Lycoming County Pennsylvania Fair Festival
For ten days in mid-July, a borough fairground in the southeastern corner of Lycoming County becomes the county’s busiest address. The queue title adds the word Festival; the event itself is the Lycoming County Fair, the annual agricultural fair of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, held in Hughesville around livestock judging, exhibit halls, harness racing, demolition derbies, stage music and a midway.
About the Lycoming County Fair
Hughesville hosts this fair; Williamsport does not. Williamsport is the county seat, a status resting on the Pennsylvania State Archives county courthouses table and on nothing in any fair source; the same table dates the county’s creation to April 13, 1795. Every fair-side layer instead places the grounds in the borough of Hughesville, in the southeastern part of the county.
The fair’s history page notes that the event is often referred to as the Hughesville Fair; that nickname belongs to this same fair and names no second event. The published organiser forms stand unmerged: the history page works with Lycoming County Fair Association, shown there as actively involved in the state association of county fairs, while operating, contact and ticket-order layers use the shorter Lycoming County Fair, and the 2026 brochure’s Lycoming County Fair Motorsports is a presenting banner over the motorsport nights, a programme brand rather than a separate organiser.
The grounds address needs the same care. The fair’s own contact block prints 1 East Park Street together with a post office box in Hughesville, Pennsylvania 17737, yet the parts do different jobs: the street address is the grounds form, Post Office Box 116 is mailing only, and the brochure’s ticket-order imprint uses the box form alone. Shortened forms circulate on bureau layers, but this article keeps the street name in full. The midway is contracted: the homepage and brochure name SunShine Shows, LLC, rendered Sunshine Shows elsewhere, as the amusement company, never the organiser.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Lycoming County Fair, a ten-day agricultural fair |
| Host town | Hughesville, Pennsylvania, a borough in the southeastern part of the county |
| County seat | Williamsport, which does not host the fair |
| Grounds | 1 East Park Street, Hughesville, Pennsylvania 17737 |
| Mailing address | Post Office Box 116, Hughesville, Pennsylvania 17737, mailing only |
| Organiser forms | Lycoming County Fair Association in the history layer; Lycoming County Fair in operating layers |
| Documented 2026 dates | July 8 to July 18, 2026 |
| Admission in 2026 | Four dollars at the gate, rides not included; children twelve and under free with a paid adult |
| Parking in 2026 | Four dollars on the fairgrounds |
| Camping | No fair-side camping terms are published, so camping is unverified |
History
The fair’s own history page keeps its beginnings in two layers that must not flatten into one founding date. In the origin layer, ten local persons met in 1868 and organised the Muncy Valley Farmer’s Club, a name the same page also renders as Muncy Valley Farmers’ Club, with George Hill chosen as president. Two years later, in 1870, that club held its first exhibition at the Hughesville Trotting Park. The page’s summary says the fair traces its history from 1870 and marked a 150th anniversary in 2021, and the homepage, updated for 2026, says it originated in 1870. So 1868 belongs to the predecessor club and 1870 to the first exhibition; neither year founds the Lycoming County Fair Association, whose own trail begins far later, with a first land-purchase indication in 1915 and some fifty acres deeded to it by 1930.
For a useful comparison, see the Luzerne County Pennsylvania Fair Festival for another county festival.
Site is its own layer. Rival fairs ran in Williamsport during the late 1800s, at the Vallamont section and at Memorial Park near Bowman Field; those city events were competitors, never earlier editions on the present grounds, and Hughesville was chosen as the permanent site sometime in the early 1900s, in the history page’s deliberately loose wording.
Interruption is recorded just as plainly. The fair was curtailed starting in 1942 under wartime restrictions, and a lightning fire on September 4, 1944 destroyed a large exhibition building. A secondary blog layer adds a pandemic cancellation in 2020; that claim stands as secondary only, yet nothing licenses an unbroken-run claim either. During the 1950s the fair moved from autumn to mid-July and stretched into ten days.
Edition numbers here are billing, nothing more. The history page speaks of a 123rd fair in 1993, beside an attendance record above 141,000, while newspaper billing called the 2025 fair the 154th and a regional listing attached that same label to 2026; a number landing on two years counts neither, and no founding year may be worked backwards from such labels, the 2016 listing’s 146th annual included.
One colour layer deserves its own fence. The grounds once held an airfield, its hangars and 1,700-foot runway dedicated across September 3 to 5, 1930; the same account remembers Amelia Earhart’s emergency landing there on May 14, 1929 and AAA-sanctioned big-car racing with Indianapolis 500 veterans. That ground later became fair parking.
