Ulster County New York Fair Festival
The Ulster County Fair is the county’s full six-day agricultural fair, held in late summer at the Ulster County Fairgrounds on Libertyville Road in New Paltz. Kingston is the county seat, yet it does not host this fair; the fairgrounds lie in the southern part of the county instead. The fair is run by the Ulster County Agricultural Society, and its published run for 2026 is Tuesday, August 4 through Sunday, August 9. The fair also changed how it charges in 2025: it long sold one pay-one-price ticket covering gate and rides together, but that model ended after 2024. In 2025 and 2026 gate and rides are priced separately, and the sections below keep the two eras apart so no old figure is mistaken for a current one.
About the Ulster County Fair
This is a complete county fair in the traditional mould: livestock barns and agricultural competitions, horse shows through the week, 4-H exhibits, fair food, a commercial midway and nightly stage concerts included with admission. The operating body is the Ulster County Agricultural Society, published in two forms kept unmerged here: the state fairs directory lists the Ulster County Agricultural Society, while the fair’s own website footer carries Ulster County Agricultural Society, Inc. The directory names Gary Newkirk as fair manager. Ulster County government owns the fairgrounds and licenses them to the Society, making the county the landlord rather than the organiser. The midway is run by Dreamland Amusements, a contractor that sets ride pricing and is never the organiser.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | The Ulster County Fair, a six-day agricultural county fair |
| Venue | Ulster County Fairgrounds |
| Address | 249 Libertyville Road, New Paltz (mailing address: Post Office Box 71, New Paltz) |
| County seat | Kingston, which does not host the fair |
| Organiser | Ulster County Agricultural Society (the fair’s own site adds “Inc.” to the name) |
| 2026 dates | Tuesday, August 4 to Sunday, August 9, 2026 |
| Admission, 2026 | Fifteen dollars at the gate; twelve dollars online; ten dollars pre-sale and on Tuesday |
| Children | Admitted free, though the published age cut-off conflicts between layers |
| Parking | Free, and listed by the fair among the things admission includes |
| Camping | No fair-published camping offer exists in the record |
From Ellenville Driving Park to Libertyville Road
The fair’s own strapline bills it as a family-fun tradition since 1886, and that year is a billing, not a founding computed here. The heritage record kept by the Ellenville Public Library and Museum states that the first official Ulster County Fair was held in 1886 in Ellenville, organised by a predecessor society whose name is itself recorded in two forms, the Southern Ulster Agricultural Society and the Southern Ulster County Agricultural Society, renamed the Ulster County Agricultural Society in 1889. An 1869 layer describing a small fair at the Ellenville Driving Park is a precursor, never the founding. The fair stayed in Ellenville until the grounds were sold after a grandstand fire in 1926. A local history then places it at Forsyth Park in Kingston in 1932, in the State Armory in 1936, and back at Forsyth Park for roughly three decades, making the Kingston years a historic era only. No layer states when the fair moved to New Paltz, so no move date is asserted here. Press coverage records that the 2020 fair was cancelled during the pandemic, while a 2021 layer shows it running again that August, so no uninterrupted run is claimed. Published edition numbers conflict too: a letter on the fair’s own site calls 2024 the 136th fair, a newspaper sequence bills 2025 as the 137th and 2026 as the 138th, and one 2026 listing bills 2026 as the 139th. The fair’s own website publishes no edition number, so none is printed here as settled.
What to Expect
Nightly Main Stage Concerts Included With Admission
Every night of the 2026 fair carries a Main Stage concert, included with admission rather than separately ticketed. The published bill runs from The Bunker Boys on Tuesday to Chubby Checker on Sunday evening, with a tribute to Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks on Friday and the Eli Young Band anchoring Saturday. Wednesday needs an honest note: Exile was the originally billed act, but the fair later announced that the country group Ricochet would replace Exile on the Main Stage on Wednesday, August 5 at 8 in the evening. A tribute act covering AC/DC fills Thursday. The 2025 lineup, which brought Lorrie Morgan and Emily Ann Roberts, belongs to its own year and carries nothing into 2026.
