Alamance County North Carolina Burlington Carousel Festival
Some festivals fill a fairground. This one gathers around a single machine: the hand-carved Dentzel Menagerie Carousel that has turned in Burlington City Park since 1948. For two days each spring the City of Burlington builds its largest celebration around that carousel, filling more than 75 acres of park with music stages, craft stalls, food trucks and free rides on the park’s own amusements. The 35th Annual Burlington Carousel Festival was held on Saturday, May 2 and Sunday, May 3, 2026. It is a city park festival, not a county fair. Graham is the county seat of Alamance County, but the seat does not host this festival; the city of Burlington does, in its own park.
About the Burlington Carousel Festival
The festival is produced and presented each year by the Special Events Division of the Burlington Recreation and Parks Department, with help from other city departments. The same division hosts more than twenty large-scale events, and the city bills this one as the largest two-day festival hosted within Burlington city limits — its largest event. Its connection to Alamance County is geography rather than organisation: Burlington is the county’s largest city, and no county body runs it.
What the festival celebrates is the carousel itself, a hand-carved menagerie machine that the city acquired in 1948 and has twice restored at length, most recently across a three-year project that returned it to a brand-new Carousel House. Around that centrepiece the programme adds music and performances, an artisan alley of more than seventy local crafters, food trucks, a beer garden, a children’s zone and the Alamance Arts KidsArt Tent on the ballfields. The event is free to attend, the park’s amusement rides are free all weekend, and the city runs it rain or shine.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Festival | Burlington Carousel Festival |
| Where | Burlington City Park, 1388 South Main Street, Burlington, North Carolina 27215 |
| County setting | Alamance County; the county seat, Graham, does not host — the city of Burlington hosts |
| When | Two days each spring in the current era; the 2026 edition ran Saturday, May 2 and Sunday, May 3 |
| Hours | Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday noon to 5 p.m., as published for 2026 |
| Produced by | The Special Events Division of the Burlington Recreation and Parks Department |
| Admission | Free to attend |
| Rides | The carousel, train, cars, planes and boats are free all festival weekend |
| Parking | Downtown city lots with a Link Transit park-and-ride shuttle; the city publishes no festival parking fee |
| Camping | None — a day-use city park, open from sunrise to sunset |
The Carousel Came First
The machine predates the festival by decades, and even its age is a layered record rather than a settled date. The carousel is a hand-carved product of the Dentzel Carousel Company of Philadelphia, but its making is dated differently in every layer: the city’s own materials say around 1906 and around 1910, the National Register of Historic Places nomination gives 1913 and names the carver Daniel Carl Muller, and the national carousel census gives a span of 1906 to 1910. Its menagerie, as itemised in the Register layer, runs to forty-six hand-carved animals — twenty-six horses, four each of cats, ostriches, rabbits and pigs, and one each of a lion, a tiger, a giraffe and a deer — alongside two chariots.
The carousel worked first at Locust Point Amusement Park in Oak Harbor, Ohio, and then at Forest Park in Genoa, Ohio, from 1924; Burlington acquired it in 1948, built a shelter for it that summer, and opened it to the public on October 9 of that year. It joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Its first great restoration ran from 1981 to 1985 as a service project of the Alamance County Service League, carried out with professionals, artists and community volunteers, with new jumping gears donated by a local company. The second restoration, from 2019 to 2022, was undertaken by Carousels and Carvings, Incorporated of Marion, Ohio, and added an accessible chariot and ramp; the carousel came back in December 2022 to a new Carousel House standing on higher ground nearer Main Street, open-air in warm months, enclosed in glass in cold weather, with rentable event space attached.
For a useful comparison, see the Yates County New York Fair Festival for another county festival.
The festival’s own beginnings are told three incompatible ways, and none of them can be turned into a founding year. A county libraries guide describes a festival held in mid-September each year since 1987; a magazine feature credited to the visitors bureau says an annual festival was initiated by locals in 1997; and the numbered billings actually carried — the 32nd Annual in 2023, the 33rd in 2024 and the 35th in 2026 — point somewhere else again. In its pre-2020 life the festival occupied September’s third weekend, with editions on September 17 and 18, 2011, September 15 and 16, 2012, and September 21 and 22, 2019. Then it stopped: no festival in 2020, 2021 or 2022, years lost to the pandemic and the long restoration. It returned on May 6 and 7, 2023, expressly billed as the first Carousel Festival since 2019, and it has been a May festival ever since.