What to Expect
Livestock, Exhibits and the Youth Sale
Agriculture fills the working core of the ten days. The 2026 programme runs 4-H and vocational shows alongside open competition across the sheep, swine, goat, dairy and beef departments, with judging spread through the run, and the Youth Livestock Sale on Friday, July 17, 2026 gives young exhibitors their market moment near the fair’s end. Exhibit buildings carry the home and farm entries beside the barns.
The Grandstand in 2026
The 2026 grandstand bill opens with free Twilight Harness Racing on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, July 8 and 9. Bulls and Barrels, with children’s mutton busting alongside, takes Friday, July 10 at twelve dollars. Saturday, July 11 stacks a free antique tractor pull in the morning, an obstacle trail challenge and the Tommy Hedrick’s Memorial Demolition Derby at twelve dollars, and Sunday, July 12 pairs an open horse show with demolition derby and Figure 8 racing at twelve dollars. Monday, July 13 brings a free concert from Isaac Cole with The Heartstrings, while Tuesday, July 14 turns the arena over to live pro wrestling, priced in the Planning section. Wednesday, July 15 adds a double tree tractor pull plus a free programme of mini school bus demo derby, first timers compact demo and Figure 8 racing. Thursday, July 16 repeats the derby and Figure 8 bill at twelve dollars, Friday, July 17 answers with the Dale Wheeland Memorial Tractor Pull at twelve dollars, and closing Saturday, July 18 belongs to the PATPA four-by-four gas and diesel truck pull at twelve dollars, a show whose name carries a 16th Annual billing in its own layer.
The Funway and the Free Stage in 2026
Daily ground entertainment in 2026 centres on the Amelia Earhart Funway, where Buffalo Beals Pig Races run every day from July 9 through July 18 beside a petting zoo, Starfire Entertainment, a nightly performance by the Hughesville High School Theatre Club and The Magic of Miss Ashlyn. The Red Dog Mobile Storage Stage hosts free shows daily: Dan and Galla across the Wednesday to Sunday layers, October Rose on Monday, July 13, Frank and Kathi Delucca on Tuesday, July 14, Logan Route on Wednesday, July 15, the act billed as 2AM, Autumn and Mitch, on Thursday, July 16, Elijah Ward and Band on Friday, July 17 and Mack Berry closing on Saturday, July 18. The Sunshine Shows midway opens at five in the afternoon on most days, and at two on Saturdays, Sundays, Tuesdays and the final Saturday.
Planning Your Visit
Dates in Their Years
Two documented editions anchor the calendar. Reportage layers for 2025, a newspaper preview carried through the chamber’s July 2025 publication and corroborated by broadcast coverage, ran the fair from July 9 to July 19, 2025. The fair’s own 2026 brochure, matched by the state agriculture department’s 2026 guide entry, runs Wednesday, July 8 through Saturday, July 18, 2026. Beyond those fenced spans, the standing pattern is the fair’s own wording: mid-July, ten days, in Hughesville.
Admission, the Pass and the Special Days in 2026
Every price here belongs to the fair’s own 2026 brochure and to no other year. Gate admission cost four dollars, and the brochure states expressly that rides were not included. Children twelve and under entered free all day, every day, with a paid adult admission, a provision credited to sponsor EQT, and a ten-day weekly gate pass cost thirty dollars. Four relief valves punctuate the run: a free gate on opening Wednesday, July 8; a two-dollar Tuesday gate on July 14; Senior Citizens Day on Wednesday, July 15, free for visitors aged sixty-five and over with valid identification, rides still excluded; and Military Appreciation Day on Thursday, July 16, free with valid identification, rides likewise excluded. Advance orders carried a handling charge of two dollars per order, an order mechanic rather than admission money. Reportage for 2025 described a four-dollar adult gate with those twelve and under free and varying specials, but that stands as a 2025 newspaper layer only, never merged into the brochure’s structure, and a decade-old 2016 listing quoting six dollars plus two dollars parking is quarantined to 2016.
Grandstand and Wrestling Money in 2026
Seat money at this fair is show money. In the 2026 brochure, each headline grandstand night above cost twelve dollars, while harness racing, the antique tractor pull, the Isaac Cole concert and the Wednesday, July 15 demo programme were free. Live Pro Wrestling on Tuesday, July 14 stood apart: front row ringside seats cost thirty dollars, second and third row ringside seats cost twenty-five dollars, and general admission sold at two admissions for twelve dollars. None of these figures is a gate price, and none carries into another year.
