New Hanover County North Carolina North Carolina Azalea Festival
Wilmington does not fence its spring celebration inside a single fairground. For five days each April, the North Carolina Azalea Festival spreads across the city that serves as the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, with more than thirty events. The festival calls itself, in its own record, Wilmington’s annual community celebration and the largest festival of its kind in the state, founded in 1948. It publishes no general admission: some events are free, some require tickets, and some are private.
About the Festival
The North Carolina Azalea Festival, also given in its own site title form as the NC Azalea Festival, runs Wednesday to Sunday during the first few weeks of April, with the exact weekend moving with the changing date of Easter. Wilmington is the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, and hosts the festival, and events take place across the Wilmington area, including local beaches in the festival’s own description, in Downtown Wilmington, at Airlie Gardens, and at various locations across town.
Organiser forms, unmerged: incorporated, The North Carolina Azalea Festival at Wilmington, Inc.; status, a 501(c)3 non-profit and a nonprofit organization; mission, to be nationally recognized as a showcase for the community’s rich array of artwork, gardens, history, and culture through recreational, educational, and family-oriented events, encouraging volunteerism and civic participation. Associated hosts, never organiser: Cape Fear Garden Club (Garden Tour), Historic Wilmington Foundation (Home Tour), Wilmington Art Association (Art Show and Sale), Lower Cape Fear Coin Club (Coin Show), Thalian Association (theatre). People, fenced to years: Erica Mearns, festival president, 2026 cycle only; Alison Baringer, executive director, 2017 and 2025 layers only, never 2026.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Festival | North Carolina Azalea Festival, also NC Azalea Festival |
| Host city and county seat | Wilmington, county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina |
| Season and shape | Annual five-day Wednesday to Sunday festival in April, exact weekend moving with Easter |
| Most recent full edition in this record | 79th Annual, Wednesday April 8 to Sunday April 12, 2026 |
| Previous edition | 78th Annual, Wednesday April 2 to Sunday April 6, 2025 |
| Announced next edition | 80th, April 7 to 11, 2027, save-the-date only |
| General festival admission | None published in any year; admission is per event only |
| Free components | Coronation, Street Fair, Parade, Aviation Display, Boxing, Coin Show, Fireworks, Tunes and Blooms, After Garden Get Down |
| Ticketed components | Both concerts, Garden Tour, Airlie Luncheon Garden Party, Queen’s Dance Party, Thalian performance, Celebration of African American Arts and Culture, Home Tour, Battleship Boom and Bloom Bonanza |
| Setting | No single grounds; events across Wilmington, including Downtown Wilmington and Airlie Gardens |
History
The festival’s own record gives its founding plainly: founded in 1948, and in its standing boilerplate, since its inception in 1948. In 1947, Dr. W. Houston Moore called Wilmington’s leading civic clubs to a Chamber of Commerce meeting to discuss an Azalea Festival, in Hugh Morton’s history text, Morton being the first festival’s president. When the first Azalea Festival took place in April 1948, Jacqueline White of RKO Radio Pictures served as the first Queen. A conflicting secondary form in a university student-paper layer gives a different surname for the first queen, and that form is not substituted here for the White form in the Morton letter and the encyclopedia record, which agrees that the first festival launched in 1948 with a parade, dance, community sing, and flower show, attended by about sixty thousand people, a 1948 figure alone.
Scholarship Princess tradition began in 1949, during the second festival. Edition billings, fenced to years, never a count of festivals held: 2020, billed 73rd, cancelled for COVID-19, planned April 1 to 5, not held; 2021, reimagined, week of April 5 to 11, Queen Azalea Number 74, seventy-four mini-coronations, never normal; 2025, 78th; 2026, 79th; 2027 announced, 80th. No claim that seventy-nine festivals have been held. Size billing only, never a counted gate: boilerplate, more than three hundred thousand people and more than fifty-one million dollars; 2011 study, more than fifty million dollars a year; 2026 rundown, roughly one hundred thousand participating; City, about one hundred thousand expected for 2025. Garden Tour history, never the festival’s founding: 73rd tour in 2026, first held in 1953; featured country, India 2026, Nigeria 2025.
