Chittenden County Vermont Champlain Valley Exposition Festival
For ten days each summer, a fairground on Pearl Street in Essex Junction becomes the busiest address in Chittenden County. The Champlain Valley Fair spreads across the Champlain Valley Exposition grounds with barns, a midway and a grandstand, and the Exposition’s own About layer bills it as the state’s largest annual event, drawing more than 120,000 attendees, while its 2026 sponsorship package calls the run the ten best days of summer. The fair’s own record never styles it a county fair: a university layer’s Vermont’s largest county fair phrase and reportage calling it Chittenden County’s annual show are layer descriptions, not its name.
The Fair, the Grounds and the Names They Carry
Three name forms circulate and are kept apart here. Champlain Valley Fair is the event, used across the fair’s own pages and books; Champlain Valley Exposition names the grounds and the organisation; Champlain Valley Expo survives only as a short venue form in listing layers. The Exposition describes itself as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit promoting agriculture, education, arts and culture, commerce and entertainment, hosting more than a hundred special events a year. Legal forms stand in their layers: Champlain Valley Exposition, Inc. in a permit layer, an Incorporated spelling in a directory heading, CVE inside exhibitor documents alone. NorthCountry Federal Credit Union is presenting sponsor, never organiser. People stay in their layers: Brad Hunt, a marketing contact in 2025 and 2026 layers; Tim Shea, executive director in an older reportage layer; Wanda Emerich, cattle superintendent in the 2026 book.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Champlain Valley Fair, the ten-day fair of the Champlain Valley Exposition |
| Host city | Essex Junction, Vermont, a city since July 1, 2022 |
| Grounds address | 105 Pearl Street, Essex Junction, VT 05452 |
| Shire town | Burlington, named in the Vermont Statutes, and not the host |
| Organiser | Champlain Valley Exposition, with incorporated forms in permit and directory layers |
| Season | Ten days from late August into early September |
| 2026 edition | August 28 to September 6, 2026, in the fair’s own header |
| 2025 gate | Adults fifteen dollars on weekdays and twenty dollars on weekends, in the Exposition’s own release |
| Public camping | No public fair-week rate published in any fair-side layer |
A Host City, a Shire Town and Two Postcodes
Essex Junction hosts the fair, and every fair-side layer fetched places both fair and Exposition there. Incorporated as a village on November 15, 1892, it became Vermont’s tenth city on July 1, 2022. The Vermont Statutes, Title 24, chapter 1, section 5, list Essex Junction among Chittenden County’s municipalities and name Burlington as the county’s shire town, proven from the statute alone. Burlington does not host this fair.
The grounds address is 105 Pearl Street, Essex Junction, VT 05452, with the fair’s own footer adding the Ware Building. A mailing form stands apart in a state permit layer, Post Office Box 209, Essex Junction, VT 05453, whose 05453 postcode belongs to the box only and is never merged with the 05452 street form. A tourism layer’s form using the neighbouring Town of Essex is never the fair’s address, and the spaces it names, the Grandstand, the Robert E. Miller Expo Center, the Maple Sugar House and Expo Plaza, are space names only.
Beginnings That Refuse to Merge
No single founding sentence survives this record, because the layers disagree. Listing and fair-date layers describe the not-for-profit as founded in 1922; one reportage layer says the fair started in 1922, financed by selling 2,000 shares at fifty dollars apiece, and a second credits the Grange as its founder that year. Both stand unmerged, in reportage layers only. A publisher’s description of the fair’s centennial history book tells it differently: established in 1922, the Exposition held its first four-day fair at Essex Junction in 1923. A Vermont History Explorer timeline dates the first season at the newly built Exposition to September 14, 1923 and adds that the fair began as the Essex Fair in Essex Center, in the Town of Essex, before outgrowing that site. The 1922 starts and the 1923 first fair are never reconciled into one settled founding year.
For a useful comparison, see the Caledonia County Vermont Fair Festival for another county festival.
The shutdown record defeats any smooth continuity story. A Governor’s proclamation for the 2022 fair states the fair had shut its doors only for the Second World War in 1942 and 1943 and for the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020, proclaiming 2022 as the week it opens its doors for the 100th time. That count is billing in its layer, like a preview layer’s 103rd billing for 2025, and no founding year is worked backwards from either; the stated closures defeat any claim of an unbroken run. A May 2020 report adds a live conflict, quoting the Exposition, as it cancelled the 2020 fair, that this would be the first time in its history the fair would not occur, which cannot sit beside the 1942 and 1943 shutdowns. The conflict stands unresolved; the county’s own creation in 1787 is a county date, never the fair’s.
