Big Tex gets bigger
Fried beer & Tom Landry dominate: Texas State Fair joins the Houston Rodeo inbreaking records
Big TexPhoto by David R. Tribble
The big wheel
Funnel cake
Welcome to the State Fair of Texas.
Deep-fried Frito pie
Fried beer
Deep-fried Oreo
Between news-worthy fried food creations and gorgeous fall weather, there was no doubt this was a State Fair for the record books.
The Texas State Fair, which ended on Sunday in Dallas, brought in a record $37 million on food and ride coupons during its three-week run. That's more than a 25-percent increase over the previous record of $29.2 million in sales set in 2007.
Final attendance figures are not yet in, but this year also set record for single-day food sales of $3.2 million on Oct. 2 and for single-day Midway ride sales of $1 million on Columbus Day, when Dallas-area schoolchildren get free tickets to the fair for their day off.
The exhibition about former Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry also proved a crowd-pleaser. About 120,000 visitors checked out "Remember Tom Landry: The Personal Collection" inside the Hall of State on fair grounds.
"We've just had incredibly beautiful weather," Sue Gooding, a fair spokeswoman, told The Dallas Morning News. "We had great exhibits, and all the interest in the food was just huge."
But does the bump in sales over pre-recession 2007 signal an end to economic woes? It probably helped that the economy seems to have stabilized, but a trip to the State Fair might have taken the place of a full vacation for some families — after all, this year the Houston Rodeo also set attendance records.
Or it could just be the fried beer.
