Time to enjoy the Iowa State Fair Effect

The Iowa State Fair is the ultimate sociological study.

This is not a revelation – people-watching at the fair is a well-documented pastime – but still it never ceases to amaze me. Fairgoers come in all shapes, sizes and degrees of fashion acumen, and they arrive with a wide range of priorities of what must be seen – and eaten.

But few escape unfazed by the Iowa State Fair Effect. It’s some kind of mindset that permeates the rationale, often after consuming mustard-laced corn dogs or succulent grilled pork chops.

Sociologists might call it “group behavior,” which describes a large number of people in a given area who conform to actions that differ from what individuals would do acting alone. For example, average folks normally would not admit to being intrigued by people heaving cow chips (properly defined as pieces of dried bovine dung), but at the fair such behavior is perfectly acceptable, if not expected.

State fair visitors also get caught up in collecting free things – any free things. A marketing professional’s paradise, the fair is a place where people literally stand in line to eat free eggs on sticks – which are simply hard-boiled eggs like the ones in their refrigerators at home, except that they’re impaled with Popsicle sticks.

If fairgoers see someone carrying a free shopping bag, they want one, too, and they will not hesitate to ask a tattooed stranger in a wild tank top, bandana and flip-flops where he got it. They then can easily collect dozens of unneeded free things, including T-shirts, piggy banks, golf balls, paring knives, yardsticks, key chains, chip clips, drink cups, drink-cup koozies, pencils, note pads and magnets.

Most every Iowan has state fair stories to tell. I usually start by recounting how my family made a trip to Des Moines for the fair every year when I was a girl. My mother packed a big picnic lunch, and we retreated at noon to our Chevy station wagon in the parking lot to eat and regroup.  (Today, this would be called tailgating.) At the end of the day, we each got a Wonder Bar – ice cream dipped in chocolate and rolled in nuts.

As a teenage baton-twirler, I performed on the Grand Concourse with my high school marching band in the early ’70s. As the mom of two little kids, I took photos of Grandpa lifting them into cabs of gigantic combines (the first exhibit on his personal list of things to see).

Many of my friends volunteer at the fair, judging contests, manning booths and exhibits or doling out the free hard-boiled eggs. These days, I work with colleagues to greet alumni and answer prospective students’ questions about college admissions, financial aid, bachelor’s degree majors and athletic scholarships at the AIB College of Business booth in the William C. Knapp Varied Industries Building.

Off-duty, will I be tempted to pay a double-digit price for a bucket of warm chocolate chip cookies when I could easily bake a batch at home? Yes. Will I watch bees swarm on honeycomb, dream of building a new four-season porch, admire gigantic garden vegetables and listen with fascination to sales pitches about knives and mops? Yes.

Can’t help it. I’m a native Iowan who’s clearly susceptible to the Iowa State Fair Effect.