What to Expect
The Carousel in Its New House
The restored machine is the festival’s reason for existing and its busiest seat. It turns inside the glass-sided Carousel House built for its return, its forty-six animals freshly painted after the recent refurbishment, and across the festival weekend every ride on it is free. Expect a steady queue and a crowd that treats repeat rides as the point of the day.
The Little Railway, Cars, Planes and Boats
City Park’s other amusement rides call the park home all year, and the festival opens all of them without charge: a miniature train that runs through its tunnel, the little cars, the high-flying planes and the boat ride. The city’s festival guidance names those rides — carousel, train, cars, planes and boats — as free all weekend. Outside the festival these same rides are ticketed under the park’s normal rates, so the free weekend is a genuine exception.
Stages at the Pavilion and the Youth Center
Live music and performances run across the weekend at more than one stage, with performance space at the Jimmy Combs Pavilion and amphitheatre and at the stage by the Thataways Youth Center. Programme layers for 2024 and 2026 each carried a Saturday evening concert after the six o’clock close.
Artisan Alley and the Food Trucks
The city’s current festival page counts an artisan alley of more than seventy local crafters, and the 2024 programme copy put the figure at roughly seventy local artisans. Food trucks and a food court handle eating, and recent May-edition copy lists a beer garden among the draws for adults.
The Kids Zone and the KidsArt Tent
The festival’s children’s offer runs in two places. The action-packed Kids Zone brings the inflatables, obstacle courses and climbing wall described in the programme copy, while Alamance Arts hosts its KidsArt Tent on the ballfield. Some children’s activities carry a charge: the 2024 programme copy priced a Kids Zone inflatables wristband at five dollars for unlimited rides, in that year’s copy.
Planning Your Visit
Getting There and the Shuttle Lots
Burlington City Park stands at 1388 South Main Street, the festival address the city itself publishes. Parking around the park fills early on a festival Saturday, so the city’s own guidance steers drivers to its park-and-ride arrangement: park in City Lot 1 or City Lot 2 in downtown Burlington and ride a Link Transit bus directly to the festival, with buses running continually, on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Sunday from noon to 5:15 p.m. A performer listing for the 2026 edition names the two lots at 108 South Lexington Avenue and 212 North Worth Street and bills the shuttle itself as free; the two layers are left as they stand. The city publishes no parking fee for the festival, so no parking price can honestly be quoted.
Money, Pets and the Shape of the Day
Admission and the park rides are free; the city’s own list of things to bring money for is artisan shopping, food and drink, the travelling carnival rides, and some of the children’s activities. A local family guide for the 2026 edition listed a wristband for those side carnival rides at ten dollars, a guide’s figure rather than a city price. Leashed pets are allowed in the park during the festival, with owners responsible for cleaning up after them. The park is day-use only, open sunrise to sunset, with no camping or overnight offer.
A Sample Saturday at the Festival
Arrive on the shuttle before ten and walk straight to the Carousel House while the morning queue is still short, taking a second turn on a different animal. Spend the late morning on the train, the planes and the boats, then work down Artisan Alley before lunch from the food trucks. Give the early afternoon to the Kids Zone and the KidsArt Tent if children are along, or to the music at the pavilion and youth center stages, and keep the late afternoon for a final carousel ride. If the day’s programme includes the Saturday evening concert, stay in the park for it rather than leaving at six.
A Festival, Not a Fair
Set beside a conventional county fair, the differences are the content. There is no gate, because there is nothing to gate; no midway operator, because the rides belong to the park; no livestock, judging or premium book, because the park has never held them. The Alamance County Fair is a separate agricultural fair under entirely different organisation, sharing nothing with this weekend but the county’s name. The nearer comparison is the park’s own ordinary weekends, when the same rides turn but tickets are required and no artisan alley or festival stages fill the grounds. The festival is what happens when the city opens its own park, carousel and organisational machinery all at once, free, for two days.
