Mix funnel cakes with drag queens, add a dash of old-time quilting and newly hip knitting, and the recipe could produce what organizers hope is a new flavor of county fair.

Fair staples are on proud display at the Denver County Fair. But there’s no mistaking this event for a traditional country fair.

All the contestants in Saturday’s Miss Denver County Fair pageant are drag queens. There’s a speed text-messaging contest, and the highlight staple of a Western fair, a rodeo, has been replaced with a bicycle rodeo and a troupe of performing pigs.

The fair opened Thursday and runs through Sunday. Organizers hope for 50,000 attendees.