Orleans County Vermont Fair Festival
Each September, Roaring Brook Park in Barton fills with cattle halters, pulling chains and midway lights. The Orleans County Fair is the annual agricultural fair of Orleans County, Vermont. Listing and reportage layers billed the held 2026 edition, run September 10 to 13, as the 159th, and the 2025 edition, run September 4 to 7 in the fair’s own forms, as the 158th; those ordinals are billing in their layers, never arithmetic.
Barton Hosts, in Roaring Brook Park
Barton is the host town on every fair-side layer. The fair’s own About text places the event in Roaring Brook Park, and a Vermont Legislature fairs handout gives Barton as the town in its own column. The grounds address on this record is 278 Roaring Brook Road, Barton, VT, carried in guide and listing layers beside the fair’s own park name. The mailing form is different: the fair’s own 2025 cattle book directed livestock camping reservations to Post Office Box 580, Barton VT 05822, a postal destination and never a second grounds address.
Vermont organises its counties around shire towns, and Orleans County’s shire town is the City of Newport, proven from the Vermont Statutes alone, Title 24, section 11, which lists Barton among the county’s towns and treats the town of Newport and the City of Newport as distinct municipalities. The City of Newport does not host this fair; its other appearances on the record, as a form contact’s town and inside a truncated listing line, make it nothing more. A closer trap is the village of Orleans, lying within the town of Barton. The village is not the host either. Barton, the town, hosts the fair.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Orleans County Fair, at Roaring Brook Park in Barton |
| Host town | Barton, Vermont |
| Grounds address | 278 Roaring Brook Road, Barton, VT |
| Shire town | The City of Newport, named in the Vermont Statutes, and not the host |
| Organiser | Orleans County Fair Association |
| Standing season | Early to mid September in the recent record |
| 2026 edition | September 10 to 13, 2026, billed as the 159th in reportage and listing layers |
| 2025 edition | September 4 to 7, 2025, in the fair’s own midway form and cattle book |
| Admission position | No standalone gate list published; the only fair-side figure sits inside the 2025 camping form |
| Parking position | No visitor parking term published in any layer on this record |
An Association Founded in 1867
The fair’s own homepage states its founding: the Orleans County Fair Association was founded in 1867 by local farmers and businessmen who wanted to bring the community together. A farm-and-food directory layer repeats that founding in its own words. Because layers state 1867 directly, no founding year is worked backwards from an ordinal; the 157th billing attached to 2024 in a travel layer and the 158th and 159th billings for 2025 and 2026 stand in their layers only.
The same discipline governs the run itself. A sponsor-platform layer characterised the fair as a proud tradition continued annually since 1867, but that is a platform characterisation in its layer only. No layer independently verifies an unbroken run, and none documents a gap or a cancellation, so neither is claimed here. One directory summary even garbled the association’s year, tying its Barton fair to the Fourth of July; that line confuses the fair with the association’s separate Independence Day Festivities at the same park, and it never dates anything in this article.
For a useful comparison, see the Orange County Vermont Tunbridge World’s Fair Festival for another county festival.
The record does show one change: the month moved. A Legislature handout placed the 2019 fair across August 14 to 18, 2019, while every layer for 2024 through 2026 puts the fair in September; one directory text still speaking of an August fair reads stale against that record.
What to Expect at Roaring Brook Park
Dairy First, in the Show Ring
Cattle stand at the centre of this fair’s identity. The standing programme families across fair-side and listing layers include open and youth dairy and cattle shows, sheep, poultry, rabbit and alpaca exhibits, horticulture, arts and crafts and farm-machinery displays, a petting zoo and milking-parlour demonstrations. The grounds hold a show arena and a covered pulling pavilion.
Pulling, Racing and the Derby Ground
Afternoons belong to horsepower in its several forms. Horse shows and gymkhana share the record with horse, pony and ox pulling, harness racing, tractor pulls and a truck show, while the louder end brings a demolition derby and a four-by-four truck pull. Racing pigs supply the comic counterweight.
The Midway After Dark
When the light goes, the midway takes over the park’s centre, with rides, music, food, a beer and wine tent and barbecue in the recent listing layers, and a named midway operator in the 2026 reportage, fenced to its year below.
