Onslow County North Carolina Agricultural Fair Festival
For five October days each year, the fairgrounds on Broadhurst Road in Jacksonville fill with rides, food stalls, vendors and, in a full fair year, exhibits and animals. That is the Onslow County Agricultural Fair, run by the Onslow County Fair Association in Jacksonville, the county seat of Onslow County. The most recent edition, from Tuesday, October 13 through Saturday, October 17, 2026, was a full-scale carnival rather than a fair, because the loss of the American Legion building removed the space for the agricultural activities and displays that a fair in North Carolina requires.
About the Fair
The Onslow County Agricultural Fair, also billed as the Onslow County Fair, is the Onslow County Fair Association’s October county agricultural fair and exposition at the Onslow County Fairgrounds in Jacksonville. Jacksonville is the county seat of Onslow County, North Carolina, and it hosts the fair. The Association’s stated purpose is to encourage and promote agriculture, domestic manufactures and the mechanic arts in Onslow County, and to operate a county agricultural fair and exposition that includes exhibits, shows and attractions.
The fair runs for five days, from a Tuesday through a Saturday, in October. The 2024 edition ran from Tuesday, October 15 through Saturday, October 19, 2024, and the 2025 edition ran from Tuesday, October 14 through Saturday, October 18, 2025. The 2026 carnival kept the same five-day shape, but under the carnival names used for that year only, the Onslow County Fall Carnival and the 2026 Onslow County Fair Carnival.
The organiser is the Onslow County Fair Association, recorded in one directory layer in the legal form Onslow County Fair Association Inc. The American Legion, Post 265, belongs to the grounds and building side, not to organising the fair, and the county government is not the organiser either.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Onslow County Agricultural Fair, also billed as the Onslow County Fair |
| Location | Onslow County Fairgrounds, 146 Broadhurst Road, Jacksonville, North Carolina |
| Host city | Jacksonville, county seat of Onslow County |
| Season | Five days, Tuesday through Saturday, in October |
| 2026 edition | Tuesday, October 13 through Saturday, October 17, 2026, held as a full-scale carnival |
| Last full fairs | October 15 through October 19, 2024, and October 14 through October 18, 2025 |
| Organiser | Onslow County Fair Association |
| Admission | 2026 unpublished; seven dollars per person in 2024 and 2025, fenced separately |
| Parking and camping | Parking unpublished every year; no camping offered |
History
No founding year for this fair can be stated, and no first-edition year and no uninterrupted annual run may be claimed. The edition billings that survive do not line up into a single history, left unreconciled. A 2022 account billed that year’s edition the 66th Annual Onslow County Agricultural Fair. A welcome line reading Welcome to the 67th Annual Onslow County Agricultural Fair survives only inside scraped pages mixing this fair with another state’s fair, its year unstated, so it is never assigned to a calendar year.
For a useful comparison, see the New Hanover County North Carolina North Carolina Azalea Festival for another county festival.
A press account describes the fairgrounds opening for the 69th annual agricultural fair, its year unstated, never reconciled with the 66th or the 67th billing. Standing against all three is a directory line giving Founding Year 2010 for Onslow County Fair Association Inc, a corporation record, not a founding date for the fair. One visitor-guide layer calls it a family-friendly event that has been a fall tradition for years.
The oldest dated layer places the fair earlier in the calendar than its modern October slot. A 2013 newsletter from the county’s Cooperative Extension lists the Onslow County Fair at the Onslow County Fair Grounds, 146 Broadhurst Rd, Jacksonville, from September 30 through October 5, a run that straddled September and October, with neither an edition number nor an admission price published. An undated account describes families at the fair on a Monday, September 30, with rides, food stands, a fun house and ring-toss games, its year unstated and never assigned to 2013 or any other year.
The 2022 edition, billed the 66th Annual, ran from Tuesday, October 11 through Saturday, October 15, 2022, with a display near the entrance featuring race cars, driver autographs and giveaways, that year only. No clean dates are available for 2023, because the only 2023-shaped layers are the contaminated scraped pages already noted, and no 2023 dates are printed here or borrowed from 2022 or 2024.
