Overview The Maricopa County Fair is Phoenix's spring county fair, run over two long April weekends at the Arizona State Fairgrounds by a nonprofit that takes no tax money or county funding and in 2025 handed out $144,500 in scholarships to 23 students. At its center are the county's young livestock exhibitors from 4-H and FFA, who show animals they have raised for a year and sell them at the Junior Livestock Auction. Around them run monster trucks, a carnival, three stages and a daily headline show. The fair began in the 1950s as a county fair and citrus festival, and Maricopa County Fair, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) governed by elected commissioners and a volunteer board. On site Everyone comes in through one public entrance gate and gets a souvenir program on the way in. The Main Stage carries large dance groups, choirs and other local performers, the Community Stage local bands, and the small County Fair Stage George Johnson's music and the County Fair Games. A big show runs all seven days, three times a day; past ones have been sea lions, a high dive show and a shark show. Monster trucks run up to eight shows in the arena, and Butler Amusements runs the carnival. A covered picnic tent just outside the main entrance to the Agriculture Center is set aside for livestock exhibitors and their families, and the week closes on the small stock and large livestock auctions. Audience The fair's core participants are the county's youth: exhibitors and their families, who gather for an opening ceremony to start the market show week, with a motivational speaker and roughly 600 giveaway items to hand out, and students who must have entered the fair at least twice to apply for its scholarships. On field trip day, a Friday, schools and groups get in and park free, and on selected weekdays admission is free for everyone until 3 p.m. Track record The fair was canceled in 2020 and 2021 and came back in 2022. Every edition takes a different theme. Its scholarships include renewable awards of up to four years and a memorial scholarship named for Kevin Rogers, a former board member and past president. Brand presence Sponsors put their names on the fair's own structures. A stage sponsor's name becomes the stage's name, as in the packet's own example, the Smith Auto Main Stage, and is printed in the souvenir program every time an act appears on it; the monster truck and big show sponsors are read out by the announcer at every show, and a single monster truck partner can take naming rights on the show itself. Other positions sit on the entrance gate, the exhibitor picnic tent, the opening ceremony, the free-until-3 hours and the field trip day, and logos go on the souvenir T-shirt sold to guests and exhibitors. Sponsorships are tax deductible and come with a donation letter.