Clinton County New York Fair Festival
The Clinton County Fair belongs to Morrisonville, and getting that one fact right unlocks everything else about it. Plattsburgh is the county seat, and the fairgrounds are billed with a Plattsburgh address so often that casual coverage plants the fair in the city. The fair’s own homepage, the state fairs directory and the state fairs association place it at the Clinton County Fairgrounds in Morrisonville, where it runs six days each mid-July. The fair bills itself as family fun since 1948, and its modern shape is a ten-dollar gate, a thirty-five-dollar ride wristband, a forty-dollar season ticket and a separately ticketed grandstand.
About an Agricultural and Industrial Fair in Morrisonville
The event’s full published name is the Clinton County Agricultural & Industrial Fair, shortened everywhere to the Clinton County Fair. The body behind it appears in print under several name forms, recorded here exactly as published. The state fairs directory names the operator as The Agricultural and Industrial Fair of Clinton County, Inc. The local paper’s 2026 report describes the fair as organized by the Clinton County Agricultural and Industrial Society, a volunteer, non-profit organization, while earlier local layers credit the Clinton County Agricultural Society with coordinating the events, 4-H shows, food stands and rides.
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Clinton County runs the 4-H youth programme inside the fair without being its organiser: the livestock, horse, poultry and dairy shows, the static exhibits, exhibitor fair passes and the 4-H Dairy Bar. The fair itself is the society’s production; local reporting in 2026 named Michael Perrotte as fair manager.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Clinton County Agricultural & Industrial Fair, shortened to Clinton County Fair |
| Organiser | State directory form: The Agricultural and Industrial Fair of Clinton County, Inc.; local reporting also uses Clinton County Agricultural and Industrial Society and Clinton County Agricultural Society |
| Fair town and county seat | Fair at Morrisonville; county seat Plattsburgh, which does not host it |
| Grounds address | Published two ways: 84 Fairgrounds Road, Morrisonville, New York 12962, and 84 Fair Grounds Road, Plattsburgh, New York 12901 |
| 2026 dates | Monday July 13 to Saturday July 18, 2026 |
| 2026 gate | Ten dollars; children aged twelve and under free |
| Other 2026 tickets | All-day ride wristband thirty-five dollars per day; season ticket forty dollars |
| Grandstand | Every grandstand show ticketed separately in 2026; grandstand tickets do not include front-gate admission |
| Camping | Seasonal camping offered in the fair’s own words; no fair-week rate published |
A History the Fair Tells in Round Numbers
The fair’s own homepage carries its history in one line: fun for the entire family since 1948. Local reporting states in its own words that the first fair was held here in 1948, its 2026 preview tying the tradition to that year and the formation of the Clinton County Agricultural Society. That founding layer stands exactly as the record publishes it.
What the record will not support is arithmetic. Local layers bill the 2013 fair as the 66th Annual, the 2023 fair as the 75th Annual with a 75th anniversary for the society, and the 2026 fair as running in its 78th year. Those numbers do not reconcile on straight subtraction, and no founding year should be computed from them; they are billings, printed in their own years, best reported side by side with the discrepancy left standing.
For a useful comparison, see the Chenango County New York Fair Festival for another county festival.
The fair’s footprint has shifted inside that history. The 2023 edition ran six days in late July, July 25 to 30. The 2024 edition ran only five days, July 9 to 13, with local reporting explaining a carnival-scheduling squeeze. The 2025 edition returned to six days, July 7 to 12, and 2026 settled on July 13 to 18. One durable souvenir stands before the grandstand: the stage now carries the name of Glen Gillespie, spelled that way in the fair’s own 2026 schedule, honouring a fair manager named in local reporting back in 2013.
What to Expect at the Morrisonville Fair
The Youth and Open Show Week
The fair’s competitive heart is its show week, run largely through the 4-H programme. Young exhibitors bring dairy and beef cattle, horses, poultry and other livestock, while the static exhibits were judged on the Saturday before opening, July 11 in 2026, and the 4-H theme for 2026 was Enchanted Forest. The programme uses the grounds in earnest: a 4-H Dairy Barn, an Open Cattle Barn, an Open Show Building hosting youth dairy and beef shows, a horse arena, and the North Country Squares Building, which hosts the 4-H Dog Show.
