Monmouth County New Jersey Fair Festival
Monmouth County has two Freeholds, and the difference decides where you end up in fair week. Freehold Borough is the county seat, a compact borough of courthouse blocks, wrapped on every side by Freehold Township, a separate and far larger municipality sharing the name. The Monmouth County Fair belongs to the township: its home is the East Freehold Showgrounds on Kozloski Road, and the seat hosts no part of it.
Who runs the fair is the second thing worth getting straight. No independent fair association stands behind this event: it is organized and presented by the Monmouth County Park System in cooperation with the Monmouth County 4-H Association — a county government fair in the fullest sense, where the public body that maintains the grounds also builds the programme and the county’s 4-H families fill the animal tents.
For five days in late July the showgrounds run on evening time: weekday gates open at four in the afternoon and the grounds stay lit until eleven at night. The 2026 edition opened with fireworks and a living-history celebration of New Jersey’s 250th year, ran racing pigs, stunt horses and nightly wrestling through the week, and closed Sunday with pie-eating contests. Admission that year was ten dollars a person, every child of twelve and under entered free, and parking cost nothing.
A Fair Run by the County’s Own Park System
The organiser line matters because most county fairs are run by private associations, and this one is not. The Park System’s own wording, carried in its county releases, is that the Monmouth County Fair is organized and presented by the Monmouth County Park System in cooperation with the Monmouth County 4-H Association. Monmouth County 4-H, which delivers the youth programme inside the fair, is run through Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Monmouth County. Extension is a programme partner in its own right, not the fair’s organiser — and neither is any fair association, because none exists for this fair.
The Park System’s showgrounds page calls the 87-acre site, on Kozloski Road between Routes 33 and 537, the home of the annual fair, and puts its draw, in the Park System’s figures, at upwards of 75,000 people enjoying the five-day late July event. The grounds spend the rest of the year hosting horse shows, dog shows and special events. Older county releases styled them the East Freehold Park Showgrounds.
For a useful comparison, see the Middlesex County New Jersey Fair Festival for another county festival.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Fair | Monmouth County Fair |
| Fairgrounds | East Freehold Showgrounds, 1500 Kozloski Road, Freehold Township |
| County seat | Freehold Borough, a separate municipality that does not host the fair |
| Organiser | Monmouth County Park System, in cooperation with the Monmouth County 4-H Association |
| Season | Late July, Wednesday to Sunday |
| 2026 edition | July 22–26, billed as the 51st Annual |
| Hours in 2026 | Wednesday–Friday 4 p.m.–11 p.m.; Saturday 11 a.m.–11 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m.–6 p.m. |
| Admission in 2026 | Ten dollars per person; children twelve and under free |
| Parking | Free |
| Camping | None offered at the fair |
Two Beginnings, and Why They Stay Separate
The Park System’s own history timeline gives this fair a clear documented start: in 1975 the first Monmouth County Fair operated by the Park System and the 4-H was held at the East Freehold Showgrounds, and a state tourism layer agrees the fair began in 1975. That is the founding the record supports for the present fair.
The same timeline entry adds that Monmouth County fairs date back to the mid 19th century, originally sponsored by the Monmouth County Agricultural Society. Those older fairs belong to a predecessor era — a different sponsoring body in a different century. They are part of the county’s fair history, but not early editions of the Park System fair, and the two beginnings stay in separate fences rather than fusing into one founding claim.
The edition numbers sit in the same careful category. The county billed the 2025 fair as the 50th annual and the Park System’s 2026 guide billed that year’s fair as the 51st Annual; the sequence is consistent as billing, and no founding year can be back-calculated from those numbers. The guide’s further billing — the original Monmouth County agricultural fair, Monmouth County’s first agricultural fair — is likewise the Park System’s own billing, not a settled ranking over every fair the county has seen.
What to Expect
Fireworks First, on Opening Night
Wednesday is the fair’s big entrance. In 2026 it carried fireworks, weather permitting, Fireman’s Competitions and Patriotic Stiltwalkers, and doubled as the Monmouth NJ 250 Celebration, a living-history opening built around costumed interpreters. Living history runs through the fair’s identity: county layers describe staff from the Park System’s own historic sites — Historic Longstreet Farm and Historic Walnford — demonstrating the turn-of-the-century farm life their home sites preserve all year.
