Benton County Oregon Fair Festival

Late July in Corvallis belongs to this fair. The Benton County Oregon Fair Festival is the county fair of Benton County, Oregon, staged at Corvallis, the county seat. Every documented edition runs four days, Wednesday to Saturday, in late July or the first days of August, filling the grounds behind a paid gate. The event carries two published names and a record that disagrees with itself, so each layer here stands on its own feet.

Two Names for One Corvallis Fair

The fair’s own site brands the event Benton County Fair & Rodeo, and county Board of Commissioners news releases use that ampersand form too. The plain Benton County Fair appears instead in the OSU Extension county-fair layer, in state operator listings and in the fair’s own catalogue layer, headed Benton County Fair Catalog 2025. Neither form is shortened or expanded here, because the sources never merge them.

Who runs the fair depends on which layer you read. State operator layers name the Benton County Fair Board, as does an Advocate layer showing that board at work in 2026, yet no current board roster appears in the record. The grounds belong to the county: the Event Center’s Facility Use Guide states that the Benton County Event Center & Fairgrounds is owned by Benton County, whose news service issues the fair’s line-up releases. Jennifer Martin is called Benton County Fair manager in 2026 layers only, and a 2019 Facility Use Guide staff list names that year’s grounds staff, belonging to 2019 alone and forming no board list. The Benton County Fairgrounds Foundation, established in April 1999 to preserve the county’s agrarian heritage, funds grounds improvements; its Foundation Dinner is a fair-week fundraiser, not the fair itself. OSU Extension – Benton County is the supporting 4-H office, hosting the Fair Book, schedule and camping packet, never the organiser.

The grounds answer to Benton County Fairgrounds in the fair site’s footer and in county and Extension layers, and to Benton County Event Center & Fairgrounds on the Event Center’s own site and in its guide, which places them at 110 SW 53rd Street, Corvallis, OR 97333, at the corner of 53rd Street and Reservoir Avenue, on a site a vendor profile measures at 29 acres, never merged with the twenty acres the county bought in 1957 in the history layer.

Quick Facts

Point	What the record shows
Published names	Benton County Fair in Extension, operator and catalogue layers; Benton County Fair & Rodeo on the fair’s own site and in county news layers
Host town	Corvallis, Oregon, the Benton County seat
Grounds	Benton County Fairgrounds, also styled Benton County Event Center & Fairgrounds, 110 SW 53rd Street, Corvallis
Season	Late July into early August, Wednesday to Saturday
Documented spans	August 2 to 5, 2023; July 31 to August 3, 2024; July 30 to August 2, 2025; July 29 to August 1, 2026
Operator form	Benton County Fair Board in state operator layers; the grounds are owned by Benton County
Gate	A paid gate in every published ladder
Camping	Benton Oaks RV Park, closed during the fair; separate 4-H Oak Grove camping in fair week, price unpublished

Two Beginnings That Are Never Reconciled

The county’s own news layer says the fair dates back to the early days of Oregon statehood, when the Benton Agricultural Society began hosting small fairs, and that the first official county fair was held in 1913 on the grounds of Oregon Agricultural College, now Oregon State University, a year stated directly in that layer, never calculated. The same account dates the fairgrounds to the county’s 1957 purchase of 20 acres and the fair’s growth into 4-H, Future Farmers of America, carnival rides, live music and rodeo events.

For a useful comparison, see the Baker County Oregon Fair Festival for another county festival.

The Centennial History of Oregon instead lists a Benton county society entry dated August 2, 1859, with a first fair at Corvallis on October 13. That entry stands in its own historical layer only, unmerged with the 1913 statement, neither account is preferred here, and no edition billing exists from which a founding year could be worked out. Corvallis’s 1851 seat designation is town history, not fair history.

What to Expect

The standing mix across the fair’s own layers

Fair-site and county layers describe a recurring blend rather than a fixed programme: 4-H livestock shows and exhibits, open competitive exhibits, carnival rides and games, rodeos, concerts that come free with admission, contests and youth livestock auctions.

