Nassau County New York Long Island Fair Festival
Most county fairs spread across a modern fairground of grandstands and parking fields, but this one unfolds inside a recreated nineteenth-century village. The Long Island Fair is held at Old Bethpage Village Restoration in Old Bethpage, a hamlet in the Town of Oyster Bay, and it is presented by the Agricultural Society of Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties Inc. as a single county fair serving three counties at once. Nassau County’s seat is Mineola, and Mineola does not host this fair; its role here is ancestral, because the fair’s historic grounds once stood there and a twelve-acre recreation of them now sits inside the museum village. The fair occupies one September weekend, Friday through Sunday, daytime hours only, offering judged exhibits, demonstrations, livestock, contests and period entertainment among period buildings rather than on a modern midway.
About a Fair Presented by One Society for Three Counties
The presenting body is a single agricultural society whose published name covers Queens, Nassau and Suffolk together. The venue’s own events page gives the governing current form as the Agricultural Society of Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties Inc.; county releases print the name without the final comma and the incorporation suffix, and the fair’s older history copy uses an ampersand form, The Agricultural Society of Queens, Nassau & Suffolk Counties — all recorded exactly as published, never corrected into each other. County descriptions call the event the official New York State sanctioned County Fair for Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and a county release words it as the New York State-recognized county fair for the same three counties. The fair is staged in cooperation with the Nassau County Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums, which owns the village; the department is a cooperating host and landowner, never the sole organiser, and no Extension office appears in the fair’s record in the role.
Quick Facts
| Item | What the record supports |
| Fair name | The Long Island Fair |
| Venue | Old Bethpage Village Restoration, 1303 Round Swamp Road, Old Bethpage |
| County seat | Mineola, which does not host the fair |
| Presented by | Agricultural Society of Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties Inc. |
| Counties covered | Queens, Nassau and Suffolk under one society |
| 2026 dates | Friday, September 25 to Sunday, September 27, 10 in the morning until 5 |
| Admission | Not published by the fair for 2026; recent listings agree on twenty dollars for adults, fifteen for children and seniors |
| Parking | No price or free-parking statement published in the record |
| Camping | None of any kind at this museum village |
| Fairgrounds | A twelve-acre recreation of the original Mineola Fairgrounds, in the county’s description |
From Farm Lots and the Mineola Grounds to a Museum Village
The society’s own history, carried from the fair’s earlier site, begins in 1841, when it was founded as the Queens County Agricultural Society, and it says the society has sponsored a fair on Long Island since 1842. Nassau County’s account instead says the fair was founded in 1842. Those wordings stand side by side and are not blended: 1841 belongs to the society’s formation in its own account, 1842 to the first fair in that account and to the founding year in the county’s account. The earliest fairs moved among members’ farms and vacant lots around Hempstead and Mineola. In 1866 the society acquired permanent grounds in Mineola on Old Country Road at Washington Avenue, building barns, carriage sheds and an office behind a castellated fence, centred on a cruciform Exhibition Hall topped by an eagle weathervane. The fair there was the Queens County Fair until 1899, when Nassau County was created from the three eastern towns of Queens County and the event became known as the Mineola Fair. Displaced in the 1950s, it moved to Roosevelt Raceway, and in 1970 it came to the newly opened Old Bethpage Village Restoration under its present name. Its age billings refuse arithmetic: the fair’s homepage celebrates 184 years of Long Island agriculture for 2026, county releases across the previous decade billed editions from the 168th to the 176th, and one pair runs backwards, billing the 169th in 2010 and the 168th in 2011. No founding year can be computed from any of them.
What to Expect
Benches of Produce and the Exhibition Hall Premium Book
The competitive heart of the weekend is the exhibit programme: the venue describes displays of home-grown fruits, vegetables, flowers, crafts and livestock competing for blue ribbons, and county layers count thousands of exhibits across culinary work, horticulture, livestock, needlework and agricultural skills, with a junior division for exhibitors aged thirteen and younger. The premium book’s Exhibition Hall classes are granular — Long Island potatoes, peppers, roots and tubers, pumpkins and squash, with premiums of five dollars, three dollars and two dollars for first, second and third in that book. Those figures belong to that layer alone, not to any later year’s payouts.