Midway Rides and Daily Grounds Acts
The Coleman Brothers carnival supplies the midway. Around the rides, the fair books daily grounds entertainment: the 2026 record names the Sea Lion Splash show, Buffalo Barfield’s act and Pipsqueak’s clowning, plus a sawdust Coin Hunt for younger visitors. These acts play stages including the Stewart’s Shops Gazebo, site of opening ceremonies, the Sample Lumber Center Court Stage and a Youth Ag. Stage.
A Different Ticketed Show Every Night
The grandstand is this fair’s second ticket. Monday brought country singer Cooper Alan; Tuesday belonged to musician Liam Von Elbe; Wednesday was given to the NYTPA pulling programme; Thursday brought Richie & The High Street Rockers; Friday was the tractor pull, billed as Adirondack Tractor Pullers in the headline list and in a Northern NY form in the day-by-day schedule, two published wordings for one night. Saturday closed with the demolition derby in two separate shows, at one in the afternoon and six in the evening. Every show carried its own ticket price, stated on the fair’s page as not including front-gate admission.
The Working Shape of a Fair Day
In the 2026 preview, local reporting put the gates opening at nine in the morning, attractions starting at noon and the grounds closing at eleven at night: mornings for the barns, middays for the midway, evenings for the grandstand. Attendance, by the local paper’s account, topped thirty thousand visitors across the six days in 2026, the paper’s reported draw, not a turnstile audit.
Planning Your Visit
Three Tickets, Deliberately Kept Separate
This fair sells three distinct products, with a fourth category on top: grandstand tickets. The 2026 daily gate was ten dollars, children aged twelve and under free. The all-day ride wristband was thirty-five dollars per day, bought separately. The season ticket was forty dollars, covering the week’s gate. The wristband is not admission, the season ticket is not a ride pass, and the gate alone buys neither a ride nor a grandstand seat.
The Grandstand Prices, Night by Night
For 2026, each grandstand show was priced individually, tickets expressly not including front-gate admission. Cooper Alan cost thirty-two dollars for the grandstand and forty-two for the track. Liam Von Elbe cost fifteen dollars for grandstand and track alike. The NYTPA programme cost twenty dollars for adults aged thirteen and over and ten dollars for children aged six to twelve, children five and under free. Richie & The High Street Rockers cost fifteen dollars for the grandstand, the track free. Friday’s tractor pull cost ten dollars for the grandstand, children twelve and under free. Saturday’s demolition derby cost ten dollars for each of its two shows, with a pit pass at twenty dollars.
Small Savings and Earlier Years
The fair’s day-by-day schedule priced Tuesday, July 14, 2026 at five dollars for the gate, even though the page’s header speaks more cautiously of reduced admission on certain days to be announced; confirm the Tuesday figure before counting on it. Earlier years ran differently. In 2025 the gate was five dollars for everyone aged four and up on opening day and nine dollars Tuesday to Saturday, children twelve and under free, the wristband again thirty-five dollars. No 2024 gate ladder appears in the local preview found for that year, and none should be back-filled.
Finding the Grounds and Reading the Address
The key planning skill here is reading the address without merging it. The state directory gives 84 Fairgrounds Road, Morrisonville, New York 12962, mailing at Post Office Box 280 in Morrisonville. The fair’s own site, in an event listing, gives 84 Fair Grounds Road, Plattsburgh, New York 12901; even the local paper’s 2026 preview closed with a Plattsburgh address line after datelining its story from Morrisonville. Both forms are published and neither erases the other. Navigate for Morrisonville, not the city centre.
Camping, Parking and the Fair Office
The fair’s homepage offers seasonal camping at the fairgrounds in its own words; that is a seasonal grounds offer. For fair week, the fair’s page publishes campsite parking machinery rather than a tariff: two vehicles permitted per campsite, with a visit to the Fair Office for a parking pass. No camping rate, hookup specification or reservation term for fair week is published on the fair’s own pages, so no figure is quoted here. Winter storage at the grounds, a separate service for boats, campers and vehicles, is never camping or a fair term.
A Sample Saturday: Derby Day
Start Saturday in the barns before the midway wakes, while the last judging holds the rings and the buildings are quiet enough to read every ribbon card. Move through the Open Show Building and static exhibits by late morning, then let the midway and daily acts take the middle of the day, with a stop at the 4-H Dairy Bar. Claim grandstand seats for the first demolition derby show at one in the afternoon, remembering that ticket sits on top of the gate already paid. Return for the second derby at six, and stay until closing at eleven.
