Bedford County Pennsylvania Fair Festival
The Bedford County Fair fills seven late-July days at the Bedford County Fairgrounds in Bedford, Pennsylvania. Bedford is both county seat and host borough, proved outside the fair’s own papers: the Pennsylvania State Archives County Courthouses table lists Bedford as the seat, and the county’s own description states the same. Its own 2024 premium guide billed that edition the 150th Bedford County Fair and announced the 151st for 2025, while a 2026 retrospective preserves the older name form Great Bedford Fair for a 1970 memory.
A Society, a Board and Several Name Forms
The organiser is the Bedford County Agricultural Society, its name forms kept unmerged: the plain form in the fair site’s footer and the 2024 guide, the expanded Bedford County Agricultural Society, Inc. in the privacy layer, the abbreviation BCAS inside the camping rules, and the operator form Bedford County Agricultural Society, d/b/a Bedford County Fair in the derby rules. Its Fair Board of Directors runs the fair. The 2024 guide’s officers — Bill Hoover, President; John E. Holbert, Vice President; Barbara Mearkle, Secretary; John Zembower, Treasurer; Peggy Zembower, Fair Manager — are persons in that guide, never the organiser’s name; Hoover reappears as board president in a 2026 retrospective. Its stated mission is to promote and educate the community in the science of agriculture, horticulture, household arts, and family living. Supporting bodies stay supporting: the Junior Fair Board is a youth board sponsored in the guide by Structural Fiberglass, 4-H and FFA run junior departments, Penn State Extension appears as a supporting contact in a news layer whose Farm Show tagging rules are never fair rules, and the Pennsylvania Harness Horsemen’s Association with the State Harness Racing Commission manages harness race selection in the 2026 layer. Its membership in the Pennsylvania State Association of County Fairs is a membership, never an organiser.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Bedford County Fair, billed the 150th in 2024 and the 151st for 2025 |
| County seat | Bedford, per the State Archives table and the county’s own description |
| Grounds | Bedford County Fairgrounds, 729 West Pitt Street, Bedford, Pennsylvania 15522 |
| Organiser | Bedford County Agricultural Society, through its Fair Board of Directors |
| Standing season | Late July, seven days |
| Documented spans | July 21 to 27, 2024; July 20 to 26, 2025; July 26 to August 1, 2026 |
| Gate admission | Pay One Price ladder published for 2024 only; later gates unpublished |
| Parking | Three dollars each day in the 2024 guide |
| Camping | One hundred eighty, one hundred fifty and seventy-five dollars per week in the fair’s own camping documents |
| Pre and post fair racing | Harness racing on July 18, 19, 30 and 31, 2024, expressly outside the fair span |
Roots, Billings and a Record That Refuses to Be Averaged
A 2026 retrospective built on the board president’s statements says the fair has been promoting the science of agriculture, horticulture, household arts and family living since 1873, wording that tracks the society’s mission in the 2024 guide, and it quotes Bill Hoover directly: in all that time the fair was only cancelled twice, once for COVID in 2020 and once during World War II. Around that statement the year counts multiply without merging: the retrospective’s text sets Hoover’s around for 150 years beside its narrator’s 151 years, and the fair’s social form claims 153 years. The 150th and 151st edition billings are the fair’s own labels, and no arithmetic is performed on them.
What to Expect
The 2024 Guide’s Week, Day by Day
The fair’s own 2024 premium guide holds the one complete schedule in the record, belonging to 2024 alone. All week ran the Chainsaw Artists of Rannels Rustics, the Marvelous Mutts and a Junior Fair Board Kid’s Corner on weekday evenings. Sunday, July 21 opened with a Cowboys for Christ service, the 23rd Annual Fair Queen Contest at 5 p.m. in the Show Arena and Grandstand tractor pulls. Monday joined Family Day with Military-Veterans Appreciation Day and the Voices on the Grandstand Contest. Tuesday was Senior Day, with junior dairy judging and the Weld and Bone Stock Compacts derbies. Wednesday brought junior judging, a model horse show and Bullride Mania at 7:30 p.m. Thursday held the open dairy show and the Mini-Vans, Large Car V8’s and Returning Compacts derbies. Friday ran the Lumberjack Competition and the Gary Martz Memorial auto racing at 7:30 p.m. Saturday closed with the Junior Livestock Sale at 9 a.m., pickup truck pulls at 5 p.m. and the 150th Anniversary Celebration Fireworks Display at dusk; the guide places supreme champion showmanship in its Friday column, and that placement stands as printed. Wednesday’s music act is Michael Christopher in the schedule and Shindiggin in the guide’s music table, two forms standing unmerged; the week’s other Midway Music names were Zac Grace, Abby Abbondanza, the Stoney Creek Bluegrass Band, Chris Woodward Shindiggin, Main Road and the Kenton Sitch Band.
