SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — It’s opening day at the Great New York State Fair and there’s lots of excitement and fun planned for the next couple weeks.
While the Fair is known for its usual attractions like the butter sculpture, the sand sculpture and the various food offered, there are lots of new attractions to explore this year. Those include not one, not two but nine new attractions for Fair goers to visit this summer.
If you want to know what’s new, make sure to read along and add these new attractions and sights to your 2023 Fair bucket list.
What’s new to the 2023 NYS Fair?
1. Asian Village
The Asian Village has been a vision of Superintendent Tai Shaw’s for a long time. He has been in the community for years, serving as a leader and community activist in the Asian community in Syracuse, and says the new Asian Village will give his community a voice it has desperately needed at the State Fair.
“Everyone’s excited for the State Fair every year, some people feel that they go to a Disney World right? So for us, we walk in here and there’s nothing that we can ours.” said Tai Shaw, Superintendent of the new Asian Village. “Finally our community has a voice and we are an invisible voice, and there’s 7.1 billion of us, so this is an opportunity for the State of New York. We want to bring joy to people, when people walk into the village, if they haven’t been to Asia, they’re gonna be in Asia now.”
At Asian Village there will be Asian food, music, dance, fashion and more.
“This is opportunity to make our culture shine here, and we’re gonna have five different regional food, we have Middle Eastern Asian, North and South Asia, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and Asian Islanders,” said Shaw.
The village will also have performances running throughout the fair, including an international fashion show Wednesday at two different times, one at 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.
Located closest to the Gate 4 entrance, not far from the Youth Building (and identified as #40 on the accompanying map), Asian Village opens Wednesday, August 23, and continues through the first Saturday of The Fair, August 26.
2. Dinosaur Expedition Exhibit
The Expo Center will be featuring a new Dinosaur Expedition Exhibit that will have 60 true-to-life-size, prehistoric, life-like dinosaurs.
“We have over 100 dinosaurs, a majority of them are full animatronic, life size, life-like, they’re moving breathing, some outside are even spitting, so it’s a great attraction for the families,” said Matt Flynn of the Dinosaur Expedition
The must-see exhibit features dinosaurs that range in size from babies (still 3 feet tall!) to 35-foot tall mammoths, spanning as long as 80 feet.
“We go around the country and charge $25-30 per person when we’re at Expo centers, plus the bounce houses are extra inflatables for the kids, so with their cost of admission for $6 they get in free to this, they can go on the bouncies for free, our selfie stations, kids time, story time, it’ll be a fun family event,” said Flynn.
3. Voice of the Farmer Garden
At the Voice of the Farmer Garden exhibit, visitors can learn about the variety of crops grown here in New York State and across the county and gain an appreciation and understanding of the economic and environmental impacts of Agriculture in America.
Located near the Goat Pavilion, kitty-corner from the Family Fun Zone, the Voice of the Farmer Garden offers opportunities to see and smell what’s “growing on.”
4. Digital Kiosks
Ten new interactive kiosks will be located throughout the Fair, designed to make wayfinding and schedule planning a little easier. Touch the screen to access maps, and daily schedules outlining concerts, agriculture attractions, and grounds entertainment acts.
Visitors are encouraged to use The Fair’s Showcase of Stars Entertainment Map as a planning tool as well. Stars mark the locations where to find your favorite performers, while music notes denote places to listen to live music.