What to Expect Across Ten Days
The 2026 Grandstand Bill
The fair’s own Concerts page dates five grandstand shows for 2026, all in the Michelob ULTRA Concert Series on the Jackson Enterprises | TYM stage, a car dealer presenting in that layer: Warren Zeiders with Kevin Powers on Friday, August 28; Jordan Davis with Matt Lang on Saturday, August 29; ZZ Top with George Thorogood & The Destroyers and Kelli Baker on Friday, September 4; Bow Wow, Soulja Boy and Fat Joe on Saturday, September 5; and Night Ranger & John Waite closing Sunday, September 6. A reportage preview names that closing show as Bret Michaels and Night Ranger, a form standing in the reportage layer only and never replacing the fair’s own billing.
Barns and Fair-Week Extras in 2026
The fair’s own 2026 cattle book schedules dairy shows for Monday, August 31: Junior Showmanship at 10 a.m., the Open Show at 12:30 p.m. and the State Breed Show’s Ayrshire Futurity, judged by Sarah Thomas of Ohio. The Annual Jackpot Barrels & Gymkhana occupies September 3 and 4, 2026 in its own event layer.
Names From 2025 and 2024, Kept in Their Years
The fair’s own Concerts page retains five names grouped with 2025: Dustin Lynch, 38 Special & Loverboy, Lil Jon, Brantley Gilbert, and Gin Blossoms & Toad The Wet Sprocket. Only one carries an independent date, a concert layer placing 38 Special & Loverboy on August 22, 2025; the other four stand as names without invented dates. A preview layer’s Gabriel Iglesias name appears on no fair-side page fetched, so he is not counted as a fair act here. Preview and Extension layers for 2024 name Flo Rida, Gin Blossoms and Cole Swindell, with pig races, giant gourds, a demolition derby and the Ring of Fire, plus a 4-H dairy show and the inaugural Extreme Milkshake Contest on August 24, and 4-H Day with a parade on August 25. Standing families in its own layers are midway rides, farm shows, livestock competitions, local food, motorsports and grandstand entertainment.
Planning Your Visit
Dates and Gate Hours by Edition
The fair’s own header sets 2026 for August 28 to September 6, gates open noon to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at weekends. The same site already headers 2027 for August 27 to September 5, as published there only. Earlier spans stand in their layers: 2025, August 22 to 31; 2024, August 23 to September 1; 2022, August 26 to September 4, in a proclamation layer.
Admission, Year by Year and Never Blended
For 2025, the Exposition’s own release of July 1, 2025 set adult weekday admission at fifteen dollars, including the opening Friday of August 22, and adult weekend admission at twenty dollars. Its child admission is stated only as unchanged, with no figure, so the 2025 child price is unverified fair-side and listing layers’ five-dollar child figures are never the fair’s published child price. Its 2025 specials are ten dollars after 5 p.m. on weekdays, the Hannaford Feed A Family Day and the Simon’s Stores Carload Special Day. A reportage layer prices that year differently: advance tickets at thirteen dollars and eleven cents, a carload special at ninety-nine dollars, and a Foodbank Day on Thursday, August 28, when a non-perishable donation brought free admission between noon and 2 p.m., none of it merged with the release’s figures.
A guide layer for 2024 prints that edition’s ladder: fifteen dollars adults, seven dollars children 5 to 12, opening-day eight and three dollars, advance twelve and six, and Senior Day at ten dollars for adults 55 and over. No fair-side gate ladder for 2026 or 2027 appears in any layer fetched, so both gates are unverified entire, and a preview layer’s mixed range, from six dollars and fifty cents to seventy-six dollars and fifty cents, is not a gate ladder. A university student promotion is a campus offer, not a public price. Grandstand concert money is never admission: the 2026 ladders price pit seats at sixty-nine dollars, floor and grandstand seats at fifty-nine and bleachers at thirty-nine, with a VIP tier at one hundred eighty-five dollars for the Zeiders show and one hundred ninety-nine for the other four. Concert tickets bought before show day include fair admission, day-of tickets do not, and prices never include parking. Exhibitor money stays separate in the 2026 cattle book: five dollars per animal entered, fifteen dollars per parking sticker, limit two per exhibit.
Parking and the Three Camping Layers
The 2025 release raised parking to ten dollars per vehicle. A guide layer puts 2024 parking at five dollars on most days, with a carload mechanic for Wednesday, August 28, 2024 charging eighty-nine dollars per car against a Maplefields coupon for parking, admission and a ride bracelet for everyone legally loaded. That figure is never merged with the 2025 carload form, and 2026 visitor parking money is unverified.
