dpGeddes, N.Y. — At the end of every Central New York summer, a brand-new city rises up just south of Onondaga Lake.
It is loud and colorful and usually jam-packed with people. For 13 straight days, nearly twice as many people as can fit in the Dome descend upon a 375-acre plot of land fenced in by a busy highway, two working railroad tracks and a steel factory.
It is the New York State Fair, a 185-year-old tradition held on a parcel of land that is not always ideal for hosting a million or so annual visitors.
Nobody knows that better than fair director Julie LaFave.
LaFave, now in her third year, is the first to say the old-fashioned, more traditional parts of the fair are what help make it great.
But when it comes to safety in an age where every large event venue in the country boasts metal detectors and strict bag policies, keeping hundreds of thousands of people safe at the fair can be a challenge.
Safety is something LaFave and other fair leaders are always talking about. Near the end of her first fair as director, LaFave faced one of the biggest challenges of her career.
On the final Sunday night of the fair in 2024, thousands of fairgoers ran for cover when someone reported a shooting near the Midway. State police investigated and found no evidence of a shooting. But fairgoers reported fearing for their lives, getting trampled and being temporarily separated from their kids in the chaos.
“In 2024 we had that incident, which wasn’t a gun,” LaFave said. “However, people experienced very real things because there was a moment in time when they thought there was. So, we’re always thinking about safety. We’re always thinking of security.”
Since then, the fair has rolled out several new safety protocols to keep people safe including opt-in text alerts for attendees and a new vehicle policy for this year’s fair.
For the first time, the fair is prohibiting vehicles from entering the fairgrounds from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. daily. They also eliminated several interior parking lots. It’s a big change that vendors are feeling and fairgoers will this year.
Two events — barrel racing and horse pulling — are skipping this year’s fair because of the new policy. Barrel racing participants said it would be too hard to bring their horses in late at night.
The policy may have also influenced the decision to pause the popular dairy calf-birthing center. Neither the New York Animal Agriculture Coalition nor the fair would explain the change but LaFave reiterated Tuesday that it was a collaborative decision. She said “conversations will continue,” about bringing it back.
A mainstay vehicle on the grounds is the fair-operated tram but that too is changing this year. In years past, the tram circled the entire fairgrounds along roads packed with people.
This year it will not travel along “military row,” which is the paved front road running parallel to State Fair Boulevard. Instead, the tram will travel in both directions on a U-shaped, dead-ended route along the back and sides of the fairgrounds.
In 2025, fair leadership paid close attention to the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds on military row. They saw and photographed vehicles, including the tram and animal trailers, within inches of fairgoers.
“Vehicles and people don’t mix,” LaFave said. “During the fair last year, we had a lot of scary instances. We call it our unintended success of military row. It was heavy foot traffic last year. There were moments when those tractors were moving last year that we looked and we had big eyes.”
LaFave said New York State Police, which always has a large presence at the fair, stepped in several times last year to help the tram and other vehicles move through crowds.
“We looked at ourselves, and we’re like, ‘We are not keeping people safe’,” she said. “It only takes one instance, and we don’t want to run a reactive fair.
“We don’t want to be making changes because we had a tragedy.”
The fair already uses magnetometers and metal detection devices at all public entrances, security guards can search bags and coolers and the grounds include cameras and drones to keep an eye on the crowds. They realized the same screening standards weren’t being applied to cars and trucks compared to strollers and backpacks.
“It felt like we were lying to ourselves that we’re screening all the people who walk in, but yet we were allowing all these people to drive in,” she said.
LaFave said she started conversations about potential safety-related changes as soon as the 2025 fair ended.
“We started talking to partners because we knew that we needed to understand everything. We needed to understand as best we could every consequence of any change we were going to make,” she said.
Fair leadership talked through options with state police, Homeland Security and state leaders in animal care, LaFave said.
“We actually talked to state vets because I think that’s one of the narratives you’re hearing is that our changes are not for the safety of the animals,” she said. “The changes, we firmly believe, are for the safety of the fairgoer and the animals.”
As a member of the International Association of Fairs and Expos, LaFave watches trends for fairs around the world, safety included. Last year she visited the State Fair of Texas where she saw that fair’s new-in-2025 clear bag policy up close. She saw lots of people having to dispose of their bags and belongings at the gates.
For that reason and the New York State Fair’s popularity with families, LaFave said she doesn’t anticipate going that route anytime soon.
“It’s important for it to be family friendly and budget-friendly,” she said. “We say bring your own water, bring food if you want; families bring their kids. I think that requires more than a small plastic bag, so we’re not headed in that direction.
“I can’t predict the future, but right now that is not in our plans.”
That said, LaFave said the 2026 safety changes and upgrades were overdue.
“We’ve talked to a lot of our partners in the world, and we were very much behind the game for some of these changes,” she said.
LaFave said she recognizes not everyone will love this year’s safety changes. Fair leadership will pay close attention to how things go this year and the safety conversation will continue, she said.
For the 2026 fair, which opens next Wednesday and runs through Labor Day, LaFave is confident this year’s safety changes will contribute to a positive day at the fair.
“People are having their greatest day ever at the fair … and they don’t think to look out for a vehicle, nor should they,” she said. “People bump into each other all the time when it’s that congested, so we don’t want them to bump into a vehicle that’s moving.”
