Carnival & Fair News

Several years ago, the Nebraska State Fair adopted a perennial marketing tagline - Nothing More Nebraskan. Like other fairs, using the same theme for multiple year enriches overall branding, emphasizing the state fair as an annual destination. Succulent, direct yet inviting, Nothing More Nebraskan entices fairgoers by celebrating everything that makes the Cornhusker State special.

Every year the fair comes up with a Marketing Theme intended to further engage fairgoers with the specific fair. This year, the theme was “SHOWCASE YOUR FAIR FACE.” In recent years, the Nebraska State Fair launches themes for the annual event, including ‘Whatever Your Flavor' in 2023 and ‘All The Roads Lead To Fun' in 2024.

The campaign was launched in January, giving fairgoers eight months to engage with the program. The fair's Facebook declared: “Showcase Your Fair Face' is more than just a theme; it's a celebration of all the faces that make our fair unique and vibrant. It's the thrill in the eyes of a child as they soar through the air on a carnival ride. The laughter shared over a boat of fried deviled eggs or the pucker from freshly squeezed lemonade. It's the awe surrounding a Nebraska sunset over TD Landing on a cool evening, and the pride in the face of a young exhibitor leading their prize-winning animal through the arena. The story of 2025 will be told by each of our guests through the expressions and emotions evoked by the Nebraska State Fair.”

#ShowcaseYourFairFace

Attendees were encouraged to share their own photos and experiences from the fair on social media using the hashtag#ShowcaseYourFairFace. The Nebraska State Fair also held a photo contest and provided links for uploading photos to its website. Building anticipation during the eight months preceding opening day was only prelude. During the fair, the marketing department sent out a team to take photos and create social media posts highlighting the fairgoers' faces, continuing the campaign throughout the event.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to show the joy, determination, spirit of contest, excitement, pride in faces of our exhibitors, guests, and partners,” said Jaime Parr, Executive Director,Nebraska State Fair. “The theme was oriented to pictures of people's faces, in showcase why you are at the fair, all the different reasons to come to the fair. Some come to ride rides, to show livestock, to just enjoy the experience of the fair. We invited our guests to showcase all of those things through your faces. We wanted to highlight the people and emotions and by exhibiting those things it helps them to see themselves. Seeing them encourages others to come to the fair.”

Because of the popularity and success of Showcase Your Fair Face, the launch for the 2026 theme (unavailable at press time) will take place in November, which means the marketing will occur as the holiday early bird ticket sales for the fair begin. “Every year, it's a challenge to come up with a new theme,” she said. “We are changing when we announce the theme, which will be in November not in January. That gives us a little more time build the excitement and create the materials, the fonts, colors and wording. We are also launching then because of our advanced sales, which had never been higher than this year.”

In conjunction with the engagement-focused marketing theme promotion, Parr also revitalized the fair's social media presence with an upgrade in quality content. The Fair Face Showcase tapped into the collectivity of the fair experience, the social media built upon that concept this year with “more storytelling via video. We engaged with Exhibitors and Guests to tell the story of who, what, and WHY! The faces and stories help us connect with our Community.”



 

Media Buys Up

The fair also upped its advertising budget even as it shifted more funds into digital marketing. “Our media Buys were up about 3 percent over 2024 Buys. The increase in service costs and the decision to try new digital platforms was intentional. We moved into a lot more digital and satellite music platforms. We also trialed some airport and movie theater impressions. It is rewarding to hear when people acknowledge seeing our messaging via new venues.”

The end result of course was a successful Nebraska event, attracting 334,383 for the 11-day run, an uptick of about 6 percent over 2024 Fair, according to Parr. “We also saw an increase in advanced ticket sales and increased use of Electronic Kiosk at public Admission.”

Mother Nature's mood was “amazing the first half of the Fair showed and we showed some significant increases in food & beverage sales,” she said. “For the second half our traditional second Saturday took a hit with all day clouds and precipitation. We were still able to produce our events/activities to a full scale and people who were brave to come out, enjoyed their time with us. We were definitely on a trend to beat last year's figures.”

Parr added, “revenues are within 5 percent of 2024. Expenses are an area where we spend a lot of time and effort to ensure we are activating within our best opportunity. Our guests are slightly increasing spending in 2025 over 2024. We are close to, but not yet back to the PRE-COVID years as far as attendance.”



 

Fun Vibe

The fair also held down price increases, focusing on a keeping expenses down in their effort to cope with inflationary economy. “Paying extra attention and efforts to maintain our expenses as best as possible in 2025, our cost of services and rental items is increasing,” Parr said.
 
Parr said that the grandstand shows were able to maintain an average ticket price of $43.30, with “Sawyer Brown, Theory of a Deadman with Skillet, Matthew West and Josiah Queen, and the Righteous Brothers drew the largest crowds.”

Other popular 2025 attractions included: “Puzzle contest, Figure 8 Racing, Wild Horse Adoptions Exhibition and Contest, Sea Lion Splash was a great hit, a glow lounge, FairTober Fest (German Festival), and Equine Dressage Show,

The fair featured 65 food vendors with the new enticements going from Asia -- Filipino food and Korean corn dogs were new independent concessionaires and “Fried Lemon Cookies were new and popular in 2025,” she said “Elephant Ears were a great success for us in 2025”

 
Even with the rainy weekend, “The overall vibe was upbeat and enjoyable at the Fair. People were comfortable from the temps and overall our survey numbers show an increase in guest experience, satisfaction with free entertainment, animal interactions, focus on agriculture, and the State Fair Facilities. We had a safe event with near perfect weather and were up about 20 percent in food & beverage sales and up significantly in attendance at mid-way through our 11 day event. We did get some rain and some rain and stormy weather but we still hosted nearly all of our outdoor events, concerts, shows. At the end of our 11 days, we ended up 6 percent up overall.”


 

Wade Shows

The 2025 Wade Shows Midway at the Nebraska State Fair featured the Nebraska debut of the Candyland Adventure Fun House—a spectacular two-trailer attraction that combines elements of a glass house, fun house, and jungle gym all in one.

The midway also highlighted two recently refurbished rides: the Chance Wipeout and the Charlie Chopper. “Both pieces were fully restored by our team to like-new condition and are great high-capacity attractions,” said Frank Zaitshik of Wade Shows.



Another highlight was the addition of a Slingshot attraction, which proved to be a major draw for fairgoers. Beyond new and refurbished rides, Wade Shows also redesigned parts of the midway to improve the customer experience. “We relocated the Giant Wheel and added new light towers and rest areas in Kiddieland, creating a more open layout without obstructions,” Zaitshik explained.

Despite higher overall attendance, carnival revenue dipped slightly compared to the previous year. “This was mainly due to unfavorable weather on the final weekend of the fair,” Zaitshik said.