Camping arrives in three layers that must not be blended. The Exposition’s About layer lists full hook-ups for 600 campers, with 30-amp electric and water, and says camping is available at many events, naming quilt, dog, horse, home, craft and antique events; the fair is not named there, so that layer proves venue capacity only, never a public fair-week rate. The 2026 cattle book instead pays the cattle exhibitor seventy dollars per head and includes camping for one camper per exhibitor. A third layer, the September 2026 Gymkhana event listing, prices competitor camping at twenty-five dollars a night without water or power, stalls at twenty-five dollars each. No general-public rate is published fair-side, so public camping remains unverified.
A First-Timer’s Run Through the Grounds
Arrive near a weekday noon opening if the barns matter most, and give Monday morning, August 31, 2026 to Junior Showmanship and the Open Show at 12:30 p.m. Cross to the exhibit buildings and the Maple Sugar House while crowds gather at the midway, then end a closing Sunday with the closing grandstand bill as the fair’s page prints it.
Neighbours, Namesakes and Events That Are Not This Fair
The Vermont State Fair at Rutland is a separate event in another county, and its camping charges are Rutland’s alone. Vermont’s other documented fairs, the Addison County Fair & Field Days, the Caledonia County Fair, the Orleans County Fair, the Tunbridge World’s Fair, the Franklin and Lamoille field days, Bondville and Guilford, are neighbours on a state list only. The grounds also carry an off-season calendar, an antique expo in October 2026, a crafters expo, flea markets whose flyer prices admission at five dollars and winter storage, none of it supplying the fair with dates, a gate or a programme. Valleyfair, at Shakopee, Minnesota, shares syllables only. Even the origin story hides a trap: the Essex Fair predecessor stood at Essex Center in the Town of Essex, inside Chittenden County, proving nothing about Essex County, Vermont, where no county fair is verified on this record.
A Fairgoer’s Checklist
- Treat August 28 to September 6, 2026 as the current fair span, from the fair’s own header.
- Budget from past releases only as history, since no 2026 gate ladder is published.
- Buy grandstand tickets before show day if included fair admission matters.
- Keep concert prices, cattle entry fees and parking stickers in separate budget columns.
- Assume nothing about public camping until the fair publishes a visitor rate.
- Leave Burlington for its own trip, as shire town rather than the fair’s home.
Beyond the Fairgrounds
The fair anchors a wider reading of the county, each place keeping the role the record gives it. Burlington carries the county’s formal business as shire town, while Essex Junction, a city only since July 2022, carries the fair. The neighbouring Town of Essex holds Essex Center, where the timeline layer places the predecessor Essex Fair, a site never to be confused with Essex County.
Why This Fair Carries Weight in Vermont
The Exposition frames the fair as the state’s largest annual event and Vermont’s premier annual event, billing phrases both, but the documented scale is substantial: ten days and more than 120,000 attendees in its About layer. Its next gate is unprinted and its founding split between 1922 and 1923, both left open by the same record.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the fair held?
At the Exposition grounds, 105 Pearl Street, Essex Junction, VT 05452, the fair’s footer adding the Ware Building; a permit layer’s Post Office Box 209 form, postcode 05453, belongs to the box only.
What did admission cost in 2025?
The Exposition’s own July 2025 release set adult admission at fifteen dollars on weekdays and twenty dollars on weekends for that edition. Child admission was described only as unchanged, with no figure printed, so the 2025 child price is unverified fair-side.
Is Burlington the fair’s home town?
No. The Vermont Statutes name Burlington as Chittenden County’s shire town under Title 24, chapter 1, section 5, while every fair-side layer places the fair in Essex Junction.
Can visitors camp at the fair?
No public fair-week camping rate or visitor term is published fair-side: only venue hook-up capacity for events in general, exhibitor-only camping inside the 2026 cattle book’s payment, and a competitor rate in an equestrian listing.
What to Expect From the Next Chittenden County Vermont Champlain Valley Exposition Festival
How often is Chittenden County Vermont Champlain Valley Exposition Festival held?
The fair returns annually for ten days across late August and early September; its documented shutdown years belong to history.
When is the next Chittenden County Vermont Champlain Valley Exposition Festival?
The fair’s own site already headers the next edition, after August 28 to September 6, 2026, for August 27 to September 5, 2027, with no gate ladder or programme attached yet.
Will the dates change?
Published spans shift by a few days between editions, each recent run opening on a different August date, so the fair’s own header is the place to confirm any future span.
What endures at Pearl Street is a fair big enough to bill itself the state’s largest annual event, and its silences inform too: come for the barns, the midway and the grandstand.
