Franklin County Vermont Field Days Festival
A Fair Waiting for a New Home
Franklin County Field Days is not holding a fair at the moment, and any honest account of it has to begin there. The last edition ran from August 1 to August 4, 2024, at Highgate. No edition took place in 2025. A return planned for July 30 to August 1, 2026, at a Swanton property was cancelled by the organiser itself on June 8, 2026. No date for a future edition has been published. That sequence is a hiatus, not an ending: nothing in the record documents a dissolution or a final fair ever.
What Field Days Was
In its held years, Franklin County Field Days was a four-day agricultural county fair for Franklin County, Vermont, held in early August, Thursday through Sunday: midway rides, livestock and dairy shows, horse and oxen pulls, truck and tractor pulls, a demolition derby, youth exhibits, and live music. The organisation appears in its own record as Franklin County Field Days, a nonprofit organisation; directory layers carry the form Franklin County Field Days Inc, and a legislative summary carries a longer association form. A youth programme layer pairs the event as Franklin and Grand Isle Field Days, but that pairing never turns this into a Grand Isle fair.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Franklin County Field Days, a four-day agricultural county fair |
| Held-years host town | Highgate, Vermont |
| Held-years grounds | 170 Airport Road, Highgate, Vermont 05488, on land attached to the Franklin County State Airport |
| Shire town | The City of Saint Albans, which does not host the fair |
| Organiser | Franklin County Field Days, a nonprofit organisation |
| Last held edition | August 1 to August 4, 2024 |
| 2025 edition | Not held |
| 2026 edition | Scheduled for July 30 to August 1, then cancelled June 8, 2026 |
| Next edition | No date published; a return is being pursued, not scheduled |
The Grounds the Fair Lost
Highgate hosted every held edition on this record from 1985 through 2024. The address in the fair-supplied listings for both 2022 and 2024 reads 170 Airport Road, Highgate, Vermont 05488, and the grounds sat on land attached to the Franklin County State Airport, leased from the state. The organisation had used that airport land since 1985. When the runway expansion advanced, the land was classified as reserved for future aviation development, and federal grant requirements attached to that expansion forced a move. The 2024 edition was therefore set, in advance, to be the final event at the airport. The organisation’s mailing form is different: Post Office Box 136, Swanton, Vermont 05488, on the June 2026 cancellation release letterhead, a mailing address, never a venue.
The Search for a Swanton Site
After the airport grounds were lost, the board looked for land from 2022 onward and faced a move estimate in excess of five million dollars in a 2024 layer. The Swanton relocation story unfolds in four unmerged layers, none of which describes a fair that has actually been held. In Senate testimony dated February 18, 2025, the organisation’s secretary described a site sought behind two Swanton retailers as a temporary site. A county paper layer from July 2025 reported that the organisation had almost secured a property that spring, but that no agreement came of it, so the 2025 attempt failed. A county paper layer from May 2026 reported that the nonprofit had secured the use of a new property the previous February, located on Hubbard Lane behind the same two retailers in Swanton, with the event expected from July 30 to August 1. Town planning agendas for May 28 and June 25, 2026, carry a conditional-use application to hold a county fair at 2596 Highgate Road, the June item being a continuance. The Hubbard Lane form and the 2596 Highgate Road form are never asserted to be the same parcel or different parcels, and no fair has been held at either.
A History in Two Different Organisations
Field Days has two histories that must not be folded into one. The earlier county fair belongs to a different organisation. A county paper history layer from 2024 states that Franklin County has held a county fair since at least 1844, when the Franklin County Agricultural Society organised a show in late September in Fairfield, with cattle, horse, and sheep exhibitions. By 1866 the organisation had rebranded as the Franklin County Agricultural and Mechanical Society, which continued for about forty more years before becoming the Franklin County Fair Association, with the fair moved to Sheldon. That earlier version of the fair ended by the middle of the twentieth century, and it is a predecessor county fair, never the founding of Field Days.
For a useful comparison, see the Chittenden County Vermont Champlain Valley Exposition Festival for another county festival.
