Lawrence County Pennsylvania Fair Festival
Late August in Lawrence County belongs to a fair that grew out of farm project round-ups and now fills a fairground on Route 108 with livestock barns, a midway and a grandstand. The Lawrence County Fair is the county agricultural fair of Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, a gated fair with animal shows, home economics departments, 4-H and FFA classes, rides and grandstand programmes across a six-day week. Its own 2025 premium book bills the event as The Lawrence County Fair, and the fair’s own site publishes a full day-by-day schedule for 2026, so the event stands documented as current and recurring in its own record.
About the Lawrence County Fair
The fair is held at the Lawrence County Fairgrounds, published at 464 Midway Road, New Castle, Pennsylvania 16101. New Castle is the county seat of Lawrence County, verified from the Pennsylvania State Archives County Courthouses table, which records the county as created on March 20, 1849 from Beaver and Mercer counties; that 1849 date belongs to the county, never to the fair. The fair’s own record gives New Castle as its host and mailing city, and its history page places the grounds on the former Enos Farm, a nearly level tract of 96 acres on Route 108 across from Laurel High School, while fair-side local reportage describes the same grounds on Route 108 east of New Castle across from the Laurel Area High School. Which township the Route 108 parcel sits in is undecided in every layer, and the mailing city proves nothing about it.
The organisation behind the fair appears in several published forms, standing here unmerged. The history page records that the Lawrence County Farm Show was incorporated on April 20, 1955, and gives the trading form as Lawrence County Farm Show, Inc. (DBA Lawrence County Fair). The 2025 premium book carries the welcome of the Directors of the Lawrence County Farm Show, Inc. and a reservation-of-rights line in the name of the Lawrence County Fair Board of Directors, while the 2026 schedule uses the abbreviated LCF Board of Directors. No layer attaches the word Association to the fair’s organiser, and no individual officer is the organiser; the officers named in the 2025 book, among them President Shawn Hill and Treasurer Melinda Marks, belong to that book’s 2025 board list only.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Lawrence County Fair, the county agricultural fair of Lawrence County, Pennsylvania |
| Host city | New Castle, the county seat of Lawrence County |
| Grounds address | 464 Midway Road, New Castle, Pennsylvania 16101 |
| Organiser | Lawrence County Farm Show, Inc. (DBA Lawrence County Fair), the history page’s trading form |
| 2026 fair week | August 17 to 22 in the state fair guide; the fair’s own schedule adds pre-fair events on Sunday, August 16 |
| 2025 fair week | August 11 to 16, 2025, billed the 72nd Annual in the fair’s own 2025 premium book |
| Admission | From the 2025 premium book only: six dollars Monday Family Day, twelve dollars Tuesday to Saturday; no general 2026 price published |
| Parking | Included in the 2025 Tuesday to Saturday price; no 2026 parking term published |
| Camping | Documented without any price: 2025 registrations due July 15, 2025; a 2026 waitlist form |
History
The fair’s own history page tells the founding in two layers. Before any incorporation, 4-H Extension Agents, vocational agriculture teachers and FFA advisors ran summer project round-ups funded by donations and the Pomona Grange. After the 1953 show, a permanent farm show was proposed, and the first farm show was held at the J.R. Rick Stock Farm as a two-day fair in August 1954, with 64 exhibitors. That stock farm was the site of the defunct New Castle Fair, an earlier, discontinued fair named there only as the place’s former occupant, a predecessor-site layer rather than this fair’s origin or continuation. The Grange then resolved to incorporate, and on April 20, 1955 the Lawrence County Farm Show was incorporated as a non-profit body to conduct annual agricultural exhibits. The record therefore supports a first farm show in August 1954 and an incorporation in April 1955, and no single flattened founding year does justice to both.
The young show grew from two days to three, then four, still at the Rick Farm. In 1966 the Enos Farm on Route 108 became the permanent Lawrence County Fairgrounds, bought for twenty-five thousand dollars, and the show was held there in tents from August 16 to 19, 1966. The same page records growth into a six-day event by 2003. The 2025 premium book bills that year’s fair as the 72nd Annual, but that figure is a billing line only: subtracting it from 2025 produces no documented founding year, and the history page’s loose age wording is its own phrasing, never arithmetic material.
For a useful comparison, see the Lancaster County Pennsylvania Ephrata Fair Festival for another county festival.
