Cumberland County Pennsylvania Shippensburg Community Fair Festival
Most Pennsylvania fairs carry a county name, a gate price, or both. The Shippensburg Community Fair carries neither. It is a community fair rather than a county-named one, it charges nothing at the gate, and its grounds sit close enough to a county line that which county the fair belongs to has two documented answers instead of one. Its pedigree is long and local: a first edition on a downtown parking lot in 1958, a permanent home on Possum Hollow Road since 1959, and a six-day July run built around dairy cattle, home products, a craft show and food stands run by local non-profit organisations. The 2026 edition ran from Monday, July 20 to Saturday, July 25, billed as the 68th Annual, and the fair’s homepage points to July 26 to 31, 2027 for the 69th.
About the Shippensburg Community Fair
The fair’s own history page bills it as the largest bi-county fair in Pennsylvania. That wording is the fair’s billing for itself, not a measured fact, and the bi-county part is the load-bearing half. The sponsor letter calls the event a staple in Franklin and Cumberland counties, and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture 2026 Fair Guide files it in its Cumberland County sequence. Yet the fair’s own record never assigns the grounds to a single county, and county-level evidence places the Possum Hollow Road grounds on the Franklin County side, in Southampton Township. Both halves belong in any honest account, and neither cancels the other.
The name also arrives in several published forms, kept apart here rather than merged. Shippensburg Community Fair is the event name, and also the payee form printed for exhibitor cheques and money orders. Shippensburg Community Fair, Inc. is the incorporated form on the fair’s own 2026 Home Products Pre-Entry Form. Shippensburg Community Fair Inc, without the comma, is the nonprofit and tax-record form. A database rendering that drops a letter from the town’s name is a misspelling, not a fourth name. Beneath the names sits an agricultural core documented fair-side: competitions under Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture department numbers 2 through 23, and a fair-side figure of nearly 1,000 exhibitors a year, a promotional figure rather than a verified count.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Shippensburg Community Fair, a six-day community fair in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania |
| 2026 dates | Monday, July 20 to Saturday, July 25, 2026, billed as the 68th Annual |
| County seat | Carlisle, seat of Cumberland County, which does not host this fair |
| Grounds | 10131 Possum Hollow Road, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania 17257, about 155 acres |
| County layer | Grounds documented in Southampton Township, Franklin County; the state fair guide classifies the fair under Cumberland County |
| Organiser | Shippensburg Community Fair, Shippensburg Community Fair, Inc., and Shippensburg Community Fair Inc, forms unmerged |
| Admission | Free in the fair’s current layer; walk in for free |
| Parking | Eight dollars daily per vehicle, five dollars at Wednesday and Saturday matinees, twenty dollars weekly |
| Camping | No fair-side camping term documented anywhere on the fair’s record |
From a Downtown Parking Lot to Possum Hollow Road
The fair’s own history page is the authority for its beginnings, and it starts small. The event began as a modest FFA fair organised by Frank Lerew, the agriculture instructor at Shippensburg High School. The first Shippensburg Community Fair under that name ran from July 30 to August 1, 1958, on the West Burd Street parking lot in downtown Shippensburg. A Queen Contest began in that first year, and a Horse Show followed in 1959.
The downtown arrangement lasted one edition. In 1959 a tract along the Possum Hollow Road, southeast of town, was acquired as a fairground, and the history says that ground has remained the fair’s location ever since. The site has grown to approximately 155 acres, about 100 of them rented to a local farmer. The run lengthened with the grounds: three days became five, and by 1961 the fair had reached its present six-day shape. An opening tradition arrived in 1964, when the Sunday-evening Community Vespers Service and band concert began.
For a useful comparison, see the Crawford County Pennsylvania Fair Festival for another county festival.
Later anniversaries sit in the same layer: the 50th in 2007, and the 60th in 2017, when the renovated fair office was dedicated to founder Frank Lerew, president for the fair’s first 50 years before his death in November 2016. Past presidents named there, Richard Wyrick, Jeff Craig and Scott Goodhart, are persons in that layer only. One interruption stands in the record: the fair scheduled for July 20 to 25, 2020 was cancelled because of COVID-19, the first cancellation in its history on the fair’s account.
The 2026 fair is billed as the 68th Annual and the announced 2027 fair as the 69th Annual. Those numbers are edition billings, printed exactly as billed, and they are not a tool for working backwards: an edition count that has absorbed a cancelled year cannot be subtracted cleanly from a calendar. The founding rests where the history page puts it, on the documented first fair of July 30, 1958.