Field Days itself begins, in the same history layer, as an organisation that has existed since 1976. Its first county-wide fair in 1976 was set up at the Northwest Riding and Driving Club in Fairfax, and by its second year, 1977, it was hosting close to twenty thousand people in a single weekend. In the decade after that first event, the fair moved twice more, to a farm in Sheldon and then to a farm across from the airport, before settling at its airport location in 1985. A directory layer gives a founding year of 1975, which stands against the 1976 statements and is never merged with them; an April 1991 exempt-status date in a tax listing layer is a tax date only. Billings of thirty-sixth annual, forty-three years, and forty-ninth annual are never back-calculated into a founding year.
What to Expect From a Held Edition
The shape of the weekend
A held edition ran four days, Thursday through Sunday, in early August, with the midway opening at noon.
Animals, pulls, and the midway
Livestock events and dairy shows anchored the mornings, horse and oxen pulls and truck and tractor pulls filled the afternoons and evenings, and the midway, a petting zoo, train rides, and fair food filled the hours between. A demolition derby and a minivan mash-up closed Thursday evenings in both 2022 and 2024. None belongs to the cancelled 2026 edition.
Music across the weekend
Live music ran through every held edition, with different acts in each year. The 2024 bill named Bad Horsey, The Old Man Garage Band, Aaron and Alaria, Friction, Missisquoi River Band, Neon Spoon, Chris and Erica, and Darcy Cahill and Band. The 2022 bill named Julia Parent, Jamie Lee Thurston, The Old Man Garage Band, Friction, Chris and Erica, Express Train, Jolly Roger, and Darcy Cahill with a Johnny Cash tribute show.
Planning Your Visit
When a held edition ran
Early August was the held-years season. The 2024 edition ran August 1 to August 4, and the 2022 edition ran August 4 to August 7, both at Highgate. The 2011 edition ran July 28 to July 31 and was billed as the thirty-sixth annual. A separate listing span stands in its own layer. For the present, watch for an announcement: there is no 2025 edition to attend, the 2026 edition was cancelled, and no 2027 date exists in the record.
What admission cost, year by year
Admission in held years was a pay-one-price ticket, but the price changed by year and the layers must not be averaged. In 2024 the fair-supplied listing gives twenty dollars pay-one-price, including unlimited midway rides, live entertainment, track events, exhibits, and parking, and a county paper preview corroborates twenty dollars per person. That preview adds a qualification: some rides carried an additional fee, as did food and some activities such as cornhole and cribbage, so the word everything may never be printed unqualified beside that price. A summer guide layer gives a conflicting fifteen dollars for the same 2024 dates, and that figure stands against the fair-supplied twenty dollars without replacing it. In 2022 the fair-supplied listing gives fifteen dollars pay-one-price with the same inclusions. In 2018 the price was ten dollars, including rides and shows. For 2025, 2026, and 2027 no admission exists at all, so every current or future price is unverified, and twenty dollars may never be carried forward as a current price.
Parking and camping, fenced to their layers
Parking was included in the pay-one-price admission in 2022 and 2024. No separate parking price is published for any year, and parking terms for any proposed Swanton site are unverified. The only camping fact on the record is a single old layer noting that camping was available for the thirty-sixth annual edition, July 28 to July 31, 2011, at the Highgate fairgrounds on Airport Road, with no rate, hookup, or reservation term attached. No camping term is published in any 2022 or 2024 layer, so camping for those editions is unverified, and camping at any Swanton site is unverified entirely.
A Held-Years Weekend, Day by Day
Thursday opened at ten and closed with the demolition derby; Friday paired oxen pulls with truck pulls; Saturday gave the fullest bill; Sunday closed with draft horse pulls, wrestling and pedal pulls. Held years only.
Neighbours That Are Not This Fair
Franklin County shares its name with more than twenty other counties, and none of their fairs belongs here. The Franklin County Fair at Greenfield, Massachusetts, and the Franklin County Fair at Malone, New York, are different states’ fairs. The Vermont Dairy Festival at Enosburg Falls is a real and separate Lions Club festival in Franklin County itself, held in June, and it is never Field Days evidence and never a substitute. The Vermont Maple Festival in Saint Albans is the shire town’s own festival, held in April, and Saint Albans hosting a maple festival proves nothing about Field Days. Lamoille County Field Days and every other Vermont field days or fair are likewise separate events. A Champlain Valley remark hoping Franklin’s displaced fairgoers would come to Essex Junction is reportage about the cancellation only.