Animals, Barns and 4-H Exhibits
Livestock barns and agricultural competitions sit alongside 4-H exhibits, and horse shows run across the schedule, including an English Horse Show. Draft horses appear in a pull and show in the Friday layers of the programme. Alongside them sit the grounds entertainments from the fair’s own billing: Robinson’s Racing Pigs running daily, an aquatic acrobatic show, a frisbee dog team, live chainsaw carving and a stilt walker. A Baby Contest and the pie-eating and watermelon-eating contests give the week its participatory side; none of these elements is a promise about another year’s programme.
For a useful comparison, see the Tompkins County New York Trumansburg Fair Festival for another county festival.
The Dreamland Midway and Ride Wristbands
Dreamland Amusements operates the midway, described in a local layer as more than twenty rides, and in the current model every ride is paid for on its own; the fair’s tickets page states the rule plainly: rides are priced separately from admission. Ride pricing is set by Dreamland, and the fair sells unlimited ride wristbands at two levels in 2026, twenty dollars on Wednesday and Thursday and thirty dollars on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with Dreamland’s own online wristband at thirty dollars plus a fee for any day. Tuesday works differently, as the planning section shows, with rides at two dollars each.
Pulls, Fireworks and Evening Spectacle
Fireworks close Wednesday evening at dusk, a Truck Pull follows on Thursday and a Tractor Pull on Friday, alongside the draft horse events.
Sensory Safe Space and Quiet Ride Hours
New in the 2026 layers is an accessibility provision that sets this fair apart. A Sensory Safe Space is open daily, and the fair publishes Sensory Safe Hours when rides run without lights or music: Wednesday through Sunday from 10 to 11 in the morning, and Wednesday and Thursday from 11 until noon. For families who find a full midway overwhelming, those windows are the calmest way in.
Planning Your Visit
Dates and Daily Hours for 2026
The 2026 fair runs Tuesday, August 4 to Sunday, August 9, with hours published on the fair’s own homepage: Tuesday from 4 in the afternoon to 10 at night; Wednesday and Thursday from 10 in the morning to 10 at night; Friday and Saturday from 10 in the morning to 11 at night; Sunday from 10 in the morning to 8 at night. Rides open at 11 in the morning. The slot slides by a few days yearly: July 30 to August 4 in 2024, July 29 to August 3 in 2025.
Admission in 2026: Gate, Online and Pre-Sale Channels
The current ladder belongs to 2026 alone and is split by purchase channel. At the gate, admission is fifteen dollars from Wednesday through Sunday. Bought online for August 5 to 9, it is twelve dollars. The fair’s social announcements add an online pre-sale price of ten dollars running through August 4. Tuesday, August 4 is the documented best-value slot under the fair’s “10 and 2” special: admission is ten dollars and every ride costs two dollars. Set against that, the pay-one-price era is history: in 2024 the gate was twenty dollars and the online price eighteen dollars, with rides and shows inside the ticket and a Tuesday carload night at fifty dollars per car, and in 2021 and 2022 the pay-one-price figure was seventeen dollars. None of those numbers is a current price, and the carload night no longer exists.
Who Enters Free: Children and Senior Days
Children enter free, but the exact age boundary will not be tidied up here, because the fair’s own 2026 layers conflict. Its homepage says children under 10 years old enter free, while its social posts and the press layers say kids 10 and under get free admission. Those wordings differ for a child who is exactly ten, and neither is preferred here; a family with a ten-year-old should check with the fair first. Senior Days are clearer: in 2026, visitors aged 62 or older enter free on Wednesday and Thursday between 10 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. In the 2021 and 2022 layers the senior-free time was Thursday only.
Parking, Grounds and Getting There
Parking is free in every documented layer. The grounds address is 249 Libertyville Road in New Paltz; one newspaper layer shortens the road name, but the fair’s own footer and the state directory agree on the full form. On camping, honesty is required: no fair-published camping offer, campsite rate or hookup arrangement appears anywhere in the record, so none is described here. The fair’s Camp Day programme invites confusion, but it is a group-visit scheme under which summer day camps bring their campers at a group rate; it is not overnight camping.
A Sample Saturday at the Fair
Arrive soon after the gates open at 10 in the morning and, if the midway suits your party better quiet, use the first hour, when rides run without lights or music. Spend the late morning in the livestock barns and 4-H exhibits, then watch the racing pigs before lunch. Give the afternoon to the horse show and the grounds shows, and buy wristbands only if the party will ride enough to justify the thirty-dollar Saturday level. Eat on the grounds, settle in for the Eli Young Band as Saturday’s published headliner, and drift out before the 11 o’clock close.
