Overview The Indiana State Fair is a 15-day summer fair on the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis, run by the Indiana State Fair Commission. The first edition ran in 1852. The fair spans three weekends in August, closed Mondays, with livestock and 4-H competition, free concerts, a midway and food contests across 250 acres. Each year carries a theme. The 170th edition runs in 2027, and its theme has not been announced. On site Gates open at 8 a.m. The Hoosier Lottery Free Stage, rebuilt for 2026 as a 60x40-foot stage with room for 5,000 to 7,500 people, runs free concerts, and the Hoosier Lottery Grandstand sits beside the one-mile oval. Shows fill Corteva Coliseum and the livestock barns. The Midway, Meijer Family Fun Park, Pioneer Village, the Glass Barn and the Ball State Skyride run all day. A narrated train added in 2026 loops the north grounds, and the Big Top Circus plays free shows three times daily. Nearly 50 new foods entered the 2026 Taste of the Fair contest. Audience Nearly 10,000 4-H and open-class exhibitors enter more than 50,000 entries a year, and their families spend the day between the barns and the show rings. Evenings shift to the Free Stage, where concert crowds stand on the lawn for free shows. Talent and Influencers The 2026 Free Stage lineup included The Beach Boys, Bret Michaels, Busta Rhymes and Gene Simmons. Josiah Queen drew an estimated 9,000 people in 2026, the largest crowd in the stage's history. The Featured Farmers program profiles 15 Indiana farm families each year. The 2027 lineup has not been announced. Track record The fair moved to its three-weekend format in 2009. Attendance: 973,902 (2009), 854,236 (2024), 854,977 (2025), 800,641 (2026). Severe storms forced gate closures on five days in 2026, and the final week still posted the strongest attendance since 2009. USA Today readers ranked it among the ten best state fairs in the country in 2015. Brand presence The fair sells pre-fair and on-site sponsorships, and more than 150 companies appear on its sponsor list. Presenting relationships attach to places on the grounds: the Hoosier Lottery presents the Free Stage and the Grandstand, and Pepsi presents Taste of the Fair. The Indianapolis Indians were the 2026 theme partner, built around the baseball theme "Always a Hit", and their Schumacher Stadium Wiffle Ball field stays on the grounds under a long-term agreement.