I hope that this helps Show: Btw... This was my first time watching a real rodeo performance...at first, I felt bad for the calf, but then, I was assured that they aren't harmed which, made me feel better about watching the show. I still felt bad though!

Going to the state fair at least once is a must do activity. They have unique food items each year. I remember one time there were news segments about deep fried scorpions and crickets at the state fair. I didn't try it. They also had deep fried butter and deep fried coca cola. I am not sure how they did that. I like the easy rides the best, like the Ferris wheel that I rode there at least once. I am not a big fan of the roller coaster or the drop ride that I took before. I like sharing the gigantic Turkey leg and enjoy the funnel cake too. Going to see some of the animals is fun for me as well.

I LOVE THE FAIR! The rides, the food, the entertainment! You can't go wrong! I know the fair isn't everyone's cup of tea, but everyone should at least try it once! I love the energy that it brings to the day. They have specials during the week so you will always want to check on that before buying tickets. They also get alot of great bands so make sure to check who is playing to grab tickets in a great smaller venue. For an enhanced carnival experience go to the AZ State Fair!