County Fair Guide

The Biggest Fairs in the Deep South

Alabama and South Carolina each came up short of a full state guide on their own — too few individually verified attendance figures to clear the bar. Pooled regionally alongside Georgia and Louisiana, the Deep South has one of the strongest fair lineups anywhere in the country, led by the Georgia National Fair's 2025 record crowd. Here are the region's biggest fairs, ranked by verified attendance figures.

Ranked by verified attendance figures.

  1. 1
    Georgia National FairPerry, Georgia

    Georgia's official state fair, held each October at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry since 1990, set an all-time attendance record with 612,706 visitors over its 11-day run in 2025 — ranking #29 on the Carnival Warehouse Top 50 fairs list for North America.

  2. 2
    Georgia State FairHampton, Georgia
    ~565,000 visitors (approx.)via Georgia Magazine

    Now held in Hampton after decades in Atlanta, the Georgia State Fair drew roughly 565,000 visitors in 2021, a year fair officials said ranked it the 23rd-largest fair in the country by attendance.

  3. 3
    South Carolina State FairColumbia, South Carolina

    South Carolina's official state fair, held each October in Columbia, drew 399,103 visitors in 2025, landing it on the Carnival Warehouse Top 50 fairs list for North America. It has run continuously since 1869, missing only 1918 due to the Spanish flu epidemic.

  4. 4
    North Georgia State FairMarietta, Georgia

    Held each fall at Jim Miller Park in Marietta, the North Georgia State Fair drew 320,000 visitors over its 11-day run in 2016, making it one of the largest fairs in the Atlanta metro area.

  5. 5
    Louisiana State FairShreveport, Louisiana
    ~300,000 visitors (approx.)via KTAL News

    The Louisiana State Fair drew nearly 300,000 visitors in 2022, according to KTAL News. Running since 1906, it's the state's marquee fall event.

  6. 6
    ~260,000 visitors (approx.)via Appen Media

    Forsyth County's Cumming Country Fair & Festival, running since 1994, drew a then-record 260,000 visitors over its 11-day run in 2021 — and local reporting indicates 2024 broke that record again, though an updated confirmed figure wasn't available.

  7. 7
    Gwinnett County FairLawrenceville, Georgia
    87,566 visitorsvia GwinnettForum.com

    Running since 1955, the Gwinnett County Fair drew 87,566 visitors during its 2024 run, according to the fair's operations manager — well off its all-time record of 276,533 set in 2016.

  8. 8
    78,000 visitorsvia Amusement Today

    Mobile's Greater Gulf State Fair — its real current name, not "Mobile County Fair" as it's sometimes still called — drew 78,000 visitors over its 10-day run in its most recent edition, per Amusement Today's trade-press attendance survey. It runs each fall at The Grounds in Mobile.

  9. 9
    Greater Baton Rouge State FairBaton Rouge, Louisiana
    ~36,000 visitors (approx.)via BRProud

    The Greater Baton Rouge State Fair drew nearly 36,000 paid visitors over its 11-day run in 2025, according to Fair President Cliff Barton — a smaller, more precisely-counted figure than the fair's "best attended in history" claim of over 100,000 in 2021. Running since 1965.

  10. 10
    St. Tammany Parish FairCovington, Louisiana

    The St. Tammany Parish Fair drew 16,000 people in October 2022, according to the fair association's own signed IRS Form 990-EZ filing.

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