Each Year’s Bill Stays in Its Year
The dated programmes must not be blended. For 2026, a regional monthly’s report of the held fair records that Smokey’s Greater Shows ran the Ferris wheel and midway rides across all four days, and that the fair held open and youth dairy shows during the run; the 159th listing layer adds racing pigs, the pulls, a truck show, harness racing and the demo derby. For 2025, the fair’s own cattle book fixes Open Dairy Cattle judging on Friday, September 5, 2025 from 9 a.m. and Youth Dairy Cattle judging on Saturday, September 6, 2025 from 10 a.m., entries due by August 23, and its horse-show flyer places the horse show on Sunday, September 7, 2025, shows from 8 a.m. with the show office open at 6:30 a.m.; the people named in those 2025 documents belong to those documents only. A guide layer for the August era of 2019 lists its own bill for that era alone. Near-identical listing wording across 2025 and 2026 is never a licence to move a dated fair-side item between years.
Planning Your Visit
Dates, and a Month That Moved
The fenced spans are these, and only these. The 2026 edition ran Thursday to Sunday, September 10 to 13, 2026, in reportage and listing layers. The 2025 edition ran September 4 to 7, 2025, on the heading of the fair’s own midway form and in its cattle book. A Vermont fair list gives September 4 to 8, 2024, in that list’s layer only. The 2019 edition belongs to August, across August 14 to 18 in the Legislature’s handout. No 2027 dates were published in any layer on this record, so none are projected from 2026.
The Admission Puzzle, Stated Plainly
No standalone gate-price list for this fair was published in any layer on this record, for any year. The single fair-side admission figure sits inside the fair’s own 2025 Recreational Camping form: a Daily Admission line of twenty dollars per person per day, in a document stating that camping rates do not include daily admission, which must be paid before or upon arrival. That figure is 2025 money in that form only; it is not a published gate schedule, and no child, senior, advance, season or free tier is invented around it. Gate figures for 2024 and 2026 are unverified, and one listing layer’s advance-ticket sentence, broken off mid-thought in the source as fetched, is left broken. Other money stays in its own ledger: the cattle book’s five dollars per animal entry fee, deducted from the exhibitor’s premium cheque, and the horse-show flyer’s one hundred dollars all-day pre-entry fee are exhibitor money, and sponsor-platform packages are sponsorship money.
Camping, in Three Separate Forms
The fair’s own 2025 recreational and visitor camping form, due August 21, 2025, offered a camper site with electric and water at fifty-five dollars per night, a tent site at thirty dollars per night, and sewage pumping at twenty-five dollars per pumping, with no site reserved without a completed registration or payment in full. Its rules set arrival the weekend before the fair, between 8:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., or on fair week’s Monday or Tuesday; quiet hours from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.; no campfires; no pets beyond livestock-form animals, dogs included in the ban; one vehicle per site; and removal by the Wednesday after the fair.
A second fair-side form for the same year, covering livestock, equine, exhibitor and vendor camping, prints different money in its own layer: a camper site at one hundred fifty dollars and a tent site at seventy-five dollars, as flat figures with no per-night wording, plus pumping at twenty-five dollars, while vendor camping fees are included in vendor fees in that form’s role table. The two forms are never merged or averaged, and the second is never a visitor rate. An older 2019 form prices its year separately: camper with electric and water at thirty dollars per night, electric only at twenty-five, no hookup at twenty, tent at ten, pumping at twenty-five dollars or fifty for two. Camping rates for 2026 were not published, so 2026 camping money is unverified. Payment on the forms routes through a contact at an address in the village of Orleans; that routing serves the paperwork only and supports no claim that the village hosts anything.
Parking, Honestly Unverified
No parking price, free-parking promise or visitor-parking term was published in any layer on this record, so parking is unverified entire. Two vehicle rules exist in the fair’s own documents and neither is a visitor-parking term: the camping forms allow one vehicle next to each campsite, pass in the window, and the cattle book sends livestock exhibitors through Gate B, the Park Street gate, only. No charge is invented and no free parking is promised.
A Day at the Barton Fair
Start with the cattle, early, when the dairy classes give the grounds their working rhythm. Late morning suits the exhibits: sheep, poultry, rabbits and alpacas, horticulture tables and farm machinery. Give the afternoon to the pulling pavilion and the track, where the pulls and harness racing carry the day’s noise. Save the demolition derby or the truck pull, when the year’s bill offers them, for the loudest evening hour.