One Name, Several Fairs
Clinton County is a common American county name, and its fairs collide in search results. A Clinton County Fair also runs at Mill Hall in Pennsylvania, and another at Wilmington in Ohio, whose fairgrounds site answers questions in terms belonging entirely to Ohio; the Ohio operation even shares this fair’s domain stem. Merge those fairs with this one and you import the wrong prices, camping rules and fair book. If a Clinton County fair fact does not come from this fair’s own site, the state directory, the state fairs association, the county Extension office or the local Plattsburgh-area paper, it is not evidence about Morrisonville. The in-state neighbours, the Essex County Fair at Westport, the Franklin County Fair at Malone and the Saint Lawrence County fair at Gouverneur, are separate fairs again, and the New York State Fair at Syracuse is a different order of event.
Your Fair Week Checklist
- Decide which tickets you need: gate, wristband, or season ticket.
- Add the grandstand ticket for your chosen night on top of admission, never instead of it.
- Check Tuesday’s reduced gate before paying full price on a weekday.
- Set your map for Morrisonville even if the listing in front of you says Plattsburgh.
- Confirm this year’s dates and prices on the fair’s own Fair Week page.
- Settle exhibitor passes and campsite parking at the Fair Office early in the week.
- Keep other states’ Clinton County fairs out of your planning; their prices are not this fair’s.
- Leave one evening open, because the grandstand show changes every night.
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Fair week is only the loudest week on this property’s calendar. The fair’s own site lists the grounds for venue rentals, advertises winter storage for boats, campers and vehicles, and carries other events on the property, including Michigan Fest, listed for August 1, 2026. Those are grounds tenants and separate occasions on their own terms; none of their dates or prices says anything about the fair itself. Afterwards the grounds return to ordinary life: the fair borrows them, fills them for six days, then hands them back to storage customers and the rental calendar.
Why the Morrisonville Fair Matters
A fair found in a hamlet rather than a city makes a quiet point about where agricultural life sits. This fair’s week is built by a volunteer society, staffed through a 4-H programme that gives farm children a public stage, and priced in honest pieces rather than one glossy bundle. Local reporting put its six-day draw above thirty thousand visitors, a temporary city for a community of Morrisonville’s size. Its survival since 1948, by its own billing, rests on that bargain renewed every July: the county brings its best animals, baking and neighbours, and the fair gives them a grandstand, a midway and six days at the centre of somewhere.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which town actually hosts this fair?
Morrisonville hosts it, at the Clinton County Fairgrounds, as the fair’s own homepage, the state fairs directory and the state fairs association all record. Plattsburgh is the county seat and does not host the fair, although the grounds are commonly billed with a Plattsburgh address.
Does the gate ticket include the grandstand shows?
No. In the fair’s own 2026 terms, grandstand shows are ticketed separately, and grandstand tickets do not include front-gate admission either. A concert or derby night costs the gate plus that show’s own ticket, priced per night in the planning section.
What did a full day cost in 2026?
The 2026 gate was ten dollars with children aged twelve and under free, the all-day ride wristband was thirty-five dollars, and a season ticket was forty dollars. Grandstand prices varied by show, from ten dollars for the tractor pull and each demolition derby show up to forty-two dollars for track seating at the Monday concert.
Can I camp at the fairgrounds?
The fair offers seasonal camping at the grounds in its own words, and for fair week it publishes campsite parking arrangements: two vehicles per site, with a pass from the Fair Office. No fair-week camping rate is published on the fair’s own pages, so confirm terms directly with the fair.
What to Expect From the Next Clinton County New York Fair Festival
How often is the Clinton County New York Fair Festival held?
It is held once a year, across six days in July. The exact span has moved within the month across recent editions, but the annual rhythm and July placement have held.
When is the next Clinton County New York Fair Festival?
After the 2026 edition of July 13 to 18, the fair’s own homepage already bills its next edition for July 12 to 17, 2027, at Morrisonville. That is published future billing, to be confirmed on the fair’s Fair Week page for 2027.
Will the dates change?
They have before. Recent editions ran July 25 to 30 in 2023, a shortened five days from July 9 to 13 in 2024, July 7 to 12 in 2025 and July 13 to 18 in 2026, so the span moves within July and can even lose a day.
The Clinton County Fair rewards a careful reader: a hamlet address hidden inside a city’s billing, three tickets that each do one job, a grandstand that charges honestly for its headliners, and a show week belonging to the county’s own exhibitors.
