The State Fair is open now

The Alaska State Fair opened Friday in Palmer and runs through Sept. 7, kicking off 18 days of concerts, giant vegetables, carnival rides and fair food under the Chugach Mountains. The fair is dark on two midweek pairs of days — Aug. 25-26 and Sept. 1-2 — so plan the drive around those.

The biggest draw every year is the concert lineup at the Borealis Theatre, and the 2026 series is stacked. AJR opened the run on the fair's first night, and the rest of the slate spans just about every genre: rock from Megadeth, Modest Mouse, CAKE, Twisted Sister and Bachman-Turner Overdrive; country and folk from Nate Smith, Max McNown and Lyle Lovett; reggae from Ziggy Marley; pop from Amy Grant, Jesse McCartney and BigXthaPlug; electronic from deadmau5; and even comedy from Nick Offerman.

Then there are the fair's signature spectacles — the ones that make Alaska's fair unlike any other. The Mat-Su Valley's endless summer daylight and rich glacial soil grow vegetables the size of furniture, and the fair crowns them: this year marks the 30th Giant Cabbage Weigh-Off and the 20th Midnight Sun Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off, where the state's growers haul in cabbages topping 100 pounds and pumpkins that dwarf the people who grew them.

Beyond the headliners, the fairgrounds fill with the usual draws — the carnival midway, livestock shows, craft and baking contests, food vendors slinging everything from reindeer sausage to fresh salmon, and Alaska Native cultural programming at The Gathering Place. A note for concertgoers: a concert ticket doesn't always include fair admission, so check before you buy if you want to make a full day of it.

For the full daily schedule, the concert dates and tickets, the fair posts everything at alaskastatefair.org.