Even though I am giving the fair two stars I want to preface the review with the fact that we had a…read moreblast here and stayed for hours having the best time. But my review is not only based on the good times we had but the fact that the State Fair used to be something very different than it is now, and compared to other states' fairs, this is not the best of the best out there.
It is conveniently located in Novi for those who live in the area at a hotel. So I basically parked for free in the hotel parking lot. That was great, very convenient, but it did not give epic State Fair feels. This is also at the same place at Comic Con. For Comic Con, this is a great spot but as a pavillion for the entire state, it is pretty sad.
You walk into the conference area of the hotel and get tickets. We only spent $10 a person plus free parking, not bad at all. But then you walk through the doors at you are at the fair where the comic booths usually are. It is so small, like the tiniest art fair ever. Mostly local vendors selling stuff, but not enough and not enough variety. Kind of like Comic Con, my child did find some cool anime stuff to buy but it was so sparse. They had a "Cool Zoo" trying to sell exotic animals cooped up in tiny cages looking sad or selling $10 and up hugs, but were a bit deceitful, as they asked my child to touch and hold the animals but did not indicate it was for pay.
Meanwhile, the livestock are thrust in the same space as the vendors in the teeniest of spaces. We enjoyed seeing the animals and giving them free pats and pets with permission from their keepers, but when this was once in Detroit, they had their own separate area. Then tucked in the same space were the kiddie rides and a few food areas. The best was the all you can drink chocolate milk for a buck, worth it!
Outside were a handful or rides, a few food trucks, the midway games, the concerts, and the circus. It was a tiny backyard behind the hotel, like a teensy parking lot of things to do. It was a lot of fun. We tried a couple stuffed pepperoni pizza rolls, a tiny taco, a mini mango lassi, listening to some good music under a tent, played some games, saw some clowns and tiny dogs driving a car. You can come here for hours and have fun. The downside, most of the food trucks charge about two dollars to use a credit card (not even a percent a flat fee) so I went through most of my cash here.
The main problem is when I was a child the State Fair in Detroit was huge, an epic yearly event I looked forward to. They had multiple buildings for selling art, seeing animals, a very large variety of rides and games and even more interesting food. The food trucks were the same ones from all of the summer art fairs, nothing special. Just hot dogs, pizza, and funnel cakes. I even confirmed with my parents that the fair was really large on a nice size property. While it was more convenient for me to drive 20 minutes to the fair, I miss the Detroit location and do not understand what happened. It is a shame.
But, as I mentioned, we did have so much fun. We did spent hours on end doing all of the activities, eating, shopping, seeing animals. When we went there were really small crowds, so we could do things multiple times. We had no problem with too many people. My kid really enjoyed it because this is the only state fair here. I would probably go again next year if they price is the same. But many of the other reviewers are correct and perhaps there is a better fair in Michigan to go to, or maybe just visit Michigan Adventure if you want some good food and rides. It costs a bit cheaper to go there for a Cedar Point type experience instead.
