Utah State Fairpark — Attraction in Salt Lake City

Utah State Fair Park has remodeled the park building with new chandeliers above the ceiling on the 2nd floor.

The lighting has significantly created a warm and inviting atmosphere. The entire indoor building is clean with spacious square footage to accommodate a large crowd attendance.

The 2025 Reptile Expo on Saturday 5/3 was a successful event based on supported attendees. There was one (1) food truck facing the entrance of the park building where you buy tickets when you arrive.

Buying tickets at the booth was $12 or can purchase online $10 with a $1.00 or $1.25 service fee. There were some issues with online tickets. We purchased our tickets at the booth when we arrived.

The lower floor (1st floor) were packed with reptiles vendors, with round plastic food trays of exotic snakes-spiders or all sorts, miscellaneous vendors with small plastic tubs of micro sized bugs $30 in a cup.

There was one vendor selling fresh green plants. And a separate seller promoting heat-humidifier controlled wood display cases.

Exotic frogs, mini frogs, lizards, geckos, chameleons, jewelry-soap, kiddie toys booth tables, and hernit crabs merchants

The entire Reptiles Expo was a positive experience. Visitors seemed to be having a great time with their children and families. There were some teens walking out as they exited the reptile expo with a medium size geckos in their hands. Giggling by holding/cupping their new family members to take home, found them a new home.

Geckos start at $50-$80-$90+. Snakes go for $80-$90-$120 depending on the type of snakes they are and based on breeds. The ones we saw were $7,000. The solid black snake was also male dad - $12,000. It has iridescent hues like rainbow colors when you look at the black snake in a certain angle.

The black snake that's priced at $12,000 has a daughter, she's black with brown tones.

Snakes are stored in a round plastic container while the more expensive snakes are in glass cases. Some snakes couldn't barely move based on movement restrictions because the round plastic food tray storage lack room for them to free movements. While other snakes were able to have more free movements inside the round good trays.

Many exhibitors store their merchants in round plastic food trays, possibly it's easier-quicker to upload/unload when preparing for show events and during transportation.

Each booth was nicely set up/decorated to suit the theme of Reptile Expo.

Vendors were cordial, friendly, approachable, and kind. We arrived at 10:00am when it was opened.

We enjoyed our time at the Reptile Expo. Parking inside the Fairgrounds parking lot was a breeze, scan the HONK parking mobile app QR code based on the rectangle posted sign displayed inside parking lot pavement, upload the code to your phone, enter your vehicle license plate, make a payment of your choice, Visa/other ccard options you bank with, the app is easy to use, once payment goes through, done.

There is (no paper receipt) once payment goes through from your phone. You do not need to display the paper receipt to dashboard. * You will receive an e-receipt sent to your phone, proof of payment. Your e-receipt is your receipt.

Recommend that you first download the HONK PARKING mobile app to your phone before arriving at the Utah State Fair to save yourself time than downloading the app when you get there to skip the hassles of doing so when you get there.

Children of 4+ would have a nice time.

Some exhibitors would allow you to touch the reptiles, chameleons, spiders, be sure to put your hands together to support the reptiles during the exhibition.

Some vendors may politely decline visitors and families from not hand touching the reptiles. They may have had a bad experience in the past from participating the reptile expo events as vendors in which products were hurt, damaged from rough handling/inadvertently dropped the reptiles.

Overall, the experience of the Reptile Expo was a good and a positive fun day. We would recommend the Reptile Expo if you want to visit with your...

Very disappointed. It was more of a small group of Asian food truck gathering more than a festival. One of them ran out of most of the food at 5pm while another one took over an hour for the food. We realized that food/drinks were going to be expensive, but it truly shows who is the most money-driven, “let’s make $$$ while we can” greedy food truck; you know who you are. Kudos to a Japanese food truck for having two self ordering kiosk and handing out samples!

The booths inside the building didn’t really offer much other than very expensive t-shirts or “Sign a petition here”. The Korean booth in the back had few things interesting, but mostly food that you could find in Ocean Mart. Almost every booth had a “spin the wheel” for a prize (which didn’t have anything to do with the country being represented); it just created lines everywhere, blocking the walkway making it difficult to walk around. I’d vote NOT to have the wheel for each booth, but to have like 3 large ones against the wall and have better prizes. Indonesia booth was blaming China for stealing their water source; is this really a right platform for that?!?

Would have liked to see more of something like traditional dances, instrumental performances, etc. Booth to include items that are specific to the country they represent, including toys and clothes.

What was the purpose of the Festival? Was there a united theme or a goal? How does it serve any of the communities by having this festival? What are we trying to teach our children from this festival?

Why have people bring the refillable water bottle when water fountains were hard to find to begin with?

Parking lot: 1) Have the QR scan code on BOTH sides so it’s accessible to more people. 2) Enter/ Exit signs...

Hard to rate. What makes the Utah State Fair stand out compared to other State Fairs? What kind of foods are there that are fun and different? There is very little information, photos or videos. I have been to many different kinds of State Fairs all over the US. I have not gone to Utah’s. There are very little advertisements about it. So my question is what would entice me to go? Went there this year, not a lot to do. It is Family Friendly but nothing that stands out for exciting or really fun things to do especially if you do not have little, little kids. Parking was a nightmare but that is due to all the people moving in from all over. If you do come give yourself ample time to park, say about an hour at least; I do have to say the parks dept was trying their hardest to accommodate people, they just could not keep up. To be fair they really do need a much larger space to spread out, they have just out grown their present location. If the city can build the ridiculously hideous apartments/townhomes then they have the land to build one heck of a nice, large fairgrounds with plenty of parking that’s NOT in the seedy side of Salt Lake (no offense to anyone having to live there) seriously though the city needs to do some serious studies of OTHER cities and how they do it and what draws the crowds in. More things for people who do not have little kids. Things for seniors, teens and older adults. There is potential but Utah you are not jumping on it...