State Fair of Texas Bets on Lower Prices to Win Back Families in 2026
Dallas, TX — The State Fair of Texas spent much of 2025 defending its price tag. For 2026, it's cutting it instead.
Fair officials confirmed this month that admission, parking and children's tickets will all cost less when the gates open at Fair Park on September 25, 2026, than they did last year. It's a direct response to a season in which "too expensive" became the fair's most persistent headline.
The numbers from 2025 tell the story. Adult single-day tickets ran $17 Monday through Thursday and climbed to $27 on weekends. Parking was $30 a day. Kids ages 3 to 12 paid as much as $22 to get in on a Friday or Saturday, not far off the adult rate. Add a DART day pass, a corny dog, a few midway rides and a churro for the road, and a family of four could easily clear $150 before anyone sat down for a turkey leg.
Fairgoers noticed, and said so loudly. By October, social media was full of families explaining why they were skipping the fair for the first time in years, and outlets across North Texas were fielding the same complaint: the State Fair had priced out the people it was built for. Attendance backed up the mood. The 2025 fair drew roughly 2.02 million visitors, according to fair officials, down more than 365,000 from 2024's 2,385,855 and the lowest turnout since 2018 (Dallas Morning News, CultureMap Dallas). Fair spokesperson Karissa Condoianis initially pushed back on claims of a slow fair, telling CBS News Texas that "attendance is fine at the State Fair of Texas this year" and noting the opening days are traditionally quieter, but the final tally landed well below the post-pandemic highs of 2022.
The fair's answer, laid out this month, is a genuine rollback rather than a new round of coupons stapled on top of high list prices. Adult admission drops to $15 Monday through Thursday and $25 Friday through Sunday, $2 off each tier. Senior tickets (60 and up) fall to $13 on weekdays and $20 on weekends. Parking drops from $30 to $25. The biggest change is aimed squarely at families: kids' admission, which topped out at $22 on weekends in 2025, becomes a flat $10 every single day of the run.
The fair is also leaning harder into its existing discount calendar rather than treating it as a side note. Thrifty Thursdays still knock down food prices, Feed the Need Wednesdays still get guests in for $7 with a five-can donation, and Senior Day still runs $7 for ages 60 and up. New for 2026 is a $10 after-5-p.m. rate Monday through Thursday for guests of any age, giving families who can only make it out on a weeknight a cheaper way to catch the last few hours. Military members, veterans and first responders still get $5 off any day, and admission stays free for kids under 3, for Pre-K through 8th-grade students, and for high school teachers with a voucher.
"Providing greater value does not mean compromising the State Fair experience," fair president Mitchell Glieber said in a statement announcing the changes, quoted by KBTX, pointing to continued investment in entertainment, agriculture programming and the fair's traditions alongside the price cuts. Condoianis, in comments carried by KSST Radio, framed it as a direct response to feedback rather than a reaction to any one bad headline: "Families have always been at the heart of the State Fair of Texas, and every year we listen closely to what our fairgoers tell us."
Whether a $2 discount on adult tickets and a flat $10 for kids is enough to undo a year of "too expensive" chatter is the real question heading into the fall. It's a smaller ask than the double-digit jumps that built up over the past several years, and it's paired with more low-cost entry points than the fair has offered before. The 2026 State Fair of Texas runs September 25 through October 18 at Fair Park in Dallas. Full ticket tiers, discount-day details and the daily schedule are posted at TexasCountryTour.com/Events.
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