FALCON HEIGHTS, Minnesota — The people make up the beauty of the Minnesota State Fair. Tameka Jones would know.
"I'm a lipstick company so I always have to go out and find new lips, right?" said Jones, founder of Lip Esteem.
The St. Paul-based cosmetic line is wrapping up its second year at the fair — located on the Grandstand's second floor.
"A lot of vendors didn't know if they would make their week because we were losing revenue the first couple of days, honestly," Jones recalled.
Jones said sales started out strong but severe weather and extreme heat on the first Monday of the fair kept people away. Monday, August 26, attendance was 80,546 which marked the lowest attended Monday since the 1980s. With another round of severe weather, Thursday's attendance also only reached 81,231.
The storms on Monday into Tuesday also caused water to come in, damaging some of Jones' inventory.
"Last Sunday [Aug. 25] was a slower day. Because it started to get a little muggy and then Monday was probably our slowest day in 20 years. I mean awful," said Charlie Torgerson of RC's BBQ.
RC's BBQ has been around at the State Fair for 27 years, first as Famous Dave's and then RC's since 2016.
"The only thing good thing is that we caught up. We cleaned things, got ready for a big day. Had a big day on Tuesday, had a big day on Wednesday, and then Thursday those storms kind of knocked that day out. But Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we literally made up for everything. I mean, there were so many people here and yesterday was the nuts. I've never seen that many people at this place. I don't even know what the attendance was," Torgerson said.
Sunday, Sept. 1 set a new record with 256,015 at the fair. It's the fifth attendance record broken so far this year.
"Yeah, things have picked up," Jones said. "We always kind of forecast that we'd be maybe 10% above last year. For a couple of days we were under and we were in the red. But lately we've been in the green. People have been coming out today. We've got 50% off for our last chance sale. So people are really taking advantage of that and we are grateful."
Next door to Lip Esteem is B Friendly. The first-time vendor offers bar-quality cocktail mixes.
"I'm a 20-year, 25-year veteran of the service industry. We tend to be transient; we tend to be under-supported when it comes to healthcare and mental health issues; and we're awful close to a vice. So we're cocktails with a cause. We bring awareness to mental health within the service industry. We work with Serving Those Serving. They get employee assistance programs into restaurants at discounted rates. We help their general fund," explained Brandon McCannel, owner, CEO and president of B Friendly.
As a first-time vendor, the business doesn't have anything to compare this year's fair to but McCannel said, "The Minnesotans that came out afterwards were just so kind and generous and wonderful... For what the first half of the fair was, the second half of the fair definitely made up for it."
Jones said she is already preparing for next year's fair. She said, "We all know we have to go to where the people are... And this is the biggest place. It's the best get together... is at the State Fair."