The Alaska State Fair opens Friday at the fairgrounds on the Glenn Highway, running through Labor Day, September 7. The fair is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which leaves 14 open days with gates from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The giant vegetables remain the reason many people make the drive. The 30th Giant Cabbage Weigh-Off takes place Friday, September 4, at 6 p.m. in Farm Exhibits, with the 20th Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off on Monday, August 31, at 2 p.m. Both are included with admission. The Alaska record cabbage is just over 138 pounds, a figure that owes to the Mat-Su Valley’s glacial soil and to 19 or more hours of daylight at midsummer.

The concert series brings 14 national acts to the Borealis Theatre, among them CAKE, Megadeth, AJR, The Beach Boys, deadmau5, Modest Mouse, Lyle Lovett and Nick Offerman. Concert tickets do not include fair admission by default, so anyone planning a full day should buy the bundle. Comedians, lumberjack shows and free community stages run through the day, and the grandstand schedule includes demolition derbies and monster trucks.

Beyond the stages, the fair runs livestock shows, 4-H exhibits, quilting, beekeeping, baked goods and Alaska Native art, with tens of thousands of entries mostly free to view with admission. Food vendors sell reindeer sausage, fresh salmon and the Palmer cream puffs, which draw lines worth planning around.

Getting there takes about 45 minutes from Anchorage. On-site parking runs $10 to $15, with accessible parking in the Red, Yellow and Purple lots. The Fair Train offers limited round-trip service from Anchorage on select days and sells out early.

The fair has run in Palmer since 1936 and draws hundreds of thousands of people over its run, making it the largest annual gathering in the state.