Iowa Nice is definitely a real thing, but if you dare insult our State Fair I can't promise you that you'll make it out alive.
We don't have a professional sports team, and a lot of the nation thinks we all wake up with corn stalks in our face. But once a year our very own spectacle, the Iowa State Fair, sees over one million attendants throughout 11 days.
That's a daily pace matched by events like Lollapalooza and Coachella.
You read that right. Our state fair is kind of a big deal. The New York Times says the Iowa State Fair is one of the 1,000 places to see before you die, and USA Weekend says it's the No. 2 place for summer time fun in the whole country.
So we're proud of it. Do we have reason to be? Yes. Do we desperately need to be? Yes.
Let's take a look at what else we've got here in Iowa that people really know about.
1. Iowa Cubs
Over the course of a 67-game 2015 season, our beloved Triple-A Cubbies had a grand total of just over 500 thousand attendants.
2. Adventureland
The biggest amusement park in Iowa is open for 5 months, and for most of that span it's open 7 days a week. Grand total park attendance per year? Just over 600 thousand.
3. Des Moines Arts Festival
This is a pretty cool thing, honestly. Over three days, it brings in about 200 thousand people. Impressive, but not quite the State Fair.
4. RAGBRAI
OK, we're pretty proud of our Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa too. Just not quite the large target audience across the nation (and world) that our fair has.
5. College Sports
We are the Hawkeye State. We have two FBS football teams. We love them dearly. They're probably more important to us than the Fair. They aren't a source of bragging rights, however. The Iowa and Iowa State football teams have combined for zero national titles.
More than any of those listed things, the Iowa State Fair embodies who we are as Iowans. The rest of the country thinks we wake up with corn stalks in our faces? Well by golly we try to prove them right at the State Fair (Cast Your Kernel l'm talking to you) and we love every second of it.
The largest livestock shows in the country take place at our fair. 4-H and FFA are proud traditions. Ask a Chicago kid about 4-H and they ask what it is. Ask a two-year old Iowan toddler and they can stop what they're doing and recite you the 4-H pledge, complete with all the hand signals that go with it.
We shove everything we can find that's loaded with calories, throw it in a fryer, then shove it on a stick and sell it to hundreds of thousands of people. (If you're turned away because you eat healthily, don't worry, there's salad on a stick too.) Our fair has the largest number of foods of any state fair in the United States.
Imagine a cow made out of butter. It's there at the fair. Every. Single. Year.
People-watching takes place all over the fairgrounds. It might be the most fun activity you've done in your life.
If you haven't had the chance to go, you're not trying hard enough. More than I'd be frustrated by you throwing shade at our fair, I'd feel sorry for you that you missed out on the experience of a lifetime.
