Red River Valley Fair · 2026
Digital & Social Campaign Review
Dec 16, 2025 to July 12, 2026 · compared with Nov 28, 2024 to July 13, 2025
Prepared by
Online ticket revenue fell 50%. Almost all of that was concerts. The Fair itself held.
A fifty percent fall is the first thing anyone will read, so it goes first.
The decline sits almost entirely in concert tickets, against a smaller entertainment talent budget than last year. The Fair's own products, meaning everything except concerts and except the GA ticket that was not sold online at all this year, held their revenue within one percent. Those two facts belong in the same sentence as the headline, because separately they mislead in opposite directions.
The ninety second version
Almost the whole fall was concert tickets, against a smaller entertainment talent budget than last year. The Fair's own products, concerts and the GA ticket both set aside, held their revenue within one percent. Those two facts belong together, because separately they mislead in opposite directions.
Online revenue halved because concert sales fell against a smaller talent budget. The Fair itself sold about the same as last year.
- 01Sell the Fair first, concerts as the bonusDemand for the Fair's own products held while concerts fell. Creative should follow the revenue, whatever is booked.
- 02Lead with the Mega PassIts unit sales rose 88%, 572 to 1,074, in a season when everything else fell.
- 03Get one number that is not self reportedThe platforms claim more revenue than the Fair took online. A holdout is the only way to settle it.
Source: Saffire · Dec 16, 2025 to July 12, 2026 vs Nov 28, 2024 to July 13, 2025
The platforms claim more than the Fair took
This is not an estimate. Apply each platform's own stated return to its own stated spend and the total comes to $1,025,394, which is 1.74 times every dollar the Fair took online all season. Some of that online revenue was never advertising driven at all, so the real overstatement is larger. Platforms each count a buyer they touched as their own, and four of them counted many of the same people.
Source: Saffire · Dec 16, 2025 to July 12, 2026 vs Nov 28, 2024 to July 13, 2025
Every product, both seasons
Units sold online, straight from the Saffire product table.
Online units fell from 42,117 to 14,678, a decrease of 65%. Two lines account for 95% of that. GA sold 16,487 units in 2025 and was not offered online in 2026 at all, which is 60% of the whole decline on its own; concerts are a further 35%.
Set both of those aside and what is left is the Fair's own products: the two ride passes, the flash sale and the new season gate pass. Their revenue is within one percent of last year, $113,960 to $112,984, on 24% fewer units. That is fewer tickets at a higher average price, $22.32 to $29.29, and it is the number worth judging the advertising on, because it is the only one comparing the same business.
Mega Ride Pass is the exception in either reading: 572 units to 1,074, up +88%.
Source: Saffire · Dec 16, 2025 to July 12, 2026 vs Nov 28, 2024 to July 13, 2025
Return by channel, as each platform reports it
Every one of these is the platform grading its own work, on its own counting rule.
Four rulebooks, four numbers, and deliberately no shared scale. These cannot be ranked against one another and they cannot be added.
Adding numbers built on different rulebooks produces a total with no definition, which is how the sum ends up larger than the Fair's whole online till. The only figure on this page not supplied by a company being graded is the one from Saffire: $589,274 actually banked.
Source: Google Ads, Meta, TikTok and the programmatic platform, each self reported · Dec 16, 2025 to July 12, 2026 vs Nov 28, 2024 to July 13, 2025
What ran on Meta
$49,017, sixty four percent of the budget, and the channel with the most creative behind it.
What ran on Google
Paid search took high intent traffic straight to the tickets page. Performance Max served the rest of Google.
What ran on TikTok and programmatic
Spark ads from the Fair's own account, and banner display across hundreds of sites.
Where the money went
Facebook and Instagram took 64% of the budget. Google took 9% and reported the highest return of any channel, which is the pattern worth testing before next season rather than acting on.
Source: Noise New Media media plan · Dec 16, 2025 to July 12, 2026 vs Nov 28, 2024 to July 13, 2025
The flash sales
The one part of the season that grew. Early offers put money in the bank before the gates open, and a fifth of those tickets are never used.
Source: Saffire · Dec 16, 2025 to July 12, 2026 vs Nov 28, 2024 to July 13, 2025
The flash sale creative
Six units carried the early offer. Every one of them ran against the same two dates.
What the weather did
Extreme heat over the final weekend.
Forecast highs reached 95°F on the Saturday and 99°F on the Sunday of the closing weekend, and attendance suffered.
This matters more here than at an arena show. A gate fair sells to people deciding at four in the afternoon based on the sky, so heat on a closing weekend removes walk up sales that no advertising can recover. Proactive weather messaging, indoor attraction promotion and same day communications should be prepared before the season, not written on the day.
Email and SMS
Around 80% of new subscribers came from people who bought a ticket, so the list grows fastest when sales do. SMS costs about three cents a message and reports a 95% open rate.
Source: Hive · Dec 16, 2025 to July 12, 2026 vs Nov 28, 2024 to July 13, 2025
Where the buyers were
Every 2026 online purchaser, plotted by the town on their order.
Fargo is 5,718 of the 7,365 plotted, which is most of the audience inside one metro. The rest reaches into Minnesota as far as Detroit Lakes and south to Wahpeton, so the catchment is wider than one city but thin outside the corridor.
Source: Hive, read from the map supplied with the campaign review. Coordinates from the US Census place file. · Dec 16, 2025 to July 12, 2026 vs Nov 28, 2024 to July 13, 2025
What we could not measure
The honest limits of everything above.
No figure on this page is measured against a control. Every return figure on this page was reported by the platform that ran the ads and is grading its own delivery. Google, Meta, TikTok and the programmatic platform each count differently, and none of them is checked against a holdout.
The platform totals cannot be added. Their sum exceeds the Fair's entire online revenue by 74%, which proves overlap without telling us how much belongs to whom.
We cannot separate the talent effect from the advertising effect. A smaller entertainment budget and lower concert sales moved together. Nothing here can say how much of the fall was booking and how much was demand.
Attendance is not in this report. These are online ticket figures from Saffire. Gate admissions, walk up and per head spending sit outside what we can see.
What we would do next year
Revenue on the Fair's own products held flat while concerts drove the entire decline. Whatever is booked for 2027, the creative should lead with the Fair and treat concerts as the bonus.
Unit sales rose 88% year on year, 572 units to 1,074, in a season when everything else fell. It is the strongest product in the offer and it is not being led with.
Around 80% of the 6,257 new subscribers came from purchasers. Presale access, then price rise warnings, then time sensitive messaging into the gates.
Free entertainment, agriculture, attractions and parking are included with admission and are being marketed separately rather than as one day out.
Hold two comparable markets dark for four weeks and read the difference. It is the only figure in this conversation not produced by a party being paid.