Through dagwood dogs or hot wings, country shows unite

The smoked turkey legs are bigger than your head, diesel-soaked demolition derbies roar and rev, marching bands trill and Hollywood star Keanu Reeves might even show up.

The Indiana State Fair is one of the largest shows in the US, with 850,000 people passing through its gates over 15 days in summer every year.

They come to the mid-west fair for wings drenched in jerk sauce, barbecue feasts and fried Oreos, to watch rock shows and rodeos and down frosty Budweiser beer and margaritas.

One couple got engaged in the centre of a livestock pavilion in August, with the bride-to-be presented with a blue ribbon asking her to be the 2024 Grand Champion Fiancee.

Reeves, star of The Matrix, played bass with his band Dogstar in a performance that made international headlines.

All that fun is a gateway to a deep-rooted 172-year-old tradition to connect Americans with agriculture, a responsibility Ray Allison takes seriously.

"Agriculture is the only economy in the world that touches every single person because we all have to eat, right?" Mr Allison, the fair's chief development and strategy officer, told AAP from Indianapolis.

Those who run Australia's 582 agricultural shows will hear from Mr Allison about the rich history of the fair when he speaks at the industry's national conference on Queensland's Gold Coast in February.

He will share successful programs that educate crowds about life on the land, including Little Hands on the Farm which lets children explore agriculture through play orchards, chicken coops and barns.

Country shows remain relevant because they are often a town's longest-running event, Mr Allison said.

"The public discourse in the United States - I don't know what it's like in Australia - tends to lean towards the negative, we find reasons to divide rather than bring people together," he said.

"But the fair is the one place you can go that is a true melting pot of the community, where everybody can come together.

"There's just nothing like it."

That connection got the Indiana State Fair through a major tragedy in 2011, when a stage collapse during a wild storm left seven people dead and many others injured.

"We were not going to be defined by what happened on that night," Mr Allison said.

"We rolled up our sleeves and we worked really hard to build the policies and procedures and put plans in place to ensure that something like that didn't happen again."

For Mr Allison, the fair is a calling.

Beginning as a college intern - when he put his hand up to work extra hours in the parking department every night - Mr Allison has worked 32 consecutive fairs.

He is looking to the Australian industry to teach him more about the age-old problem of parking.

The large animal pavilion at the Ekka in Brisbane that houses livestock during the show and is a car park the rest of the year is of particular interest.

"I'm certain that spending a few days with folks in the industry, we will find we have far more in common than not."