Trades Worked the Nineteenth-Century Way
Around the benches, demonstrators work the trades the village exists to preserve: tin-smithing and blacksmithing, pottery, weaving, candle-making and hat-making, with an artisan craft show on the venue’s own page. This is the fair’s documented signature, and the county calls the event unique among New York State county fairs for keeping so much of the nineteenth century’s historical ambiance — a distinction carried here as the county’s own billing.
For a useful comparison, see the Montgomery County New York Fonda Fair Festival for another county festival.
Livestock in the Barn and Ring, and Contests of Skill
Livestock occupies the barn and the demonstration ring named in county release layers, and the Powell Farm, a working barnyard complex with barns, pastures and an orchard, anchors the village’s agricultural side; the venue notes it is the only structure originally located at the village. Layered through the weekend are contests in an older register: corn husking, potato sack races, two-person cross-cut sawing, scarecrow building and guessing the weight of a giant pumpkin. Bigger spectacles appear only inside fenced layers — a lumberjack show and Civil War reenactments in 2018, a trapeze act and circus items in an undated programme layer — so they belong to the documented past, not to any lineup a visitor should count on.
Period Entertainment Through the Day
The entertainment stays inside the period frame: jugglers, mimes, puppet shows in the Punch and Judy tradition, magic acts, brass-band and bluegrass music, and contra dancing, all in the county layers. Everything runs inside the ten-to-five day, so expect strolling performers and demonstrations rather than evening headline concerts.
Planning Your Visit
Getting to Round Swamp Road
The single stable fact in every layer of this record is the address: Old Bethpage Village Restoration, 1303 Round Swamp Road, Old Bethpage, in eastern Nassau County. The 2026 fair days ran Friday through Sunday, September 25 to 27, from 10 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon. Earlier editions took other shapes — four days in one layer, two successive weekends in 2013 — so confirm the weekend on the fair’s or venue’s own calendar.
The Honest Position on Admission and Parking
The fair’s own current pages, as retrieved for this record, publish no admission ladder, and no 2026 dollar figure can be verified from the fair itself. What exists is agreement between recent listing layers: a 2025 fall-fairs guide and a 2024 family-events layer both put adults at twenty dollars, children aged five to twelve and seniors at fifteen dollars, with children under five free, as listing guidance from those years only. An undated county-release layer gives fifteen dollars for adults and thirteen for children and seniors, wording the free tier as children four and under, which conflicts with the listing layers’ under-five wording; neither wording is harmonised here. Layers from 2013 and 2014 stand at twelve and eight dollars, fenced to those years. The fair-published 2026 terms are narrower: tickets existed, original purchase fees are nonrefundable, and transfer or refund requests go through the venue office. Parking terms are unpublished, so neither a charge nor free parking can be stated. The village’s ordinary museum admission is a museum price for a different kind of visit — never this fair’s admission.
A Sample Saturday at the Fair
Arrive near the ten o’clock opening and start in the Exhibition Hall, reading the potato, pepper and squash benches. Spend the late morning among the trade demonstrations, take lunch around midday, and watch livestock in the demonstration ring before wandering the Powell Farm barnyard. Give the early afternoon to the skill contests and finish with the craft show before the five o’clock close. One habit matters: the fair’s own channels carried conflicting weather notices for the last two days of the 2026 weekend — one announcing closure, a mirror saying the grounds would remain open as scheduled — and the record never reconciles them. Check the fair’s page on the morning of any weather-threatened day.
Sleeping Over: No Camping at the Village
There is no camping of any kind at this fair. No source in the record offers public, exhibitor or recreational vehicle camping at Old Bethpage Village Restoration, and none should be invented for it; the venue is a museum village, not a campground. Anyone staying more than one fair day needs ordinary lodging nearby.
How This Fair Differs From Its Neighbours
The nearest comparison is also the trap. A separate fair is held at the Queens County Farm Museum in Queens, and that museum fair is a different event entirely; none of its dates, prices or programme belongs here. This fair also differs from a conventional single-county fair in governance alone: one society presents it for Queens, Nassau and Suffolk together. It is the same fair’s present form, moved and renamed in 1970.
A Visitor’s Checklist
- Confirm the year’s September weekend on the fair’s or the venue’s own calendar before travelling.