Two Newspaper Fragments for 2025
No 2025 premium guide or full schedule was found, so 2025 survives in two Bedford Gazette reports. One says Bullride Mania’s No Sleep Til Harrisburg Tour concluded at the fair on fair week’s Wednesday, Nate Bayous winning with an eighty-four-point ride on Blue Bell. The other covers Wednesday evening’s model horse show at the 4-H Building: thirteen participants, all 4-H members. The rest of the 2025 programme is not in the record.
For a useful comparison, see the Beaver County Pennsylvania Fair Festival for another county festival.
General Draws, Not a Schedule, for 2026
For 2026 the retrospective offers standing draws in the board president’s words, not a schedule: the demolition derby always well attended; rodeo, truck and tractor pulls and auto racing always popular; harness racing a long-standing tradition; and more than nine hundred animals tallied across cattle, sheep, goats, swine, horses, rabbits and poultry. No 2026 day-by-day programme was found in any layer.
Planning Your Visit
Dates, and the Days That Are Not Fair Days
The documented spans stand fenced to their editions: July 21 to 27 in 2024; July 20 to 26 in 2025, resting on the 2024 guide’s Save the Dates announcement for the 151st fair and corroborated as held by Gazette fair-week reports; July 26 to August 1 in 2026, resting on the state Department of Agriculture’s 2026 Fair Guide and a county development layer. The guide fences several 2024 days out: harness racing on July 18 and 19 and on July 30 and 31, headed in its racing programme as pre and post fair events; exhibit drop-off on July 19 and 20, exhibitor business; and Sunday, July 28 building hours, a release and clean-up form. None is a public fair day. The grounds sit just west of downtown on Business Route 30, which is also 729 West Pitt Street; Post Office Box 244 rides in the same footer line as the mailing box, never a second address.
Admission: One Ladder, One Year
The only gate ladder the record publishes is the fair’s own 2024 Pay One Price ladder: one payment covered the grounds, grandstand events, all mechanical rides and any sales tax. Sunday cost twelve dollars. Monday cost six dollars all day, doubling as Family Day and Military Day, when military personnel and veterans entered free with proper identification. Tuesday through Saturday cost twelve dollars, with one Tuesday carve-out: seniors sixty-five and over entered free with a Medicare card until 1 p.m., paying twelve dollars after that hour. Children two and under entered free with no rides included; a child who rode had to pay, and a small child sat free in the grandstand only on an adult’s lap. The schedule pages restate the same ladder — one guide speaking twice, not two ladders. No ladder for 2025 or 2026 was found, so those gates are unverified and the 2024 figures travel no further. The free grandstand admission on the July 18, 19, 30 and 31 racing days belongs to those pre and post fair days alone.
Parking, Pit Money and the Smaller Figures
Each remaining price keeps its own document. Parking cost three dollars each day in the 2024 guide; the derby form’s parking waiver for a vehicle hauling a demo car is a participant term in that form only. Pit admission in the same guide ran a thirteen-dollar pit insurance fee plus the twelve-dollar gate fee, twenty-five dollars total plus parking, on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for the derbies and pulls, and an eighteen-dollar pit fee plus the twelve-dollar gate fee, thirty dollars total plus parking, for Friday’s races — arithmetic built on the 2024 gate, never separable from it. Premium money appears only where a department prints it: the Open Dairy layer offers its Supreme Champion a banner and three hundred dollars cash, its Reserve Supreme Champion a banner and one hundred dollars, and no scale is generalised from that department. A 2023-updated camper regulations form charges twenty-five dollars for a motorised golf cart, four-wheeler or ATV, with insurance certification, a ten-mile-per-hour cap and licensed drivers only — a camper vehicle charge, never gate or camping money. No vendor or commercial space rate appears in any fair-side layer, so commercial money is unverified.
Camping Under the Fair’s Own Rules
Fair week camping stands in two fair documents printing the same ladder: the fair site’s camping rules and fees page, undated in its layer, and the 2024 guide’s Fair Week Camping Rules. Electric, water and sewer hookup costs one hundred eighty dollars per week, electric and water one hundred fifty, and dry camping seventy-five. The ladder is fenced to those documents, not assigned to 2025 or 2026. Reservation terms on the site page run first come, first served, with one exception: prior-year volunteer livestock committee campers may reserve at the February Volunteer Dinner. For everyone else, payment not received by June 1 sends the spot to the waitlist; electric stays off until the Saturday morning before the fair, and generators are barred. Conduct terms stand unmerged: no wastewater may be tipped into the grounds’ sanitary system, no alcoholic beverages are permitted, and dogs and other pets are barred from the fairgrounds including camping areas, registered service animals excepted, with proofs verified at the Fair Office. The guide adds no campfires during fair week and quiet time from midnight to 6 a.m.; both documents carry the society’s hold-harmless terms.