What to Expect
Livestock, Dairy and the Premium Catalog
The competitive heart of the fair is its Exhibitor’s Premium Catalog, organised under department numbers 2 through 23. Livestock runs from Dairy Cattle through Beef Cattle, Sheep, Swine, Goats and Alpacas, with Poultry and Eggs and Rabbits after them, while youth work runs through the 4-H and Vocational department and the Youth Under 19 department. The bench side follows: Hay and Grain, Vegetables, Fruits and Nuts, Home Produced Products, Floral, Needlecraft, Art, Photography and Crafts, Group Exhibits, Major Contests, and Apiary and Maple Products at Department 23.
Wednesday: Craft Show and Kiddies’ Day
Wednesday carries two named fixtures. The 56th Annual Craft Show was held on Wednesday, July 22, 2026, from 9 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. Its money belongs to vendors, not visitors: craft vendor space was priced at forty-five dollars, with a referral at thirty dollars, and neither figure is an admission charge. The same Wednesday held Kiddies’ Day in the fair’s own 2026 record.
Stages, Rides and Food Stands
Across the six days, the fair’s own billing promises live on-stage music, 18 or more rides and midway games, and its 2026 record posts the Fair Queen and Little Miss contests. Food is sold only by local non-profit organisations, because the fair does not accept commercial for-profit food or drink vendors, so a meal here is also a small contribution to the group running that stand. One older element frames the week: the opening Sunday-evening Community Vespers Service and band concert, a tradition the history layer dates to 1964.
Planning Your Visit
Dates and Hours for 2026
The 2026 fair ran Monday, July 20 through Saturday, July 25, 2026, in the fair’s own vendor and sponsor layers, and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture 2026 Fair Guide agrees. The history page describes the event as always held the last full week in July; that is the fair’s stated pattern, not a promise about any unannounced year. Hours are uneven: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday run from 4 in the afternoon to 10 in the evening, while Wednesday and Saturday open at 10 in the morning.
Admission Is Free; Parking Is the Charge
The fair’s own Admission and Parking page, its current layer for the 2026 season, is blunt: pay only for parking, or walk in for free. The same page says the fair is proud to be one of the few fairs that continues to offer free admission. There is no per-person gate price in any documented year, and none is printed here, because importing one from another fair would invent a charge this fair does not make. Rides, games and food are separate purchases once inside, and no verified price list for them was found on the layers checked.
Parking is where the documented money sits, all from that same page. Daily parking costs eight dollars per vehicle. Wednesday and Saturday matinees, meaning arrival before 4 in the afternoon, are discounted to five dollars per vehicle. A weekly parking ticket costs twenty dollars, sold at the entry gate and at listed local outlets, or online with a two-dollar postage fee added. Lunch guests park free on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, because food vendors open at lunch even though most activities begin at 4.
Gates, Access and Finding the Grounds
The fair’s own published address is 10131 Possum Hollow Road, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania 17257; neither its mailing box nor any Fayette Street address is the grounds address, as the questions below set out.
Gate discipline is published fair-side: general visitors enter through Gates 1, 4, 6, 7 or 10, dairy and livestock exhibitors through Gate 1, tractor pull guests through Gate 10 and participants through Gate 9. Paved handicap parking of over 100 spaces sits behind Home Products Building number 2, reached through Gate 1 at the Locust Street underpass, placard or tag required, first-come, first-served.
Camping: Nothing Fair-Side Is Documented
No camping page, fee, registration or overnight-stay term was found anywhere on the fair’s published layers, across its admission, vendor, exhibitor, history and map material. That absence is stated plainly rather than filled in: no fair-side camping is documented for this fair, public or exhibitor. Anyone travelling with a camper should stay off the grounds.
A Sample Wednesday in 2026
Wednesday is the one weekday that behaves like a weekend. Arrive before 4 in the afternoon for the five-dollar matinee parking rate, with the grounds open since 10 in the morning. Start with the 56th Annual Craft Show, running until 4, give the middle of the day to Kiddies’ Day and the barns, and close with a non-profit supper and rides after dark.