Main-stage nights, told year by year

The county’s 2023 line-up layer gives Radical Revolution on Wednesday, August 2, Remedy and Chayce Beckham on Thursday, Kurt Van Meter and LANCO on Friday, and Back in Black and Mr Speed on Saturday. For 2024, county and Advocate layers put Kurt Van Meter and Jessta James on Thursday, Remedy and Shot of Poison on Friday, and Boomtown Saints and Sawyer Brown on Saturday, August 3. The 2025 local-calendar layer names Dylan Schneider and Rodney Atkins, and the fair site’s Friday schedule layer adds the Willamette Valley Fiddle Contest on the Oak Grove Stage. For 2026 the Extension layer sets the theme Stars, Stripes and Summer Nights, and county and Advocate layers give Bright Hearts Circus, the Matt Baker Comedy Stunt Show and Jeff Martin Magic & Hypnosis from 6 p.m. on Wednesday, a Thursday Battle of the Bands whose winner opens Friday night, Queen Nation at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, July 31, and Jacquie Roar and Hunter Hayes closing Saturday.

Rodeo nights and the crown

The fair site’s Rodeo page promises free admission to all rodeos with fair admission, an inclusion term, never a claim that entry to the fair itself costs nothing. The Advocate layer’s dated rodeo detail belongs to 2024: the Larry Bell Memorial All Girls Rodeo on July 31 and two NPRA-sanctioned rodeo nights on August 1 and 2, covering bareback and saddle bronc riding, bull riding, steer wrestling, tie-down, team and breakaway roping and women’s barrel racing, with Naomi Bailey as the 2024 Fair & Rodeo Queen. No rodeo-night count is printed for 2026, since the only source for one is the site’s standing wording about action-packed nights, which is not a dated schedule.

Planning Your Visit

Four spans, four separate editions

The 2023 edition ran Wednesday, August 2 through Saturday, August 5 in county and calendar layers, and the 2024 edition ran Wednesday, July 31 through Saturday, August 3 in county, calendar and Extension layers. The fair site’s Plan Your Visit layer heads the 2025 edition July 30 to August 2 and prints its hours line only in part, reading “Fair Hours Wednesday & Saturday 11:00 am midnight”; that partial line is left exactly as partial here. The 2026 edition ran Wednesday, July 29 through Saturday, August 1 in Extension and county layers, and a fairgrounds thank-you post after it looks forward to August 4 to 7, 2027, an announcement in that social layer only.

Admission, in ladders that do not agree

This fair charges admission, and its ladders argue with each other. The fullest, the Extension newsletter ladder for 2024 only, sets adults aged 17 to 59 at ten dollars per day or thirty dollars for a season pass, seniors aged 60 and over at eight dollars per day or twenty-four dollars for a senior season pass, youth aged 6 to 16 at eight dollars per day or twenty-four dollars for a youth season pass, and kids aged 5 and under free all day, every day. A 2024 calendar layer summarising the fair site adds one term found in no other year: gate admission free every day to active, reserve and retired military and National Guard members with valid military identification, a military term that belongs to 2024 and is carried nowhere else. The 2025 local-calendar ladder reads differently: ten dollars for adults, eight dollars for seniors aged 60 and over and for youth aged 7 to 16, free entry for ages 6 and under, and the same Wednesday and Thursday theme-day terms in that layer. The 2025 layer thus charges a six-year-old whom the 2024 ladder admits free, a conflict stated rather than smoothed over. For 2026 the layers publish headline terms only, ten dollars per day or thirty dollars for a four-day pass, kids 16 and under free on Wednesday, July 29 and those 60 and over free on Thursday, July 30; no fuller 2026 ladder was found, and none is assembled from earlier years.

Parking, carnival wheels and the smaller print

Parking in the 2024 Extension layer cost five dollars daily or fifteen dollars for a season pass; the 2025 calendar layer gives five dollars daily, and no season figure travels into 2025 or 2026. The same 2024 layer prices one day of unlimited carnival rides at forty dollars, while the 2026 Advocate layer says only that carnival tickets are sold separately. The Extension 2026 layer’s ten-dollar Judges’ Fee per member, collected from beef, sheep, swine and meat-goat exhibitors at check-in, is exhibitor money, as are premiums and auction prices. Booth space is first come, first served with no figure published; food prices and reserved seating are documented in no layer.

Sleeping at the grounds: a park that shuts and a grove that opens

The Event Center’s own page describes Benton Oaks RV Park, a year-round park: full hook-up at forty-eight dollars daily or three hundred eleven dollars weekly, partial hook-up at thirty-eight dollars daily or two hundred forty-one dollars weekly, and stays limited to 14 days in any 30-day period with no long-term stays. Tent campers must take a partial hook-up B Loop space, one tent and one vehicle per space, five days and four people at most per site. None of this is a fair-week offer: the same page states the park is closed from mid-July to mid-August every year to hold the fair, and differing directory rates are excluded from this record. Fair-time camping is a separate Extension-layer arrangement for 4-H members and families, with RV and tent sites in the Oak Grove area, priority for RVs of 30 feet or less, a waitlist for longer rigs, and reservations worked through the 4-H office with the fairgrounds. No price for that camping appears in any layer, and the RV park’s rates are never borrowed as its price.