A Sample Day From the 2024 Guide
- Start Saturday, July 27, 2024 at the Junior Livestock Sale at 9 a.m.
- Walk the exhibit buildings and the petting zoo behind Jordan Hall before midday.
- Take a Grandstand seat for the pickup truck pulls at 5 p.m., then stay for the fireworks at dusk.
Namesakes and Neighbours That Are Not This Fair
Two other states run a Bedford County Fair, and neither lends this one a fact. The Tennessee fair at Shelbyville is a separate fair in Tennessee. The Virginia fair at Bedford, Virginia prints free-admission layers in its own record, which is why caution matters: no Virginia free-admission claim is a Pennsylvania fact, and this fair’s only published gate is the paid 2024 ladder. The Bedford Fairgrounds Speedway is a separate dirt-track operation sharing the fairgrounds address area, running weekly Friday-night racing since 1936 in its own layers; its programme, prices and 1936 story are never the fair’s, and the fair’s one night of Gary Martz Memorial auto racing in the 2024 guide is a fair event there, not a speedway fixture. The Claysburg Area Farm Show at Queen is a separate September event, the Bedford Fall Foliage Festival a separate October festival, and the Pennsylvania Farm Show at Harrisburg a separate state event.
A Visitor’s Checklist
- Budget twelve dollars a head for a 2024 gate day, six on its Monday, three a day for parking.
- Bring identification for the 2024 concessions: military or veteran status for Monday, a Medicare card for Tuesday before 1 p.m.
- Keep July 18, 19, 30 and 31, 2024 separate in the diary; they sit outside the fair.
- Reserve camping early, pay in full, and note the June 1 waitlist deadline.
- Leave pets at home; the camping documents bar them from the grounds, service animals excepted.
Beyond the Fairgrounds
The fairgrounds lie just west of downtown Bedford on Business Route 30. The courthouse and county offices stand elsewhere in town, on South Juliana Street, an address corroborating the seat and never the fairgrounds address. A commercial campground on Friendship Village Road is another body’s business, and none of its terms appear here as fair camping.
Why This Fair Carries Weight in Its County
The society’s mission sentence does the explaining: agriculture, horticulture, household arts and family living, promoted and taught in one place for a week each summer. The 2026 retrospective’s tally of more than nine hundred animals and its well-attended demolition derby describe a fair that is at once a livestock show, a classroom and the county’s largest annual gathering of neighbours. A president who can say that the fair was cancelled only twice in its remembered span is describing a fixture, renewed each generation by its junior departments and boards.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly is the Pay One Price at this fair?
In the fair’s own 2024 guide, one payment covered entry, grandstand events, all mechanical rides and any sales tax: twelve dollars on Sunday and Tuesday through Saturday, six dollars on Monday. The ladder is published for 2024 only; none has been found for 2025 or 2026.
Does the fair’s week include the harness racing days?
No. The 2024 guide heads its racing programme with the warning that harness racing events are pre and post fair events. Their free grandstand admission belongs to those days and says nothing about fair-day admission.
Who runs the Bedford County Fair?
The Bedford County Agricultural Society, through its Fair Board of Directors. Extension, the Junior Fair Board and the racing bodies support parts of the programme without organising the fair.
Is this fair connected to the Tennessee or Virginia fairs of the same name?
No. Shelbyville in Tennessee and Bedford in Virginia hold their own fairs, and the Virginia fair’s free-admission material must never be read across into Pennsylvania, where the only published gate is the 2024 paid ladder.
What to Expect From the Next Bedford County Pennsylvania Fair Festival
How often is Bedford County Pennsylvania Fair Festival held?
Once a year, in late July: a seven-day Sunday-to-Saturday run in each documented edition, 2024, 2025 and 2026.
When is the next Bedford County Pennsylvania Fair Festival?
The most recent edition in this record ran July 26 to August 1, 2026. No later dates appear in the record, so the next span awaits the fair’s own announcement.
Will the dates change?
The late-July season has held across all three documented editions while the exact Sunday and Saturday shifted by days. Expect the same season, with precise dates confirmed only when the fair publishes them.
The record behind this article is complete for one edition and thin for the others: a full 2024 guide, two newspaper fragments for 2025, general statements for 2026. Underneath stands a society, its board, its mission, and a late-July week at 729 West Pitt Street interrupted, on its president’s word, only twice.