What to Expect
Livestock, Departments and the Exhibit Halls
The premium book’s department system, printed in the 2025 book as Departments 2 to 24 with Junior Departments 101 to 109, covers dairy cattle, beef, sheep and goats, 4-H and FFA classes, crops, vegetables, fruits, foods, floral entries, needlecraft, arts and crafts, wine, apiary and maple products, antiques and the Fair Queen competition. Judging threads through the 2026 week: dairy goat and Boer goat judging on Monday, dairy fitting and showmanship with sheep breeding and market lamb judging on Tuesday, the open and junior dairy show on Wednesday, the poultry show on Thursday, and the horse show with beef breeding and market beef shows on Friday.
Grandstand Nights and Midway Days
The grandstand carries a different headline each night of the 2026 week. Monday brings the TNT Moto-X Gold Cup Series Finale, Tuesday the truck and tractor pulls, Wednesday KOI Drag Racing on Bike Night, Thursday Championship Pro Wrestling after the Great Gospel Night with The Down East Boys, Friday Bullride Mania and the rodeo, and Saturday closes with the Derby Dog Demolition Derby after the antique tractor pull and the junior livestock sale. Around the grounds, the 2026 schedule layers in the Banana Derby, a Ninja Warrior Obstacle Course, the Goat Island petting zoo and marching bands on the Midway.
A Week That Opens Before It Opens
Fair week 2026 effectively starts a day early. The state fair guide span runs Monday, August 17 to Saturday, August 22, 2026, yet the fair’s own schedule adds a pre-fair Sunday on August 16 with the Blue Ribbon Pie Auction, a Corn Roast for exhibitors and vendors, and the 2026 Fair Queen Program, all before Monday’s opening ceremony brunch and ribbon cutting. The Sunday programme is the fair’s own layer, never silently folded into the guide’s span.
Planning Your Visit
Dates, Gates and Getting In
Admission in the fair’s own record is a 2025 premium book subject, and the book’s terms are these. Charging began at 8:00 each morning, and Gate 2 required a pass at all times. Monday was Family Day at six dollars, with senior citizens aged 65 and over admitted free that day. From Tuesday to Saturday the price was twelve dollars per day, children under three received free admission, grandstand admission was free with paid fair admission, and pit passes cost twenty dollars on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday at Pit Gate 6 only, under a printed rule of no exceptions and no refunds.
The Rides Contradiction, Left Standing
One page of the 2025 book contradicts itself. The twelve-dollar price is printed with the words “includes parking, rides and grandstand admission,” yet the same page, right after the line freeing children under three, prints “Ride tickets must be purchased separately.” Both statements stand as published, in that one 2025 layer, unresolved.
What 2026 Does and Does Not Publish
No general admission price for 2026 appears in the layers checked, so the 2026 gate is unverified and no 2025 figure may be carried forward into it. The single 2026 price the fair itself publishes is programme-specific: Bike Night on Wednesday, August 19, 2026 carries twelve dollars per person in the Dog Pavilion layer of the schedule, a Bike Night price and never a general gate price. Parking splits the same way: the 2025 book folds it into the twelve dollars with no separate visitor fee, while no 2026 parking term was retrieved, leaving 2026 parking unverified. The book’s remaining parking rules, about livestock vehicles loading by the barns and horse participants entering from Bodziach Road, are exhibitor rules only.
Camping Without a Price Tag
Camping exists on the fair’s own record, but never with a price attached. The 2025 premium book lists Camping Registrations among the entries due in the Fair Office by July 15, 2025, and publishes no campsite price, hookup term or site type beyond that deadline. For 2026 the fair offers a Camping Waitlist form, returned to 464 Midway Road or by the email printed on the form, asking for camper model and length and the area requested; a waitlist promises neither a site nor a rate. Full-hookup terms circulating for a dog-show club’s own event at the fairgrounds belong to that club’s show, and winter storage there is off-season, not fair-week camping.
A Sample Day at the Fair
Take Wednesday, August 19, 2026, built only from that day’s schedule. Start in the barns with the Open and Junior Dairy Show, then read the foods, floral and needlecraft results in the exhibit halls while the grounds are still quiet. Finish with Bike Night and the KOI Drag Racing, the one night of the week when motorcycles share the billing with the cattle.
