DALLAS — Fewer people went to the State Fair of Texas in 2025 than at any point in the last decade.

A total of 2,020,064 people attended during the three-week event. That’s down from more than 2.3 million in 2023 and 2024. The fair hit its peak in 2022 with more than 2.5 million visitors.

Fair organizers blame a mix of things:  unfounded fears over potential immigration raids at Fair Park, hotter-than-normal temperatures, global uncertainty, the government shutdown and economic pressures on fairgoers.

But Steven Haynes, assistant professor of practice, finance and managerial economics at The University of Texas at Dallas’s Naveen Jindal School of Management, says it’s most likely just one of those things.

“It’s not a lack of interest. It’s a lack of disposable income,” Haynes told WFAA. “People are at their breaking point when it comes to their wallets.”

Haynes says families usually dedicate 10 to 15 percent of their income to discretionary spending on “good times.”

“That’s really being squeezed right now,” he said.

He calls it “funflation.”

“If Texans are forced to choose between going to the fair or putting groceries on their plate for a week, they’re going to pick groceries, right?”

Former Dallas City Manager Ted Benavides is now a professor of practice in the public and nonprofit management program in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at UT Dallas. He told WFAA he thinks the city should and will study what happened.

“I’m sure there are going to be discussions about, can we change the mix of entertainment, or maybe, do we need to do surveys, some focus groups, talk with vendors?” he said.

He also wonders if social media posts about smaller crowds early in the fair’s run might have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“There’s a lot of academic data that says that the bigger the crowd, the more you want to be there,” he said. “The density, the tightness of it attracts people. And I think the fear of missing out is also a factor.”

Haynes isn’t surprised by the drop, and he thinks it might be a harbinger of what’s to come.

“As we get into Black Friday next month, I’m predicting we’re going to have a bad year,” he said.

Dallas has been comfortably shielded from some of the worst downturns in recent memory because of a diverse economy with a heavy tie to the financial sector. But he sees what happened at the State Fair as proof that local families are not immune.

“The State Fair is a Texas tradition, but when reality hits, traditions die,” Haynes said.