How This Fair Sits Among Its Neighbours
The county line under the fairgrounds invites two confusions, both worth refusing. The Franklin County Fair at Chambersburg is Franklin County’s own fair, a separate event with its own grounds and July dates; that the Shippensburg grounds sit on the Franklin side of the line does not merge the two. The Cumberland Ag Expo at Newville is likewise a separate Cumberland County event whose terms belong to Newville, and Cumberland-named fairs in Maryland and Tennessee are other states’ events entirely. Shippensburg University, on the Cumberland side of town, is a neighbour rather than a parent: the fair is not a university event. Grounds rentals across the year are bookings, not editions of this fair.
A Fair-Week Checklist
- Confirm the year’s dates on the fair’s own announcement before travelling.
- Carry cash for the eight-dollar daily parking, or buy the twenty-dollar weekly ticket for several days.
- Arrive before 4 in the afternoon on Wednesday or Saturday for the five-dollar matinee parking rate.
- Bring a placard or tag for the paved handicap parking behind Home Products Building number 2.
- Book a bed or campsite off the grounds, since no fair-side camping term is documented.
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Shippensburg itself is the natural extension of a fair day. The town holds the university on its Cumberland side and the downtown where this fair began on a parking lot, so a walk on West Burd Street is fair history rather than a detour. Carlisle, the county seat of Cumberland County, lies up the road; it is the seat, not this fair’s host, so a trip there belongs to sightseeing, never to fair logistics. Chambersburg, over the line in Franklin County, runs its own fair in July.
Why This Fair Matters Locally
A fair that refuses a gate price makes a statement about who it is for. By keeping admission free and letting local non-profit organisations run the food, this fair routes its week’s spending through the community that stages it, and the sponsor letter’s description of the event as a staple in Franklin and Cumberland counties reads less like advertising than like a summary of a two-county habit. Attendance billings in the fair’s own layers, 45,000 to 65,000 in the sponsor letter and nearly 50,000 on the vendor page, belong to that promotional register: fair-side figures, not verified counts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which county is the fair actually in?
Both halves of the answer travel together. County-level evidence places the grounds in Southampton Township, on the Franklin County side of the line. The fair is a bi-county event in its telling, and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture 2026 Fair Guide files it under Cumberland County. Neither the flat statement that the grounds sit in Cumberland County nor the claim that this is Franklin County’s fair survives the record.
What does it cost to get in?
Nothing at the gate, on the fair’s current Admission and Parking layer, which invites visitors to pay only for parking or walk in for free. The documented charges are for vehicles: eight dollars daily, five dollars per vehicle at Wednesday and Saturday matinees before 4 in the afternoon, twenty dollars for a weekly ticket, and free parking for lunch guests on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
Where exactly are the grounds, and what address should I use?
Use the fair’s address, 10131 Possum Hollow Road, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania 17257, on the ground acquired in 1959 southeast of town. Do not use the fair’s mailing address, Box 9 in Shippensburg, a separate layer on its entry forms, and do not use any Fayette Street address, because none exists on the fair’s record. General visitors enter through Gates 1, 4, 6, 7 or 10.
Can I camp at the fairgrounds during fair week?
No fair-side camping is documented. Nothing on the fair’s published admission, vendor, exhibitor, history or map layers sets a camping fee, a camper registration or an overnight-stay term, and the trailer parking marked for livestock and dairy use is parking only. Stay off the grounds and come in as a day visitor.
What to Expect From the Next Cumberland County Pennsylvania Shippensburg Community Fair Festival
How often is Cumberland County Pennsylvania Shippensburg Community Fair Festival held?
Its rhythm is annual, one edition in each late-July season. The history page describes the pattern as the last full week in July, stated as habit rather than guarantee, and the documented modern editions fit it at six days each, Monday through Saturday.
When is the next Cumberland County Pennsylvania Shippensburg Community Fair Festival?
The fair’s own homepage announces the next edition for July 26 to 31, 2027, billed as the 69th Annual. Programme detail beyond those dates and that billing is unverified until the fair publishes its 2027 layers.
Will the dates change?
They have shifted within their pattern before: the first fair ran from July 30 into August in 1958, the 2020 edition was scheduled and then cancelled, and the 2026 and announced 2027 spans sit a week apart inside late July. Take each year’s span from that year’s own announcement.
The Shippensburg fair’s honest complications, a seat that does not host it, a county line under its grounds, three name forms left unmerged, are not flaws in the story. They are the story: a community event belonging to two counties at once that still answers to one road, one week in July and one free gate.