How This Fair Compares
Lawrence County is a popular fair name nationally, and the look-alikes stay quarantined here. Kentucky has its own Lawrence County Fair at Louisa, Ohio and Indiana run theirs through 4-H and junior fair layers and Bedford fairgrounds respectively, and South Dakota holds a combined Butte and Lawrence County fair; none of their dates, prices or programmes belong to the Pennsylvania fair. Closer to home, the Western Pennsylvania Balloon Quest is a separate balloon festival at Scotland Meadows Park in New Castle, benefiting a township volunteer fire department. What sets the Pennsylvania event apart is structure: a gated fairgrounds fair grown from a farm show, with a premium book and grandstand, not a street fair spilling through a town centre.
Before You Go: A Checklist
- Check the year on every term, because all published prices belong to the 2025 premium book
- Keep cash flexible for 2026, when no general gate price is published
- Note pre-fair Sunday, August 16, 2026 for the pie auction, corn roast and Fair Queen Program
- Treat rides as an open question: the 2025 book both includes them and sells their tickets separately
- Join the camping waitlist early, with camper model and length ready
- Keep Gate 2’s pass rule in mind if you plan to come and go during the day
- Leave time for the exhibit halls, not only the grandstand
Beyond the Fairgrounds
The host city rewards a slower arrival. New Castle was laid out in 1802, according to the state historical commission’s county layer, and as county seat its courthouse anchors the same city whose mailing address the fair carries. The grounds sit east of the city on Route 108, across from the high school, in the farmland where a farm show naturally took root. Other Lawrence County gatherings, from the Ellwood City Festival to Enon Valley Community Day, Pearson Park events and borough celebrations in places such as Volant, are separate occasions entirely.
Why This Fair Matters
Few Pennsylvania fairs can trace themselves to named school and Grange round-ups in their own written history. This one began as a way for farm families to show project work, incorporated so that annual agricultural exhibits would have a permanent non-profit home, and later bought its own land. That arc is why the departments still matter: the premium book is the founding purpose in print, and the junior departments carry the original round-up idea forward. The motto the 2025 book prints, “We Have Good Things Growing!!”, reads less like advertising than like a mission the fair set itself in 1955.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where exactly is the fair held?
At the Lawrence County Fairgrounds, 464 Midway Road, New Castle, Pennsylvania 16101 in the fair’s own record, on the former Enos Farm along Route 108 across from Laurel High School.
What will admission cost me in 2026?
The fair’s own layers publish no general 2026 admission price, so the 2026 gate is unverified. The documented figures are 2025 premium book prices: six dollars on Monday Family Day with seniors 65 and over free that day, twelve dollars per day Tuesday to Saturday, children under three free, and twenty-dollar pit passes on four days at Pit Gate 6.
Is camping available during fair week?
Camping is documented, but only in outline: the 2025 book required registrations at the Fair Office by July 15, 2025 without printing any price or hookup term, and the 2026 answer is a waitlist form. Nothing in the record guarantees a site or quotes a rate, so plan on the waitlist rather than on a booking.
Who organises the Lawrence County Fair?
The fair’s own layers name Lawrence County Farm Show, Inc., incorporated on April 20, 1955, the history page giving the full trading form Lawrence County Farm Show, Inc. (DBA Lawrence County Fair). The 2025 premium book also speaks through the Lawrence County Fair Board of Directors, and the 2026 schedule uses the shorter LCF Board of Directors; those forms stand side by side rather than merged. The officers printed in the 2025 book are that year’s board, not a permanent management.
What to Expect From the Next Lawrence County Pennsylvania Fair Festival
How often is Lawrence County Pennsylvania Fair Festival held?
The fair runs once a year in August, on the evidence of its own record: a full fair week in 2025, another complete schedule published for 2026, and a history page describing annual exhibits as the incorporated body’s purpose from 1955.
When is the next Lawrence County Pennsylvania Fair Festival?
The latest fair week documented in the record is the 2026 edition, listed in the state fair guide for August 17 to 22 and expanded by the fair’s own schedule to include pre-fair events on Sunday, August 16. No span for 2027 appears in the layers checked, so the next dates become real only when the fair or the guide publishes them.
Will the dates change?
Fair weeks shift a little with the calendar, and this fair’s own shape has changed over time, from a two-day show in 1954 to a six-day fair by 2003. The guide span and the fair’s own schedule already differ by a day for 2026, a warning to check both layers before fixing travel plans.
Its own publications leave honest gaps: a gate price confirmed for 2025 but not 2026, a rides question the book answers two ways, and camping without a tariff. Read in its own layers, though, this is a complete and continuing county fair, rooted in a 1954 farm show, incorporated in 1955, settled on its own grounds since 1966, and still organised around the exhibits it was founded to hold.
