Cabarrus County North Carolina Fair Festival
The Cabarrus County Fair is the county-run September fair of Cabarrus County, North Carolina, held on a purpose-built arena campus in Concord, the county seat. The county government manages it through its Fair Department, with fourteen competition departments, livestock in the main arena, a separately priced midway, and, since 2025, four nights of professional rodeo. The 2026 edition runs Friday, September 11 through Saturday, September 19, opening with a half-past-three ribbon-cutting on the first afternoon for the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001.
About the Fair
The governing name is the Cabarrus County Fair, used identically by the fair’s own site, county news releases, and the state agriculture department’s fair list. Two other forms are kept separate: Cabarrus County Agricultural Fair, the name in county programme and budget documents and of the historic fair association, and Cabarrus County Fair and Rodeo, the county event-page form since the rodeo arrived in 2025. The organiser throughout is Cabarrus County Government, through its Fair Department, in charge since December 2000. Courtney Wyatt is Fair Executive Director in the 2025 and 2026 releases and Fair Director in the July 2025 release; both forms stand as published.
The fair sits at the Cabarrus Arena and Events Center in Concord. The fair’s own site gives the grounds address as 4751 North Carolina Highway 49 North, Concord, and that form governs this guide; a county announcement and a listing round-up print 4759 for the same highway address, unblended. The fair’s own site also offers a navigation tip — enter 4751 Old Airport Road, Concord, if mapping misbehaves — for the same grounds, never a second address. The county government centre is elsewhere in Concord, never the fairgrounds.
One naming wrinkle runs through the fair’s own pages: the 2026 ride layer names Powers and Thomas, the same site’s questions page names Powers Great American Midways, the county’s 2025 event page agrees with that longer form, and the county’s 2024 layer calls the booths Powers Midway booths. No single form is treated as timeless; the 2026 ride prices below are the Powers and Thomas layer’s. The rodeo operator is Southern Rodeo Company in 2025, shortened to SRC in 2026.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Nine-day September county fair |
| Town | Concord, the county seat, which hosts the fair |
| Grounds | Cabarrus Arena and Events Center, 4751 North Carolina Highway 49 North, Concord |
| Organiser | Cabarrus County Government, through its Fair Department |
| 2026 dates | Friday, September 11 through Saturday, September 19, 2026 |
| 2026 gate | Eight dollars twelve and over; six dollars six to eleven and fifty-five and better; five and under, military with identification, and badged county employees free |
| Parking | Free |
| Rides | Not included with gate admission; credits and a one-day wristband priced separately |
History
The county’s own account is told here with its disagreements left standing. The Cabarrus County Agricultural Fair was organised in 1953 and held for forty-nine years at Cabarrus Avenue and Union Cemetery Road in Concord; that old site is history only, and no current fact belongs there. In December 2000 the county board agreed to manage the fair in exchange for ownership of the original fairgrounds, bought the seventy-acre parcel at Highway 49 and Old Airport Road, and broke ground on the Arena and Events Center in June 2001.
For a useful comparison, see the Burke County North Carolina Morganton Festival for another county festival.
Two county summaries disagree about the fair’s fiftieth year at the new facility, and neither is chosen: later summaries say 2002, with the seventieth anniversary in 2022, while an earlier summary says 2001, with the sixty-seventh anniversary in 2019. No founding arithmetic is done from either. The record settles the break: the fair was cancelled in 2020 and again in 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic. No edition number is billed for 2024, 2025, or 2026, so none is printed here.
What to Expect
The arena campus
Everything happens on one campus: the main arena holds the rodeo and, since 2025, the livestock shows; Event Center A and B hold livestock check-ins and poultry and rabbit judging; the Livestock Barn holds herdsman judging; Gold Hall 1 holds the 2026 balloon installation; Gold Hall 2 holds the Fair Mercantile; and the Cabarrus Rooms hold Senior Bingo.
The 2026 programme
The 2026 colour piece is Poppin’ Penelope’s balloon installation filling Gold Hall 1, built from tens of thousands of balloons across the run, while the Fair Mercantile in Gold Hall 2 gathers local arts, crafts, and artisan food vendors. The grounds also carry Dynamo Dogs, Dangerous Feats of Comedy, the Eudora Farms petting zoo, Robinson’s Racing Pigs, and a youth tractor competition.