- Budget from the recent listing layers only as guidance; expect the confirmed price at purchase time.
- Plan for a ten-to-five day; no evening programme is documented.
- Check the fair’s own notices on the morning of a weather-threatened day, since its 2026 messages conflicted.
- Allow a full morning for the Exhibition Hall benches and junior division work.
- Do not mistake the village’s ordinary museum admission for fair admission.
- Book area lodging early if attending more than one day; the village offers no camping.
- Wear shoes suited to unpaved village lanes and grass.
Beyond the Fairgrounds
The fair fills only one corner of its setting. The county describes the fair’s ground as a twelve-acre recreation of the original Mineola Fairgrounds, the wider village as a recreated mid-nineteenth-century American village set on more than two hundred acres in release wording, and its village-history layer traces the site to a 165-acre Powell property acquired in 1963 on the Nassau–Suffolk border. Those are three layers about three different things; the twelve acres are the fair’s alone. Outside fair weekend the village continues as a museum with its own separate calendar of seasonal events, each on its own terms; those are the venue’s programme, not this fair’s. The Powell Farm rewards a slower look in any season.
Why a Three-County Fair in a Museum Village Endures
Few American fairs can be followed through so many forms: farm lots, a permanent Mineola ground behind a castellated fence, a raceway interlude and finally a recreated fairground inside a museum village. A county history layer calls this one of America’s oldest agricultural festivals, carried here as billing rather than an audited ranking, and the village-history layer credits it with drawing tens of thousands of visitors, again a claim rather than a counted year. Its significance is structural: a Queens-born society still judges potatoes, needlework and livestock for three counties, one of them a borough of New York City, in a setting its nineteenth-century founders would recognise.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the fair not held in Mineola, the county seat?
Mineola hosted the fair’s permanent grounds from 1866 into the 1950s, which is why older layers call the event the Mineola Fair. The fair left in the 1950s, spent a period at Roosevelt Raceway, and settled at Old Bethpage Village Restoration in 1970. Mineola remains the county seat and the fair’s ancestral home, but no current edition is held there.
What does admission cost, stated honestly?
The fair itself publishes no retrievable current ladder in this record, so no exact gate can be certified. Recent listing layers for 2025 and 2024 agree on twenty dollars for adults and fifteen dollars for children aged five to twelve and seniors, with younger children free, while an undated county-release layer gives fifteen and thirteen dollars. Use the listing agreement as a planning guide; the village’s everyday museum admission is a separate price for a separate product.
Can visitors camp at the village, and what does parking cost?
No camping exists at Old Bethpage Village Restoration for this fair — not for the public, not for exhibitors, and not for recreational vehicles — because the venue is a museum village. Parking terms appear in no layer retrieved, so neither a price nor free parking can be promised. Staying over means ordinary lodging nearby.
Who actually runs the fair, and for which counties?
The Agricultural Society of Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties Inc. presents the fair, in cooperation with the Nassau County Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums, which owns the village. The society is one body serving three counties at once, and county sources describe the result as the state-sanctioned county fair for all three. The department is a cooperating host, not the sole organiser, and no Extension office runs this fair.
What to Expect From the Next Nassau County New York Long Island Fair Festival
How often is the Nassau County New York Long Island Fair Festival held?
Once a year, in September. The shape has varied — a single three-day weekend now, four days in an earlier layer, two successive weekends in 2013 — but the September rhythm is constant.
When is the next Nassau County New York Long Island Fair Festival?
The next edition falls due in September of the coming year, following the 2026 weekend of September 25 to 27. No dates for it appear in this record, so watch the fair’s own site and the village’s special events calendar rather than booking travel on an assumed weekend.
Will the dates change?
They can, in two documented senses. The weekend has settled in different parts of September across recent years and the fair’s shape has changed before, so the position is the society’s to set each year. Weather can also intervene: the fair’s own 2026 channels disagreed in print about whether the final two days would close or stay open. Confirm close to the day.
The Long Island Fair asks a little more care from its readers than most county fairs, because its record is layered — three counties, one society, two founding wordings, edition numbers that never reconcile. Read at its own depth, it resolves clearly enough — a September weekend of serious judging, working trades and old contests on a recreated fairground in Old Bethpage, presented by a society that has sponsored a Long Island fair since the eighteen forties.