Checklist for Following the Fair’s Return
- Do not travel for Field Days until a new edition is announced with a date and a place.
- Treat Highgate as the held-years home and Swanton as a proposed relocation only.
- Treat Hubbard Lane and 2596 Highgate Road as unmerged application forms, not as a settled site.
- Expect no current admission price: twenty dollars belongs to 2024, fifteen dollars to 2022 and to a conflicting 2024 guide layer.
- Expect parking to have been included in held-years admission, with no published parking or camping terms for any future site.
- Look for the four-day, Thursday-to-Sunday, early-August shape if the fair returns, but do not assume it.
- Remember that the fair is on hiatus, not dissolved, and that its permit application was still being heard in late June 2026.
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Franklin County itself rewards a visit even while its fair is paused, provided the visit is not mistaken for the fair. Highgate sits in the county’s northwest, and the towns that shaped the fair’s history, Fairfax, Sheldon, Swanton, and Highgate itself, are all Franklin County towns. Saint Albans, the county’s single shire town, carries its own maple festival in April, but it never hosted Field Days.
Why a Paused Fair Still Matters
Field Days did not fail for want of an audience: by its second year it drew close to twenty thousand people in a weekend, and its 2024 edition was still billed as the forty-ninth annual. It failed, for the moment, for want of land, because the ground leased since 1985 was needed for aviation, and replacing a fairground costs far more than running a fair. The board’s search since 2022 shows how much quiet work sits behind four days in August. Its mission of preserving agricultural practices explains why the board kept trying rather than dissolving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Franklin County Field Days still held?
No, not at present. The last edition was held August 1 to August 4, 2024, at Highgate. No edition was held in 2025, the scheduled 2026 edition was cancelled on June 8, 2026, and no future date has been published. The fair is on hiatus, not dissolved, and its return is being pursued rather than scheduled.
Where was the fair held, and where might it return?
Held editions from 1985 through 2024 were at 170 Airport Road, Highgate, on land attached to the Franklin County State Airport. A return is being pursued in Swanton, but no Swanton form, whether Hubbard Lane or 2596 Highgate Road, is a held venue, and the two forms stand unmerged. Saint Albans, the county’s single shire town, does not host the fair.
What did admission cost when the fair was held?
Admission was pay-one-price, fenced by year. In 2024 the fair-supplied listing gives twenty dollars, including midway rides, live entertainment, track events, exhibits, and parking, with some rides, food, and activities carrying additional fees, while a guide layer gives a conflicting fifteen dollars for the same dates. In 2022 the price was fifteen dollars with the same inclusions, and in 2018 it was ten dollars. No price exists for 2025, 2026, or 2027, and no held-years price may be carried forward as a current price.
Why did the fair stop, and could it come back?
The fair lost its grounds because the airport land it had leased since 1985 was reserved for future aviation development, and the runway expansion forced a move. The board has searched for replacement land since 2022, a state funding bill went nowhere, a 2025 purchase attempt failed, and a 2026 Swanton return was cancelled. It could come back, because no dissolution is documented and a Swanton permit application was still being heard in late June 2026, but no return is scheduled.
What to Expect From the Next Franklin County Vermont Field Days Festival
How often is Franklin County Vermont Field Days Festival held?
In held years it was held once a year, for four days in early August, Thursday through Sunday. That annual rhythm is the held-years pattern only: the fair was not held in 2025, its scheduled 2026 edition was cancelled, and no rhythm can be asserted for the present until a new edition is announced.
When is the next Franklin County Vermont Field Days Festival?
No next date is published in any layer of the record, so no date can be given here. The scheduled return of July 30 to August 1, 2026, was cancelled on June 8, 2026, and a Swanton permit application was still being heard as a continuance on June 25, 2026. A future edition will need its own date, place, and gate.
Will the dates change?
Yes, they may, and in this case they already have: the fair moved across early August in its held years, from July 28 to July 31 in 2011 to August 1 to August 4 in 2024, and its planned 2026 dates were cancelled outright. Any future dates will depend on a new site and a new permit, so visitors should check for a fresh announcement rather than relying on the held-years calendar.
The fair that Franklin County built from borrowed tents in 1976, and then lost to a runway expansion in Highgate, has not ended so much as paused in mid-search.