Four nights of rodeo
The rodeo is the fair’s signature addition since its 2025 debut. In 2026 it runs four nights — September 11, 12, 18, and 19, doors at half past five, events at half past six — with bull riding, saddle bronc, bareback riding, barrel racing, team roping, calf roping, breakaway roping, and steer wrestling, and themed nights billed as All-American, Retro, Neon and Glow, and Denim and Diamonds. Rodeo general admission is twenty-five dollars, children two and younger free, including same-day fair admission.
Music and livestock
Live music is listed as free in the county’s 2026 release: Mak Marie, The Legacy Motown Revue, The Towers, Corey Stevenson Band, Landon Cline, Robert Hunter, and Kayla McKinney, on September 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, and 18 respectively. The livestock shows sit in the main arena: the Open Horse, Mule and Donkey Show on Sunday, September 13 at one in the afternoon, then Youth Sheep, Goat, Dairy, and Beef on Monday through Thursday at half past four. One caution: the fair’s own site posts two versions of its 2026 schedule swapping the midweek open beef and open dairy show days, so this guide assigns neither open show to a day and never merges the schedule’s open naming with the county release’s youth naming.
Planning Your Visit
Getting in and getting around
The 2026 gate is eight dollars for ages twelve and over, six dollars for ages six to eleven and fifty-five and better, and free for ages five and under, for military visitors with identification, and for county government employees with badge identification. Parking is free. The ladder is the same in 2025, but military admission was six dollars with identification in 2024 and free only from 2025, and 2025 gate sales were cash only in the first online-ticketing year, exclusively through Etix with additional fees online. A television listing layer’s eight dollars fifty cents and six dollars fifty cents for 2025 contradict every county layer and are never printed here as gate prices.
Rides, wristbands, and theme nights
Rides are not included with gate admission. In the 2026 Powers and Thomas layer, Tap N Go credits cost one dollar each, with bundles at eight dollars for eight, eighteen for eighteen, thirty-eight for thirty-eight, fifty-eight for sixty-two, and ninety-eight for one hundred eight, plus a one-time two-dollar card activation fee, with rides taking four to seven credits each. A one-day unlimited-ride wristband costs thirty-seven dollars, excluding the Air Raid ride, which still requires credits. In 2025 the wristband was thirty-two dollars online and thirty-seven dollars at the gate.
The 2026 theme nights are Senior Day on Monday, September 14, with free admission from four to six in the afternoon for ages fifty-five and better; Two Dollar Tuesday on September 15: two dollars off admission for two nonperishable food items, all rides at two dollars or two credits; School Night on Wednesday, September 16: free admission for Cabarrus County Schools and Kannapolis City Schools students; and Carload Night on Thursday, September 17: ninety dollars for admission and wristbands for up to six people buying and entering together. Senior Day’s 2025 window was narrower — three to four in the afternoon on Monday, September 8 — and the two windows are never blended.
Hours and the fine print
The fair’s own 2026 hours run Sunday from one in the afternoon to ten at night; Monday through Thursday from four in the afternoon to ten at night; Friday from four in the afternoon to midnight; and Saturday from one in the afternoon to midnight. The fair is open rain or shine, with no refunds or rainchecks for weather. The 2025 edition ran September 5 through 13 and the 2024 edition September 6 through 14, each with its own hours, never carried across years.
Camping, kept in two layers
Camping exists in two documents, never to be merged. The fair’s own 2026 Vendor Handbook offers camping at two hundred fifty dollars for the duration of the fair — check-in no earlier than Monday, September 7, 2026 at nine in the morning, spaces extremely limited and first-come, first-served, water and thirty-amp service included, no tent camping, and a one-hundred-dollar fine for violations. Those are the handbook’s terms, never a public price list. Separately, the Arena’s own site says recreational vehicle camping is available for select events, with water, power, and sewer hookups, asking visitors to inquire for pricing and availability. That venue offer publishes no price and includes sewer, which the handbook term does not, so neither may borrow the other’s terms.
A Saturday at the Fair
Take the closing Saturday, September 19, 2026. Arrive for the one o’clock opening, see the balloon installation in Gold Hall 1 and the Fair Mercantile in Gold Hall 2, spend the afternoon on the midway, then head to the arena for the rodeo — doors at half past five, events at half past six, admission already included in the rodeo ticket.