Comparisons That Mostly Say No
The most useful comparisons on this title are denials, because the name Orleans County travels. A fair of a very similar name is held each summer in Orleans County, New York, around Knowlesville and Albion; it is a different county’s fair in a different state, and none of its dates, prices, parking or history describes Barton’s event. Closer to home, an extension-run Orleans and Essex 4-H County Dairy Show uses these same Barton fairgrounds for a single July day of youth dairy showing; it merely borrows the ground, its July timing is never the fair’s timing, and it fills no other county’s gap either.
Before You Go
- Aim for Barton and Roaring Brook Park, at 278 Roaring Brook Road; the City of Newport keeps only its shire-town role
- Treat September as the modern month and confirm the exact span for your year
- Budget admission cautiously: no standalone gate list is published, and the only fair-side figure is the twenty-dollar daily line inside the 2025 camping form
- Keep the three camping forms separate; recreational, exhibitor and 2019 money were never one schedule
- Never assume a parking price or a free-parking promise; no visitor parking term exists on this record
- Use Post Office Box 580, Barton VT 05822 only as the mailing address the fair’s own forms give
- Leave dogs at home if you camp under terms like the 2025 recreational form, which barred pets outside livestock entries
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Barton’s fair leaves time for the rest of Orleans County. The City of Newport, the shire town, is worth the trip on its own terms as the county’s lakeside city, visited for itself rather than mistaken for the fair’s home.
Why This Fair Holds Its Ground
Barton’s fair has a documented spine: an association stating its own 1867 founding, a permanent park it returns to, and a programme still built around the dairy ring rather than the midway alone. Held to the record’s distinctions, what remains is four September days in Roaring Brook Park where Orleans County shows its cattle, tests its teams and horses, and feeds its neighbours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the Orleans County Fair held?
At Roaring Brook Park in Barton, Vermont, at 278 Roaring Brook Road, Barton, VT. Barton is the host town. The City of Newport is the shire town under the Vermont Statutes and does not host, and the village of Orleans, inside Barton, is not the host either. Post Office Box 580, Barton VT 05822 is a mailing form, not a second grounds address.
How much does admission cost?
No standalone gate list was published in any layer on this record. The only fair-side figure is twenty dollars per person per day, the Daily Admission line inside the fair’s own 2025 recreational camping form, a document stating that camping rates exclude that admission. No gate figure for 2024 or 2026 is verified, and no child, senior or season tier may be assumed. Exhibitor fees and sponsorship packages are separate money.
Can visitors camp at the fairgrounds?
Yes, under the fair’s own forms, fenced to their years. Its 2025 recreational form offered camper sites with electric and water at fifty-five dollars per night and tent sites at thirty dollars per night, with rules on arrival windows, quiet hours, campfires and removal by the Wednesday after the fair. Separate 2025 exhibitor and 2019 forms carry different money in their layers, and 2026 rates were not published.
Is this the same fair as the one in Orleans County, New York?
No. The New York event is another county’s fair in another state, and nothing from its record is used here. This fair is also distinct from the one-day extension dairy show for 4-H members that uses the Barton fairgrounds in July.
What to Expect From the Next Orleans County Vermont Fair Festival
How often is Orleans County Vermont Fair Festival held?
The fair returns every year, and dated editions stand on this record for 2019, 2024, 2025 and 2026, the recent ones running four days from Thursday to Sunday. That rhythm is stated without any claim of an unbroken run, because no layer verifies continuity or documents a gap.
When is the next Orleans County Vermont Fair Festival?
On the recent pattern, expect an edition in early to mid September, across four days from Thursday to Sunday, at Roaring Brook Park in Barton. The most recent fenced span is September 10 to 13, 2026. No 2027 dates were published in any layer on this record, so the next edition’s exact days remain unverified until the fair publishes them.
Will the dates change?
They already have, in one documented respect: the 2019 edition stood in August, across August 14 to 18, while every edition from 2024 through 2026 stood in September. Within September the exact days move with the calendar, and each year must publish its own precise span.
The fair’s paperwork is unusually honest about its own limits. Come in September, find the dairy ring first, and let Roaring Brook Park make its own case.
