On Tuesday, August 5, 2025, the Indiana State Fair updated its Unaccompanied Minor Policy.
Unaccompanied Minor Policy (Updated 8/5/2025)
Fairgoers under the age of eighteen (18) must be accompanied by a parent, legal guardian, or chaperone (age 25+) to enter the Indiana State Fair starting at 6 PM daily, Tuesday – Thursday, and 4 PM daily Friday – Sunday.
- Each adult may chaperone up to four (4) individuals and must remain at the Fairgrounds while the minors they are chaperoning are still present.
- Any minors under the age of 18 not accompanied by an adult will not be admitted.
- Any person entering may be asked to show a valid driver’s license, state identification card, or other government-issued ID.
- This does not apply to organized and ticketed group outings or to those participating in competitions where existing chaperone procedures are already in place.
Youth Gone Wild (Allegedly)
Why the sudden change mid-Fair?
In this day and age of viral videos and AI, plus sue-happy people, one is right to question this, so you may not have heard about it on the local media outlets. But allegedly, on Saturday, some youths were fighting on the Midway.
We weren’t there on Saturday and did not witness it firsthand, so until we hear otherwise, we cannot confirm either way.
You can follow the threads below to get an overview of what we’re talking about.
The Verdict
As we’ve said, we weren’t there. And we’ll also say that a security policy update of any kind mid-Fair is not a normal occurrence. We’ve covered the Indiana State Fair for YEARS and don’t recall this.
Connecting the dots, it sounds like this was indeed at the Indiana State Fair on Saturday. Fox 59’s Angela Ganote stated such and said that there’s supposed to be an update from the Fair.
While the kids need to behave, and fighting and chasing each other around is unacceptable, by no means will this keep us away from the Fair this year. We spent Sunday at the Fair and had no issues at all, and can confirm that there was an ample supply of police officers on hand patrolling.