How It Compares
Set against the neighbouring September fairs, this fair’s mark is who runs it. The Rowan County Fair, the Iredell County Agricultural Fair, and the North Carolina Mountain State Fair each have their own dates, prices, midways, and programmes, and none of those facts belongs here. Cabarrus stands apart through county management on a purpose-built arena campus, livestock shows in the main arena, and a rodeo that arrived in 2025 and stayed.
Checklist
- Check the fair’s own site for the current year’s hours, since closing times differ by year
- Use 4751 North Carolina Highway 49 North for the grounds, and the Old Airport Road tip only if mapping misbehaves
- Remember rides are priced separately from the gate
- Bring identification if you claim military or county-employee free admission
- Note the theme nights if your visit can bend around one
- Arrive early for rodeo nights: doors at half past five, events at half past six
- Expect exhibit halls and the livestock area to close one hour before the grounds, and plan no re-entry
- Treat camping as two separate offers and confirm which applies before arriving
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Concord is the county seat and the fair’s town, founded in 1798, and the arena campus sits on the Highway 49 corridor at Old Airport Road rather than in the historic downtown. That placement is part of the fair’s modern story: the old fairgrounds at Cabarrus Avenue and Union Cemetery Road served for forty-nine years before the move to the seventy-acre arena site. Neither the old intersection nor Harrisburg, a neighbouring Cabarrus town named on one venue-listing page, is the fair’s site: the fair is in Concord. The September run sits inside a crowded regional fair season, so trust the county’s own dates, not round-up lists.
Why It Matters
A county-run fair is rarer than it looks. The county did not merely host a fair; it bought the land, built the arena, took over management, and kept the agricultural core — fourteen competition departments, thousands of entries, livestock in the main arena — while adding a professional rodeo as a new draw. County figures reported in local press put 2025 attendance at fifty-seven thousand thirteen over nine days, up from about forty thousand in 2024. A club newsletter layer’s sixty-two thousand six hundred fifteen for 2024 conflicts with the commissioners’ about-forty-thousand figure and stands beside it, unmerged.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Cabarrus County Fair free to enter?
No. In 2026 the gate is eight dollars for ages twelve and over and six dollars for ages six to eleven and fifty-five and better, free for ages five and under, military visitors with identification, and county employees with badge identification. Parking is free; rides are priced separately.
Where exactly is the fair held?
At the Cabarrus Arena and Events Center in Concord, at 4751 North Carolina Highway 49 North, according to the fair’s own site; some county layers print 4759 for the same highway address. The fair is not in Harrisburg and not at its historic Cabarrus Avenue grounds.
Does the gate price include the rides?
No. In 2026 rides run on Tap N Go credits, from one dollar a credit up to a one-hundred-eight-credit bundle for ninety-eight dollars, plus a two-dollar card activation fee, or a one-day wristband for thirty-seven dollars, excluding the Air Raid ride.
Can visitors camp at the fair?
Not as a single public offer. The fair’s 2026 Vendor Handbook lists camping at two hundred fifty dollars for the duration of the fair, with water and thirty-amp electric service and no tent camping, while the Arena’s own site separately offers recreational vehicle camping for select events with water, power, and sewer hookups and no published price. Neither should be assumed to cover a stay without checking first.
What to Expect From the Next Cabarrus County North Carolina Fair Festival
How often is the Cabarrus County North Carolina Fair Festival held?
It is an annual September fair, nine days from Friday through the following Saturday in the recent layers. The 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled, so no unbroken run is claimed.
When is the next Cabarrus County North Carolina Fair Festival?
The documented pattern points to September of the following year, but no next-edition dates are published in the layers used here, so no specific span is asserted. The most recent documented edition ran September 11 through 19, 2026; confirm the next dates on the fair’s own site and the county’s releases.
Will the dates change?
The September placement has held across 2024, 2025, and 2026, but the exact span has moved each year — September 6 through 14 in 2024, September 5 through 13 in 2025, and September 11 through 19 in 2026 — so the dates should be expected to shift within September rather than repeat exactly.
Closing
The Cabarrus County Fair is a county government’s nine-day September fair on an arena campus in Concord, with a deep competition programme, livestock in the main arena, a separately priced midway, and a rodeo that has quickly become part of the bill. Come with the right year’s gate ladder, a fitting theme night, and the fair’s own address.