That building loss is reported in conflicting terms, never reconciled. On March 12, 2026, a storm destroyed the American Legion building on the grounds. One official damage survey describes a brief EF-0 tornado, peak wind eighty-five miles per hour, causing a critical failure of the roof and door structure of a large metal building used by the American Legion, with no fatalities or injuries. Another press account describes the Post 265 building as completely destroyed by powerful straight-line winds, reduced to a total loss, and unoccupied at the time. A third gives the building as a twenty-two-thousand-square-foot facility built in 1981 and reports the commander saying the post planned to rebuild on the property, an intention in that 2026 layer, never a completed rebuild, while a fourth layer describes the roof as mostly damaged. Only the fair’s own consequence is settled: the building is lost, and the 2026 edition therefore could not be a fair.
What to Expect
The Full Fair, as in 2024 and 2025
The standing spine of the full fair is a county agricultural fair and exposition with exhibits, shows and attractions, expressed in the fair’s own event words as local vendors, animals, local entertainment, rides, fair games and fair food favorites. The 2025 edition was billed in the fair’s own copy as rides, food, vendors, exhibits and fireworks, with Fireworks Night on Thursday, October 16, 2025, inside the run. The 2024 edition carried the same spine.
In one undated press account, fairgoers named fair rides that light up the night sky, funnel cakes, lemonade, agriculture, art and music as their draws, whose year is unstated. County departments shared an educational booth at the 2024 fair, with geographic information staff partnering with Parks and Recreation, the Public Library, the Museum and Animal Services.
The 2026 Carnival
The 2026 edition must be described on its own terms, and those terms are narrower. The fair’s announcement for 2026 states that the event was being held as a full-scale carnival that year because the loss of the American Legion building prevented some of the agricultural activities and displays required to constitute a fair in the state of North Carolina. Its programme is given in the same announcement as rides, food, vendors and more. No exhibits, no livestock and no agricultural-display programme may be printed for 2026.
Evenings, Special Nights and the Midway
In 2025 the published gate hours were Tuesday through Friday, four in the afternoon until ten in the evening, and Saturday, twelve noon until ten in the evening. In 2024 the ticket booth opened at four in the afternoon and closed at ten in the evening. No gate hours were published for the 2026 carnival.
Tuesday, October 15, 2024, was Military Appreciation Night, with two dollars off gate admission for visitors showing proof of military identification, a discount fenced to that night alone. The 2025 run carried its own special night in Fireworks Night on Thursday, October 16, 2025. In 2024, unlimited ride bands cost thirty dollars per person, a 2024 ride price only, never admission and never another year’s band price. In 2025, unlimited ride bands were sold on site at no stated price, and the 2024 thirty-dollar figure is never carried into 2025.
Planning Your Visit
Finding the Grounds
The fairgrounds sit at 146 Broadhurst Road, Jacksonville, North Carolina 28540, an address that appears in the record in several forms for the same site, including 146 Broadhurst Rd, Jacksonville, and 146 Broadhurst Rd., Jacksonville. The grounds themselves appear under several name forms for the same place: Onslow County Fairgrounds, Onslow County Fair Grounds in the older spelling, and American Legion Fairgrounds in one listing layer for the same address.
What Admission Cost, Year by Year
Admission is given year by year, and the years do not entirely agree. For 2025, admission was seven dollars per person, with ages three and under free and ages sixty-five and up free. For 2024, regular admission was seven dollars per person, with children four and under free and adults sixty-five and above free.
The seven-dollar headline agrees across the two years, but it remains two fenced yearly layers, not a standing price, and the free-child threshold must never be blended: four and under free in 2024 beside three and under free in 2025. For 2026, admission is unpublished: the fair’s 2026 carnival announcement, the state fair list and the press account of the opening publish no gate price, no age ladder and no statement that entry was free, and neither the 2024 nor the 2025 seven-dollar ladder may be printed as 2026’s. Admission for earlier years, and parking in every year, are likewise unpublished.
Staying Over and Getting Around
No camping, recreational vehicle stay or overnight offer forms part of this event in any layer available, so visitors who need a place to stay must arrange it separately.
A Sample Five Days
A visitor planning around a full fair year would do well to arrive on the Tuesday opening, when the ticket booth opens in the afternoon. Wednesday and Thursday are the middle evenings, for the exhibits, the animals, the local vendors and the fair food favorites. Saturday, with its noon opening in 2025, is the longest day. A visitor planning around the 2026 carnival would keep the same five-day shape but drop the agricultural stops altogether.