A Fair Week Built Only From the 2026 Layers

Wednesday, July 29 is Family Day, kids 16 and under free, with circus, comedy and magic acts from 6 p.m.; Thursday, July 30 is senior day, free to those 60 and over, with the Battle of the Bands; Friday, July 31 belongs to Queen Nation at 8:30 p.m.; Saturday, August 1 closes with the Lee Allen Memorial Youth Market Auction at 3 p.m. and Jacquie Roar and Hunter Hayes.

Benton Counties Elsewhere, and Neighbours That Are Not This Fair

Every other fair wearing the Benton County name is a different event. Missouri’s Benton County Fair sits at Warsaw; nothing crosses between that record and this one in either direction. Arkansas keeps its fair at Bentonville and Lowell, Iowa’s sits at Vinton with a fair book billing a 154th annual edition, Washington folds its into the Benton-Franklin Fair at Kennewick, and Minnesota and Indiana keep theirs at Sauk Rapids and Foley and at Fowler. The Philomath Frolic & Rodeo is a separate town event in the same county, and the Benton County 4-H Horse Fair of July 18 to 21, 2024 is a pre-fair event, not a day of this fair. The Event Center’s year-round rentals are separate events, and the Oregon State Fair at Salem and the Pendleton Round-Up stand apart.

A Visitor’s Checklist

• Pick your edition’s own dates before travelling, since each year’s span stands in its own layers.
• Budget for a paid gate, and check which ladder applies to your year.
• Aim for Wednesday or Thursday if a free theme day in the documented layers fits your party.
• Treat carnival rides as a separate purchase, priced here only for 2024.
• Leave the RV elsewhere during fair week; Benton Oaks closes to hold the fair.
• Do not treat August 4 to 7, 2027 as settled dates; they are an announcement in one social layer only.

Beyond the Fairgrounds

Corvallis gives the fair a university town for a home: the county recruitment layer calls Oregon State University the city’s largest employer.

Why a County-Owned Fair Still Anchors the Summer

Plenty of county fairs are run by independent associations on borrowed land; this one is documented the other way round, with the county owning the grounds, the county’s news service announcing the line-ups, and a foundation formed in 1999 keeping the place’s agrarian heritage in repair.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the Benton County Oregon Fair Festival held?

It is held in Corvallis, Oregon, the Benton County seat, at the grounds the Event Center guide addresses as 110 SW 53rd Street.

What does admission cost?

Admission is charged in every published ladder, and the ladders differ: adults pay ten dollars a day in the 2024, 2025 and 2026 layers, while the free age band is 5 and under in the 2024 Extension ladder and 6 and under in the 2025 calendar ladder.

Can visitors camp at the fairgrounds during fair week?

Not in the RV park, whose own page states that it closes from mid-July to mid-August each year so the fair can be held; fair-week camping is the Extension layer’s unpriced arrangement for 4-H members and families in the Oak Grove area.

When did this fair begin?

The record gives two accounts and this article chooses neither: a first official county fair in 1913 in the county’s news layer, and a Benton county society with a first fair at Corvallis in 1859 in a Centennial History layer, with no edition billing to settle the question.

What to Expect From the Next Benton County Oregon Fair Festival

How often is Benton County Oregon Fair Festival held?

The layers document an edition in each year from 2023 through 2026, always Wednesday to Saturday in late July or the first days of August, and the fairgrounds’ profile wording calls the event annual: one edition every summer.

When is the next Benton County Oregon Fair Festival?

The only forward-looking statement in the record is the fairgrounds’ thank-you post after the 2026 edition, looking ahead to August 4 to 7, 2027. That is an announcement in a social layer reproduced in a places layer, not a confirmed schedule, so treat them as pencilled, not promised.

Will the dates change?

They have moved within their season in every documented comparison, from early August in 2023 and 2025 to late July in 2026, while the Wednesday-to-Saturday shape has held; each year’s exact span stands in that year’s own layers.

The fair leaves behind it a grounds that goes back to work the following week, renting halls and reopening its RV park. Until the next edition is announced, the Corvallis fair stands as the record leaves it: county-owned, youth-heavy, and reliably there at the turn of August.