Your Festival Checklist
- Ride the carousel early, then ride it again later just because it costs nothing
- Use the downtown shuttle lots instead of circling the park for parking
- Carry spending money for artisans and food trucks, since entry is free
- Check the stage schedules before settling into one corner of the park
- Put children in the Kids Zone wristband only after checking that day’s price
- Bring a lead and bags if the dog is coming, as the city allows leashed pets
- Plan the Saturday around the evening concert if that year’s programme lists one
- Leave the September habit behind and confirm the May dates before travelling
Beyond the Festival Grounds
The park rewards a return visit outside festival weekend. The amusement area operates through its season with the carousel turning in its new house, the grounds hold ballfields and open lawn, and the whole park sits a short distance from downtown Burlington, where the shuttle lots stand. Graham, the county seat, lies a short drive away and gives the county its courthouse town, but it plays no part in the festival itself; the event belongs wholly to Burlington and its park.
Why a Park Festival Carries This Much Weight
The city calls this its largest event, and the claim makes sense once the carousel’s story is understood. Burlington bought a travelling menagerie machine in 1948, restored it through community effort in the 1980s, and then spent three recent years and a new building bringing it back rather than retiring it. The festival is the public face of that commitment: the one weekend when that machine is ridden free, all day, by anyone who walks in. Its survival of a season change, a pandemic and a restoration says as much about the city’s attachment to the carousel as any billing does.
Frequently Asked Questions
My guidebook says the festival is in September. Is it?
Not any more. September was the festival’s historic slot, on the third weekend of the month through the last pre-restoration edition in 2019. No festival was held in 2020, 2021 or 2022, and every edition since the return — the 32nd Annual in May 2023, the 33rd in May 2024 and the 35th on May 2 and 3, 2026 — has run on an early-May weekend. A September trip to City Park for this festival will find an empty field.
What does the weekend actually cost?
Entry costs nothing, and neither do the rides that belong to the park: the city’s guidance states that the event is free to attend and the amusement rides — carousel, train, cars, planes and boats — are free all weekend. What you pay for is everything around that core — artisan goods, food and drink, the side carnival rides and some children’s activities.
Where do I park, and what does parking cost?
The city publishes no parking fee for the festival, so no honest price exists to quote. Its guidance is to use the park-and-ride: leave the car in one of the two downtown city lots and take the Link Transit shuttle, which runs continually on both days and drops you at the festival itself.
Is this the same event as the Alamance County Fair?
No. This festival is the City of Burlington’s own production, held by its Recreation and Parks Department in a city park, with no agricultural programme. The Alamance County Fair is a separate agricultural fair run by a different organisation entirely. They share a county name and nothing else; nor is this festival held in Graham, the county seat.
What to Expect From the Next Alamance County North Carolina Burlington Carousel Festival
How often is the Alamance County North Carolina Burlington Carousel Festival held?
It is held once a year, across a single two-day weekend, Saturday and Sunday. That rhythm has held through both eras of its life, September and May alike; the missing years of 2020 to 2022 stand as cancellations, not a change of pattern.
When is the next Alamance County North Carolina Burlington Carousel Festival?
On the recent pattern, the next one falls on an early-May weekend, following the rhythm of the 2023, 2024 and 2026 editions. Treat the city’s own announcement as the authority for the exact days, since this festival has moved seasons before.
Will the dates change?
They already have. This festival spent decades as a September fixture and now belongs to May, a change forced by a pandemic and a three-year restoration rather than by preference. The early-May weekend has repeated across three editions and looks settled, but a festival that has moved seasons once should always be checked against the city’s current pages before travel.
The Carousel Festival asks very little of its visitors: no ticket, no wristband for its own rides, no plan more complicated than getting to a city park on a spring weekend. What it offers in return is a century-old menagerie of carved horses, cats and ostriches turning again in a new glass house, in the park it has called home since 1948, celebrated by the city that twice refused to let it stop.