How the Carnival Compares
The sharpest comparison this fair offers is with itself. Set against the full fairs of 2024 and 2025, the 2026 carnival is the same event with its agricultural core removed: the same October Tuesday-to-Saturday shape, the same Broadhurst Road grounds, but rides, food and vendors standing where exhibits, animals and agricultural displays had stood. Against a street festival, the contrast is different: this is a fairgrounds event with a gate and a midway, not an open street event.
Visitor Checklist
- Confirm the edition’s form before travelling: 2026 was a carnival
- Expect a five-day Tuesday-to-Saturday run in October, and do not assume dates from another year
- Budget by year: seven dollars in 2024 and 2025 separately, 2026 unpublished
- Remember the free-child threshold by year, four and under in 2024 and three and under in 2025
- Plan for an afternoon arrival and a ten in the evening close in a full fair year
- Do not plan on camping at the fairgrounds, since no camping is offered
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Jacksonville, as the county seat and the fair’s host city, is the natural base for a fair visit, and the fair’s October timing puts it in the heart of the fall season in Onslow County. A visitor who arrives in the afternoon has the morning free for the county seat itself before heading to Broadhurst Road for the evening gate. The 2024 Military Appreciation Night touches the county’s military character directly, .
Why This Fair Matters to Onslow County
A county agricultural fair matters because it is one of the few occasions on which a county shows itself to itself: its animals, its exhibits, its local vendors and its local entertainment gathered on one grounds for five October days. The Association’s stated purpose, to encourage and promote agriculture, domestic manufactures and the mechanic arts in the county, is that idea in formal language. The 2026 carnival matters differently, as evidence of what happens when the building that housed part of that showing is lost, and the fair answered honestly, calling the result a carnival.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the 2026 edition a fair or a carnival?
The 2026 edition is a carnival, not a fair, in the fair’s own terms. Held from Tuesday, October 13 through Saturday, October 17, 2026, it was staged as a full-scale carnival offering rides, food, vendors and more, because the loss of the American Legion building prevented some of the agricultural activities and displays required to constitute a fair in North Carolina. No exhibits, livestock or agricultural-display programme formed part of it.
What did admission cost at the last full fairs?
In both 2024 and 2025, admission was seven dollars per person, but each year must be quoted separately. In 2024, children four and under entered free and adults sixty-five and above entered free, with two dollars off on Military Appreciation Night, Tuesday, October 15, for visitors showing military identification, and unlimited ride bands cost thirty dollars per person. In 2025, ages three and under entered free and ages sixty-five and up entered free, with unlimited ride bands sold on site at no stated price.
Where is the fair held, and who runs it?
The fair is held at the Onslow County Fairgrounds, 146 Broadhurst Road, Jacksonville, North Carolina, in Jacksonville, the county seat of Onslow County, which hosts the fair. The organiser is the Onslow County Fair Association, recorded in one directory layer in the legal form Onslow County Fair Association Inc. The American Legion, Post 265, is connected with the grounds and the lost building, not with organising the fair.
Can visitors camp at the fairgrounds for the fair?
No camping is offered as part of this event in any layer available. Parking prices are likewise unpublished in every year.
What to Expect From the Next Onslow County North Carolina Agricultural Fair Festival
How often is the Onslow County North Carolina Agricultural Fair Festival held?
The fair is an annual event, held for five days from a Tuesday through a Saturday in October, with the full fairs of 2024 and 2025 and the carnival of 2026 all following that October pattern.
When is the next Onslow County North Carolina Agricultural Fair Festival?
No date for the next edition has been published, and none is invented. The modern pattern points to a five-day Tuesday-to-Saturday run in October, but the next edition’s dates, form and admission must be confirmed from the fair’s published announcement for that year before travelling.
Will the dates change?
The dates have moved within October from year to year, so a visitor should expect the calendar dates to shift rather than repeat exactly. The 2013 run straddled September and October, so no single October week can be treated as fixed, and the form has also changed, from full fair to carnival.
The Onslow County Agricultural Fair, is a modest thing: five October days on Broadhurst Road in the county seat, local vendors and animals and entertainment beside rides and fair food, a fireworks night in one year and a military appreciation night in another. The carnival of 2026 showed the same fairgrounds and the same October shape with the agricultural heart taken out by a storm, and a fair willing to name that change plainly.