Ulster Beside Its Hudson Valley Neighbours
Ulster sits in a valley of strong county fairs, and the honest comparison is about model, not size. Its neighbours in Rhinebeck and Middletown run separate fairs with their own ladders, and none of their prices or programmes are used here. What distinguishes Ulster’s recent record is the direction of travel: it held onto pay-one-price admission longer than many fairs did, then dropped the gate to fifteen dollars in 2025 and unbundled the rides instead of raising the combined ticket again. A visitor comparing days should compare gate plus wristband here, not the gate alone.
Fair-Day Checklist
- Decide your purchase channel first, since gate, online and pre-sale prices all differ
- Target Tuesday for ten-dollar admission and two-dollar rides if your schedule allows
- Bring proof of age for the Wednesday or Thursday Senior Days window
- Check the fair’s current wording on the free child age before bringing a ten-year-old
- Plan ride spending separately from admission, ride by ride or by wristband
- Arrive in the first hour for the quiet sensory ride window if that matters to your party
- Keep cash handy for fair food and the midway ticket boxes
- Do not plan on camping at the fairgrounds, as no camping offer is published
Beyond the Fairgrounds
New Paltz is the fair’s everyday setting, a college town in the Wallkill valley with the Shawangunk ridge above it. Kingston, the county seat to the north, carries the fair’s past rather than its present: the fair spent its Forsyth Park and Armory years there in the 1930s and after. The fairgrounds also host other gatherings across the year, including an art and crafts fair and a pickle festival. They share an address with the county fair and nothing else, so their dates are no guide to fair week.
Why This Fair Matters to Ulster County
A county fair is where a farming county shows itself to itself, and Ulster’s has carried that role through a run reaching back to its billed first official fair in 1886. Its survival is not a straight line: grounds were sold after a fire, the fair moved towns, and 2020 was cancelled outright. The recent record shows a fair still adapting in public, repricing itself in 2025 so the gate covers shows and parking while rides stand on their own, and adding a sensory provision in 2026 that few fairs of its size publish at all. For the 4-H families, exhibitors and volunteers who fill its barns, it remains the county’s shared late-summer appointment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Ulster County Fair held in Kingston?
No. Kingston is the county seat, but the fair is held at the Ulster County Fairgrounds, 249 Libertyville Road, in New Paltz. Kingston hosted only in a historic era and is not a current venue.
Does admission include the rides?
Not any more. Through 2024 the fair was pay-one-price and the ticket covered rides, shows and entertainment together. From 2025 onward rides are priced separately: in 2026 the gate covers shows, entertainment and free parking, and rides are paid for individually or by wristband.
How much does it cost to get in, and who gets in free?
In 2026, admission is fifteen dollars at the gate from Wednesday to Sunday, twelve dollars online for August 5 to 9, and ten dollars in the pre-sale through August 4 or at the gate on Tuesday. Seniors aged 62 or older enter free on Wednesday and Thursday from 10 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. Children enter free, although the fair’s own pages conflict on the cut-off, saying under 10 in one place and 10 and under in another.
Is camping available anywhere on the fairgrounds?
No fair-published camping offer exists in the record, so no campsite, hookup or overnight stay should be assumed. The fair’s Camp Day is a group-visit programme for summer day camps, not camping.
What to Expect From the Next Ulster County New York Fair Festival
How often is the Ulster County New York Fair Festival held?
The fair is an annual event, held once a year across six days in the late-summer slot recent editions have occupied, running from a Tuesday through a Sunday.
When is the next Ulster County New York Fair Festival?
The documented edition is the 2026 fair, running Tuesday, August 4 to Sunday, August 9, 2026, at New Paltz. No dates for a following edition appear in the record used here, so expect the same late July to early August window and confirm on the fair’s own site when published.
Will the dates change?
Will the dates change? The exact span has moved by a few days yearly in the documented record, landing on July 30 to August 4 in 2024, July 29 to August 3 in 2025 and August 4 to 9 in 2026, so the six-day shape and season look settled while the precise dates plainly do drift. Treat future dates as provisional until the fair publishes them.
That is the fair as its own record supports it: a six-day county fair in New Paltz with a long billed history, a newly unbundled price, and concerts still inside the gate. Check the fair’s own pages first, especially for the child age wording.