The Animal Tents Belong to 4-H
The agricultural core is the 4-H Shows and Exhibits; the county’s own account of the 2025 edition describes what fills them: herpetology, small animal and livestock tents, with animals raised by 4-H youth. This is exhibition agriculture, not a commercial livestock market — young exhibitors showing animals they have raised, in tents giving visitors the close-up view — and the 4-H Association’s side of the partnership is written all over these grounds.
Benches of Baking, Honey and Garden Produce
The Home and Garden Competitions, Demonstrations and Displays give the fair its judged-bench depth. The 2026 competition layer covered artwork, crafts, honey, flowers, vegetables and baked goods, judged and displayed for the run of the fair. Demonstrations ran daily, delivered by Thompson Park’s Creative Arts Center, Deep Cut Gardens, the Monmouth County Master Gardeners and the Central Jersey Beekeepers Association.
Racing Pigs, Stunt Horses and a Wrestling Ring
Around the exhibition core sits a full commercial fairground. Rides and games came from Reithoffer Shows in 2026, and the attraction roster ran to Robinson’s Racing Pigs, the Bwana Jim Wildlife Show, the WonderZone Dinosaur Zoo, Andrew’s Big Show and Tommie Turvey’s Stunt Horses and Dogs, with DAWG Pro Wrestling nightly. John Higby the Yo-Yo Guy, the Fam Jam DJ dance party and Bluey and Bingo on Friday and Saturday filled the family corners, while the Park System’s own Interactive Display sat among the crafters, commercial vendors and food vendors.
A Different Bill on the Main Stage Every Night
Live music closed each evening on the Main Stage, with the 2026 guide naming a different bill nightly: Red Dirt Revolution (Wednesday), The Fumos (Thursday), Mushmouth (Friday), Dark City Strings and The Ultimate Queen Celebration (Saturday), and Rockit Academy with the Ocean Avenue Stompers (Sunday). Sunday also ran the Pie Eating Contests and the Clown Parade before the early close, giving the last day a flavour distinct from the first night’s fireworks.
Planning Your Visit
Hours Built Around the Evening
In 2026 the gates opened at four in the afternoon on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and ran until eleven at night; Saturday ran from eleven in the morning to eleven at night; Sunday opened at eleven and closed early, at six. The county’s 2025 release shows the same pattern: an after-work fair on weekdays, one full day on Saturday, a shorter family day to finish.
What a Day Costs
The governing figures are the Park System’s own, from its Summer 2026 guide: ten dollars per person, children of twelve and under free, parking free. A township government’s weekend update for the same year, pointing readers to the fair’s own information, added further terms: veterans and active military with identification entered free, seniors of sixty-five and over and students with identification entered free on Sunday, and admission was discounted during the first two hours of each day. Those extras stand as that layer published them. The county’s own 2025 release published a ladder of its own — ten dollars for adults, children twelve and under free, half-price admission during the first two hours of each day, veterans and active military free, seniors and students free on Sunday — and it belongs to 2025.
Ride money is separate from the gate: the 2026 guide priced midway wristbands at thirty dollars on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and thirty-five dollars on Friday and Saturday, and a wristband is a ride product sold over and above admission, never a way of buying entry. Older gates belong to history — eight dollars a person in the 2019 and 2020 county layers, seven dollars in 2013 and 2014, children twelve and under free in every layer. None of those figures buys a ticket today.
Finding the Grounds, and the Camping Question
Set the destination as 1500 Kozloski Road in Freehold Township, between Routes 33 and 537 — the township showgrounds, not Freehold Borough, the seat a short distance away, which hosts no part of the fair. Parking is free; no price for it appears in any layer of the record. On camping the record is plain by its silence: the Park System publishes no fair camping and none is offered for fair week, so an overnight stay means lodging off-site.
A Sample Saturday at the Fair
Arrive near Saturday’s eleven o’clock opening and walk the animal tents first, while the 4-H exhibitors work with their animals and the displays are quiet enough to linger over. Spend midday at the Home and Garden benches and a beekeeping or Master Gardener demonstration, then catch the racing pigs and stunt horses in the afternoon. Eat early from the food vendors, take the thirty-five-dollar Saturday wristband only if the rides will fill the evening, and stay for Dark City Strings and The Ultimate Queen Celebration.
