Rochester Fair Association — Local services in Rochester

Felt Duped! Disappointed!

I usually give positive reviews and refrain from negative ones. I am doing an objective review to alert others before they spend alot of $. Our family made the most of it and are grateful people. This fair is a hard "no thank you" from now on. When kids say they don't want to go again (without adult influence) you know it is not good. Luckily we didn't travel far for this. Brought out my inner Karen on behalf of all who felt the same way after the fair.

Value for $ is awful. Not much to see these days. Exhibit halls are not full as they use to be. Not many farm animals from farmers. Mid-way is small - a gauntlet of game and food vendors yelling out to you and your family to play and buy food. Food prices are outrageous and not many food vendors. Very few events. Kids over age 8 charged an adult price. Most rides are old and the price of the electronic ticket/point card is a scam. You have to buy a higher price range to get a few rides and then have an odd amount of tickets/points so you have to buy more or forfeit the balance on the card. Ended up donating the remainder of the card to a family with little kids the balance which was in the mid-20 tickets/points range. Grounds need to be kept up and offer more seating.

Petting Zoo is ok for smaller animals, but keeping gorgeous adult horses in barely a 12×12 enclosure with only one side open is heartbreaking and disheartening. The lady who owns/runs the pony rides yells as the ponies and they cower to her in fear - she didn't think anyone was around to hear her. Is anyone on the Granite State Fair Association Board looking at that?

Best part and will give a star was for the Circus performers! A lot of hard work I am sure and it was super enjoyable! I would give them more stars if I was just rating them. But this is for the fair.

As other people say on reviews..and I quote "You have been warned!". Made for a bad memory.

I don't remember seeing that stuff at the Deerfield Fair or Fryeberg Fair. Hopefully, we can have a re-do and make good memories with one of the...

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Granite State Fair – Because therapy is expensive, but watching vehicles obliterate each other is basically free at the 12.00 price tag. .

I came for fried dough. I left questioning physics.

The Enduro race kicked off with Billy Jones of Hall Brothers Roofing (yes, the same guy you call when your roof leaks, but apparently he also moonlights as a stuntman). Billy piloted his SUV like a caffeinated raccoon behind the wheel of a shopping cart. Every turn was either a collision or a close call—he drove with the precision of someone blindfolded in bumper cars. The crowd was gasping, laughing, and waiting to see if he’d accidentally re-shingle someone’s hood mid-race.

And then… the grand finale. Trucks. Towing. Pop-up campers. Let me repeat: grown adults willingly signed up to drag collapsing vacation homes around a racetrack at full speed. Within thirty seconds it looked like a tornado had touched down at a KOA. Campers folded, walls disintegrated, mattresses escaped into the wind like liberated doves. One door actually surfed across the dirt like it was auditioning for X-Games.

The cheering? Deafening. The mayhem? Biblical. It wasn’t a race—it was the Daytona 500 meets “Extreme HGTV.” By the end, there wasn’t a camper left intact, just twisted aluminum dreams scattered across the track while the crowd begged for more.

Final verdict: Granite State Fair isn’t just an event—it’s therapy, comedy, and demolition rolled into one. Five stars. Would absolutely watch again, preferably with insurance adjusters in the audience for...

This was the most disappointing fair I have ever been to. It is a large area of space but they really only have rides. Even with the rides there the most time I would want to spend is an hour at the fair because there just wasnt alot to see.

There weren't many livestock animals that were shown by local families. Instead they had a tent with some giraffes, zebras, and farm animals in too small cages. Atleast with livestock animals you hope that they are going home at the end of the fair and will have more space to roam but these traveling animals just look miserable. Its sad because we have the company 'Wildlife Encounters' located so near us that takes care of their animals and actually come to alot of the fairs, they would be a much better replacement for the more exotic animals people may want to see. But really my kids and family would have been happier with more livestock.

They did have a magic show and a circus as well but after seeing the caged zoo animals I wasn't too keen on supporting the circus.

We love the races but the day we went the grandstand enduro race was delayed by 2 hours. We had already seen everything else so we went home for a few hours and came back. I definitely wont be coming back for the "fair" here but we may go back to the races, because they are close by.

Next time I go to a fair I will have to do more research so that I dont waste my...