Parking, Access and the Camping Blank
The 2026 brochure prices parking on the fairgrounds at four dollars, places accessible parking next to the gate entrances, and notes wheelchair and scooter rental. No other year’s parking price appears in a fair-side layer, so parking for any other edition is unverified. Camping is a wider blank: the brochure, homepage and history page publish no camping rate, hookup term, reservation route or camper rule at all, so camping at this fair is unverified in its entirety, and campgrounds elsewhere in the county are separate businesses, not a fairground offer.
A Sample Day at the Fair
Take the closing Friday pattern from the 2026 brochure as a template. Walk the barns during morning judging, give the exhibit buildings the late morning, and lunch before the funway’s pig races and the theatre club’s nightly slot. Catch that day’s free Red Dog stage act, then finish at the memorial tractor pull, twelve dollars in 2026. A Saturday visit instead moves the midway opening to two in the afternoon.
How It Compares
Confusion usually arrives from the county seat. Williamsport hosts a famous August sporting gathering, the Little League World Series, and pairs it with a welcome celebration; both belong to Williamsport and another season, and neither contributes dates, venues, tickets or facts to this fair. The grounds also host other gatherings across the year, fibre and machinery events, rodeos, a circus and a blues festival among the uses the history page lists, and those rentals’ terms say nothing about fair week. Even the nickname cuts the other way: the Hughesville Fair is no rival event, but this very fair under its local name.
Visitor Checklist
- Confirm the current year’s span in the fair’s own brochure before fixing travel days
- Budget gate and parking separately when the 2026 pattern repeats
- Remember that rides sit outside the gate price
- Bring valid identification if a senior or military free day applies to you
- Consider the ten-day pass for several visits inside one fair
- Keep grandstand money apart from gate money
- Plan lodging off the grounds, since no camping terms are published
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Hughesville’s fairground works outside fair week too, holding the rental gatherings described above. The wider county arranges itself around a seat the fair never borrows: Williamsport’s courthouse and August celebrations belong to the city’s calendar, while the southeastern borough keeps the July fair. Treat the two towns as separate trips; they host separate events and share only a county.
Why This Fair Matters
A ten-day run is a serious claim on a small borough, sustained by keeping the fair’s centre of gravity in the show ring rather than the midway. Vocational and 4-H judging, the open departments and the youth sale give farm families a week of earned results, while derbies, pulls and harness racing carry older motor-and-horse traditions in the same programme. Few fairs can set a pig race beneath a funway named for an aviator who once landed, unplanned, in their own field; this one can, and the oddity sits in documented history, not folklore.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the Lycoming County Fair actually held?
The fair is held in Hughesville, at grounds addressed as 1 East Park Street in that borough. Williamsport is the county seat, verified from the state archives table, but the seat does not host this fair.
How much did it cost to get in during 2026?
The fair’s own 2026 brochure set the gate at four dollars with rides not included, charged nothing for children twelve and under attending with a paid adult, and sold a ten-day pass at thirty dollars. It also made the opening Wednesday free, priced Tuesday at two dollars, and admitted seniors and military visitors free on their appointed days with identification.
What did parking cost, and can visitors camp on the grounds?
Parking on the fairgrounds cost four dollars in the 2026 brochure, which also placed accessible parking beside the gate entrances. Camping is a different answer: no fair-side layer publishes any camping rate, hookup or rule at all, so camping here is unverified entire.
Was the fair founded in 1870?
No single founding year survives this record intact. A predecessor club organised in 1868 and held its first exhibition in 1870, while the Association’s land trail begins only in the 1900s; each layer belongs to its own body and decade.
What to Expect From the Next Lycoming County Pennsylvania Fair Festival
How often is Lycoming County Pennsylvania Fair Festival held?
One edition is staged each summer, across ten days in the middle of July. Documented editions on this record ran in 2025 and 2026, and the fair’s own pages describe a mid-July fixture rather than an occasional event.
When is the next Lycoming County Pennsylvania Fair Festival?
Following the documented pattern, the next edition after July 8 to 18, 2026 would land in mid-July of the following summer. No span for it appears in the layers gathered here, so wait for the fair’s own brochure rather than trusting projected dates.
Will the dates change?
Small movements are normal here, since the season itself once shifted from autumn to July and the length grew to ten days in the 1950s. The mid-July window held across both documented editions, so expect day-level adjustments rather than a new season.
Keep gate, seat and parking money separate, and this Hughesville week rewards the planning: come for the judging and stay for the noise after dark.