Two County Fairs, Two Ways of Running One
The nearest comparison sits one county north. The Middlesex County Fair, at East Brunswick, is run by the Middlesex County Fair Association, an independent association whose documented founding reaches back to 1938. It runs seven days in early August with a tiered gate: adults at ten dollars, seniors and young children at four dollars, the youngest children and military visitors free. Monmouth makes the opposite choices at almost every point: a county park system runs it, the run is five days rather than seven, and the gate is a flat ten dollars with every child of twelve and under free. Two counties, two different answers to who should put on a county fair.
Before You Set Out
- Pick your day by its Main Stage bill, because the headliners change nightly.
- Choose Wednesday for the opening-night fireworks, weather permitting.
- Budget ten dollars for each visitor over twelve; younger children enter free in 2026.
- Treat the wristband as ride money only, at thirty dollars on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and thirty-five on Friday and Saturday.
- Bring no parking budget: parking at the showgrounds is free.
- On a weekday, plan to eat at the fair, because the gates open at four.
- Make Sunday the family finish: pie-eating contests, the Clown Parade and a six o’clock close.
- Book no campsite: fair camping does not exist here, so arrange a room instead.
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Several names on the programme are places in their own right. Historic Longstreet Farm and Historic Walnford, whose staff county layers describe demonstrating turn-of-the-century farm life at the fair, are Park System historic sites, and Deep Cut Gardens and Thompson Park, both among the demonstrators, belong to the same family. Freehold Borough, the seat the township surrounds, makes the geography click: stand there and you are in the county seat, but not at its fair. The fair stays out on Kozloski Road, on the county’s showgrounds.
Why a Park-System Fair Matters
Most county fairs survive because a volunteer association refuses to let them die. Monmouth’s survives because a county decided a fair belongs in the same public keeping as its parks, gardens and historic farms, and the result is a fair woven tightly into its county’s own institutions. The park system that stages it also preserves the historic sites whose interpreters staff its living-history programme; the 4-H programme in its tents is the county’s own youth agriculture, and the 2026 edition opened with the county marking New Jersey’s 250th year on its own grounds. The Park System bills it as the county’s original agricultural fair. Billing aside, the record since 1975 shows something rarer than a superlative: a fair that is, from the gate inward, an act of local government.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the fair held in Freehold Borough?
No. The fair is held at the East Freehold Showgrounds, 1500 Kozloski Road, in Freehold Township. Freehold Borough is the county seat, a separate municipality the township surrounds, and it hosts no part of the fair — a trip aimed at the borough will miss the grounds entirely.
Who organises the Monmouth County Fair?
The Monmouth County Park System organizes and presents the fair in cooperation with the Monmouth County 4-H Association; there is no independent fair association behind it. The 4-H programme inside the fair runs through Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Monmouth County — the programme partner, not the organiser.
How much does it cost to get in, and is parking really free?
In 2026 admission was ten dollars per person, every child of twelve and under entered free, and parking was free — no parking charge appears anywhere in the record. Midway wristbands are a separate purchase on top of admission, priced in 2026 at thirty dollars on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and thirty-five on Friday and Saturday.
Can we camp at the showgrounds during fair week?
No. The Park System publishes no fair camping and none is offered at the showgrounds; anyone staying over will need ordinary lodging in Freehold Township or a neighbouring town.
What to Expect From the Next Monmouth County New Jersey Fair Festival
How often is the Monmouth County New Jersey Fair Festival held?
It is held once a year, across five days in late July, Wednesday through Sunday. That shape, with evening openings on weekdays, is the pattern the county’s publications show for both the 2025 and 2026 editions.
When is the next Monmouth County New Jersey Fair Festival?
The Park System’s fair page already advertises the next edition for July 21–25, 2027, squarely inside the established late-July window. Programme, hours and gate details for that edition will come with the Park System’s guide for that summer.
Will the dates change?
They move gently within their season rather than sitting fixed. The 2025 edition ran July 23–27, the 2026 edition ran July 22–26, and the advertised 2027 edition falls on July 21–25, so each year’s fair opens a little earlier in the same late-July stretch. Anyone planning around a day should confirm the exact dates in the Park System’s current publications before travelling.
The fair asks two small things of its visitors: aim for the township, not the borough, and expect a county-run fair rather than an association’s. Get those right and the rest is simple — ten dollars at the gate, children free, parking for nothing, fireworks on the first night and pies on the last, on the county’s 87 acres of showgrounds.
