Is the 2025 Minnesota State Fair grandstand concert lineup subpar?

Sometimes when you try to please everyone, you don’t please anyone.

The Minnesota State Fair’s talent bookers have learned that lesson well over the years, and this year might be a shining example of it.

After Tuesday’s announcement for the last open date on the grandstand’s 2025 calendar — an Aug. 30 hip-hop nostalgia show with Nelly and Ja Rule — the reaction to this year’s concert lineup at the fair seemed to solidify into a firm “meh.”

“I think the Fair added Nelly to bring the average age of the performers down from 75 to 74.9,″ read one of the comments under the Star Tribune’s story on the last confirmed performers.

It’s true: Oldie acts rule this year. They dominate every year at the fair. But the 2025 roster is especially well-aged, with three concerts led by artists older than 75: Hank Williams Jr., the Steve Miller Band and the always well-aged Happy Together Tour with the Turtles, a traditional booking for Senior Day at the fair. Two other big shows feature musicians in their 60s: Def Leppard and the Melissa Etheridge/Indigo Girls twofer.

Even the rappers are kind of old this year, as rappers go. Homegrown hip-hop stars Atmosphere are celebrating their 30th anniversary as a group, and their cult-loved openers Cypress Hill are even more seasoned. Nelly and Ja Rule are 50 and 49, respectively.

Like Sweet Martha and her cookies, though, boomer and Gen-X acts still sell a lot concert tickets at the fair; a lot of pricier concert tickets, to be more specific. Throw in the nostalgia that goes with any visit to the State Fairgrounds, and there’s added sentimental value with these bookings, even well beyond the old classic rock standbys.

This was obvious last year when the top-selling grandstand concert was another retro hip-hop show like the Nelly and Ja Rule double-date, featuring Ludacris and T-Pain. It’s obvious again this year, as Def Leppard, Etheridge/Indigo Girls and Miller are among the year’s bestsellers — better than the younger artists on the lineup, Meghan Trainor, the Avett Brothers and Old Dominion.

Considering Def Leppard has headlined stadiums its past three times in town (Target Field twice and U.S. Bank Stadium once), the ’80s rock band is ostensibly a “big get” for the fair. Its tickets are the most expensive seats yet for a fair concert, priced $77-$292. There’s still a “meh” factor, though, because the ol’ British chaps are playing almost the exact same set list in 2025 that they played at the fair grandstand in 1993, when hair bands like theirs had been written off during the grunge era.

Fair representatives said Tuesday that overall ticket sales for this year’s roster of artists are more than 70,000 and almost even with where they were this time last year — within 100 tickets even. And that’s without the thousands more that the Nelly/Ja Rule show will add when they go on sale to the general public Friday.

Last year was about average for overall grandstand concert attendance over the years. Last year’s total attendance for the 11 grandstand concerts (not counting the free amateur contest finals night) was 86,724 — a fairly typical year. Comedian Nate Bargatze helped boost those numbers as last year’s one other sold-out night along with the Ludacris/T-Pain concert.

“No matter the year, there are many variables and considerations that go into planning 12 straight days of shows,” fair representatives said in a statement to the Star Tribune.

There were many outside factors challenging the fair’s booking team in 2025. Those include:

*The post-pandemic tour rush is over. Artists hit the road in droves over the past two summers to make up for touring revenue lost during the COVID-19 shutdown, but this year is seeing a clear slowdown. There are no major stadium concerts this summer and only a handful of arena and amphitheater shows. This meant a shallower talent pool from which the fair could pull, too.

*It’s hard to compete with festivals. This weekend’s second annual Minnesota Yacht Club festival at St. Paul’s Harriet Island is loaded with Gen-X era and/or other mainstream rock acts that would’ve been prime State Fair candidates. The payday for artists is simply better at festivals. Same with prospective country acts — many of them played We Fest, Winstock or Prior Lake’s Lakefront Music Fest in our area instead of the fair.

*And casinos. The fact that St. Paul’s hockey arena is being renamed after Grand Casino is a good indicator of the kind of money and influence that gambling complexes have infused into the concert business in Minnesota. Mystic Lake and Treasure Island, in particular, have attracted artists that might have played the fair in recent years. Casinos can afford to lose money on tickets and artists’ pay, since their bigger objective is to bring in people to gamble.

*Younger artists just seem fairly cool on fairs. When 31-year-old Trainor is the designated youth pop act 11 years after she landed her big hit, “All About That Bass” — and last year’s teen-centric grandstand pop act was the lesser-known Becky G — you have to think the hot, young entertainers just aren’t giving fairs a chance. A look at other fairs around the country finds a similar drought of young talent.

As is the case every year, the fair’s talent bookers also face the challenge of appealing to as broad a range of concertgoers as possible, in keeping with the fair’s Great Minnesota Get-Together mantra. They have to check a lot of musical boxes to offer a little bit of a lot of genres.

This year’s lineup might not be big on star power, but it does cover a lot of musical territory, even balancing new country (Old Dominion) with old-school twang (Williams and opener Marty Stuart) and mainstream hip-hop (Nelly) with indie-rap (Atmosphere) while even giving it up for the very young music fans one day (a kid-friendly Taylor Swift sing-along show on Labor Day). There’s a lot more diversity being offered on the free music stages in 2025, too.

“We do our best to juggle all the moving parts until we have the lineup we think will appeal to a wide range of our fair guests, and this year’s lineup does just that,” the fair’s reps said.

Now let’s just hope that none of this year’s more aged headliners pass on to the great grandstand in the sky between now and late August.

Here again is the full schedule for the Minnesota State Fair’s 2025 grandstand concert series. Tickets are available via eTix.com:

Thursday, Aug. 21: Old Dominion

Friday, Aug. 22: Meghan Trainor

Saturday, Aug. 23: Atmosphere & Friends

Sunday, Aug. 24: Melissa Etheridge and Indigo Girls

Monday, Aug. 25: The Turtles’ Happy Together Tour with Jay and the Americans, Little Anthony, Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, the Vogues and the Cowsills

Tuesday, Aug. 26: Def Leppard

Wednesday, Aug. 27: Hank Williams Jr. and Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives

Thursday, Aug. 28: Steve Miller and the Rascals

Friday, Aug. 29: Avett Brothers and Milk Carton Kids

Saturday, Aug. 30: Nelly with Ja Rule, Mýa and the Ying Yang Twins

Sunday, Aug. 31: Minnesota State Fair Amateur Contest Finals (free)

Monday, Sept. 1: The Rock and Roll Playhouse Plays Music of Taylor Swift & More for Kids (matinee shows, 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.)