I looked into this because of some Ingress stuff, won't go into the details there obviously, but I was a little surprised at what I found:
http://www.hennepincountyfair.comLooking at the events, site design (note the background) and all, it seems just like some random rural county's fair. It's almost like they're pretending Minneapolis doesn't exist (actually check out the board of managers, none from Minneapolis and only two from inner-ring suburbs even), and it's held way out in the exurbs. After learning of this I polled others and found out that most people in Minneapolis aren't even aware of it and just assumed the State Fair (which is quite a big deal in Minnesota, it's by far the most attended per capita state fair in the country, attendance is often as high as a third of the state's population) was all the inner cities needed and county fairs were just for outstate. Based on the attitude in Minneapolis you'd think no one would care but another source tells me 16,000 attended last year. But I guess it does serve a purpose as more of a county fair for the exurban outer part of Hennepin County even if ignored by the part where most people live.
