2007 Iowa State Fair is better than Fair for the State of Iowa!

With the 4th of July celebrations and the Des Moines Arts Festival behind us, and Ragbrai closing in, I was thinking today about the next big event that’s coming to central Iowa.  Hard to believe, but the 2007 Iowa State Fair is only 32 days from tomorrow and we’re about to start hearing a lot more about it.  One of the ways I gage the buzz about upcoming events is to check how many people are searching for them online.  Google Trends offers some insight, but my current favorite is MSN Adcenter, which offers search stats and tools for advertisers.

I started my research using the phrase “state fair” and learned that “Iowa State Fair” is the most popular state fair related search so far this month (although I believe the data is actually from June ‘07).  Hard to believe, but the Delaware State Fair was the most searched “state fair” the month before.  Kind of interesting to take a look at the top 10 during the past 30 days:

Search Phrase                                          Searches

Delaware State Fair                                   5419
Iowa State Fair                                           3643
Minnesote State Fair                                 3141
Illinois State Fair                                        2171
Wisconsin State Fair                                  2109
New York State Fair                                  2087
Ohio State Fair                                           1989
Missiouri State Fair                                   1948
Indiana State Fair                                      1592
Kentucky State Fair                                  1252

IowaStateFair.com is the domain for the official website, and you can follow this link to learn more.  As of today, you can purchase admission tickets in advance and save up to 40%.  Adult tickets are currently $6 and children’s are $3 or free, depending on age.  In addition, some of the more well known individuals and bands coming to the grandstands this year include Alice Cooper, Blue Oyster Cult, Joe Walsh, Switchfoot, Percy Sledge, and American Idols Live (Blake Lewis, Sanjaya, Jordin Sparks and more).  I don’t know much about country music, so the following singers may or may not be well known…Gary Allen and Dierks Bentley…also coming is a Christian soft rock band called Casting Crowns.

 The Iowa State Fair runs from August 9th through the 19th.  Sounds Like Fun!

Popularity: 6% [?]