Labor Day weekend is the last properly summer weekend of the year in Minneapolis, and in 2026 it is a good one: the State Fair is in its closing days, Gopher football opens at home, and the theatre district is unusually quiet. Here is how to spend Thursday, September 3 through Monday, September 7 — with dates checked against the official calendars.
Thursday, September 3: Gopher football opens at home
The University of Minnesota kicks off its season against Eastern Illinois at Huntington Bank Stadium at 7:00 PM on Thursday, September 3 — a rare weeknight opener that gets the whole weekend started early. Confirm kickoff on the official Gopher football schedule, since times move.
It is the first of four home games in September, so if you miss it there is another the following Saturday.
Friday to Monday: the State Fair’s final five days
The Minnesota State Fair runs August 27 through Labor Day, Monday, September 7. That means the whole long weekend is Fair weekend, and the last four days are the busiest of the run.
Our advice, after years of watching visitors do this the hard way: do not drive to the fairgrounds on Saturday. Park downtown, take the express bus, and use the day you save on the city itself. We wrote a fuller guide to doing the Fair from Minneapolis if you want the details.
No Twins at Target Field — plan around it
This one catches people out. The Twins are on the road for the entire long weekend: at the White Sox September 4 through 6, then at the Tigers on Labor Day itself. Their last home games before the break are September 1 and 2 against Detroit. Check the official Twins schedule before you buy anything.
A quiet weekend on Hennepin Avenue
Here is a genuinely useful oddity: the Hennepin Arts calendar currently shows nothing at the Orpheum, the State or the Pantages between Ray LaMontagne on August 30 and September 12. For one weekend the theatre district belongs to whoever wants to walk it — which makes it a lovely evening for dinner and drinks with no crowd, no interval scrum and no ramp queue.
If you would rather have the show, the theatres pick back up hard in the autumn; our September guide covers what is coming.
Do the city itself
Long weekend, warm weather, no baseball and no Broadway — this is the weekend for the outdoor version of Minneapolis.
- Walk the Stone Arch Bridge and the mill ruins at the riverfront. Twenty minutes on foot from most of downtown.
- Get to Minnehaha Falls. Fifty-three feet of waterfall inside the city limits. The park is open until midnight.
- Ride a trolley. Our narrated scenic tour and the Gilded Age Mansion Tour both run through the long weekend, and both cover ground you cannot easily walk.
- Go slightly weird. The true crime tour and the candlelight ghost tour are the ones people talk about afterwards.
- Day-trip it. The Renaissance Festival is open — here is how to do it from Minneapolis.
Where to eat, drink and stay
Fair food is not a food plan for five days. Our Best-of lists are the shortcut: the best restaurants in Minneapolis, the best rooftops for a warm September evening, the best cocktail bars, the best breweries, and the best family activities if you have children in tow.
For a room, it depends what kind of weekend you want. 300 Clifton is a National Register mansion turned bed and breakfast in Loring Park, with a garden hot tub and a speakeasy movie room — the romantic option, and the only mansion in Minneapolis you can tour and sleep in. Oakland’s on 9th is a furnished studio apartment hotel in an 1889 brownstone downtown, with full kitchens, no lease and free laundry — better if you are staying a week or bringing the family. And the Pillsbury Club, where our trolleys board, does dinner, a bar and mansion tours by reservation.
Getting around without the traffic
Labor Day weekend traffic in Minneapolis is almost entirely State Fair traffic, and it is concentrated on the routes to the fairgrounds. Everything else moves fine. The Metro Transit trip planner will route you around it, and a trolley picks you up at the door.
Book your seat on the calendar of tours, or ask about group tours and private rentals if there are a lot of you. It is the thing to do in Minneapolis when the summer is running out.
Keep reading: What Are the Best Free Things to Do in Minneapolis?