DES MOINES, Iowa — After the Michael Krantz ownership group of Steer ‘N’ Stein had questions raised about its ability to pay their employees and the fair, the Iowa State Fair announced on Wednesday that the group would not be welcomed back in 2025.

The Iowa State Fair Board met on Wednesday to discuss opening up a proposal process for who would operate the building at next summer’s fair; as the fair is still owed more than $100,000 from the ownership group.

“Today the Iowa State Fair Board approved an open RFP process to find a new operator for the Steer ‘N’ Stein location. The current operators were not invited back to participate in the 2025 fair, just based on, really, several contractual as well as standards of operations violations,” said Jeremy Parsons, the Iowa State Fair CEO.

Payments to the Iowa State Fair, failure to pay staff in a timely manner, along with failure to pay other outside contractors who worked for Steer ‘N’ Stein this last summer was the scope of the fair’s investigation.

WHO 13 News spoke with several employees a month ago that did get paid for their work during the fair and had checks bounce.

The Iowa State Fair has one year contracts with vendors, so the move was simply not extending the ownership group into 2025. Having to do so was not something the fair took pleasure in doing.

“When you have a partner that isn’t maybe living up to the full, to their side of the deal, it’s disappointing,” said Parsons. “Obviously, the Iowa State Fair is a happy place. It’s a place where people come to have a good time. And obviously things like this are always a little disheartening.”

The Krantz Ownership had been involved with Steer ‘N’ Stein since 2023, and now the fair will look for new owners and operators.

“So, basically what’s going to happen is the fair staff will be developing a document that outlines what we are looking for as an operator in Steer ‘N’ Stein,” said Parsons. “And then you’re going to respond to that proposal, you are going to respond to that information with ‘here is what I would do to meet those requirements’. And then obviously those will all be scored, you know, according to a scoring chart that we use and then ultimately one of those providers will be selected.”

The Krantz ownership group had their legal team send a statement about the alleged money owed, which you can view here.

The name Steer ‘N’ Stein should stick around, barring any proposals to change that in the bids that will begin in a couple months.

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