For a useful comparison, see the Nash County North Carolina Nashville Blooming Festival for another county festival.
What to Expect
A Citywide Festival, Not a Single Ground
Expect to move. There is no single entrance and no single field to learn. The Street Fair address is Front Street, Wilmington, North Carolina 28401, but that locates the Street Fair, not the whole festival. The ticket office at 5725 Oleander Drive, Unit B7, is an office where patrons pick up ticket packages, and it is never a venue, never Airlie Gardens, and never the grounds of any event.
The Coronation and the Queen
The Queen’s Coronation opens the festival week and is free in the festival’s own structure. 2026: Wednesday, April 8, Battleship North Carolina, crowning Elaine Hendrix, pre-show 2:30, start 3. Venue changes by year. 2025: Greenfield Lake Amphitheater, 1941 Amphitheatre Drive, crowning Bethany Joy Lenz; 2026 guide: back to USS Battleship North Carolina. Greenfield Lake remains a 2026 Tunes and Blooms venue, not the 2026 coronation venue.
Concerts at Live Oak Bank Pavilion
Concerts, Live Oak Bank Pavilion, 10 Cowan Street, Wilmington, North Carolina 28401, also Live Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park. Lil Jon, Thursday, April 9, 2026, 7 p.m.; Dustin Lynch, Friday, April 10, 2026, 7 p.m. Lil Jon: from sixty-eight dollars and up, rundown and travel layer agree, including taxes and fees. Dustin Lynch: no single figure; rundown headed fifty-seven and up, body sixty-eight to one hundred ninety-five; festival ticketing layer gives venue and terms, no price, so face price unverified. Promotional pair values one hundred, ninety, one hundred ten dollars in Pin Pals and pet-contest layers are never face prices.
The Garden Tour and the Home Tour
Garden Tour, Cape Fear Garden Club, ticketed, self-guided, April 10 to 12, 2026, 10 to 5. Theme, unmerged: The Joy of April Gardens to Inspire (rundown), The Joys of April Gardens to Inspire (Garden Club page). Count, unreconciled: thirteen (Garden Club page) against ten private gardens and ten various locations (rundown). Secret Gardens six to nine, shuttle-only from Autumn Hall, 630 Carolina Bay Drive. Garden Club year misprint: 2026 tour dates under the year 2025, never the tour’s year. Ribbon cutting: Friday 9:30, Cameron Art Museum, 3201 South 17th Street, with Coastal Strings. Tickets: fifty dollars online, Garden Club page, agreed by rundown, under-twelve free with adult ticketholders. Older prices, fenced entire, never modern: thirty-five dollars (magazine layer), twenty-five dollars (sixty-fifth annual tour layer).
Home Tour, Historic Wilmington Foundation, ticketed, self-guided, Saturday and Sunday 2026, noon to 5, fifty dollars, rundown layer. Homes: south side, Market to Queen Streets, South Sixth Street to Cape Fear River, never Greenfield Lake Amphitheater, despite a rundown heading placing the tour layer there. Thirty dollars in a 2018 layer is fenced to 2018, never modern.
The Street Fair, the Parade, and Saturday Fireworks
Street Fair, free, Front Street, Red Cross to Orange, rundown layer. 2026 hours: Friday April 10, 6 to 10; Saturday April 11, 10 to 10; Sunday April 12, 10 to 5. Food, drink, and merchandise for purchase. 2025: Friday April 4 to Sunday April 6, Front Street, Orange to Red Cross, same daily shape, City layer. Vendor application fee mentioned, figure unstated, so none given.
Parade, free to watch, bleachers paid seating only, never admission. 2026: Saturday April 11, 9:30, Third Street. Routes, per layer, never merged: Market to Brunswick (2026 rundown); Dock through Market to Bladen (newsletter); Market north to Brunswick (tourism guide). Bleachers: eight dollars advance, ten dollars parade day per section, festival 2026 map, governing over rundown flat eight. 2025: Saturday April 5, 9:30 to 11, South Third Street.
Fireworks, Saturday night, Cape Fear River, free to view in every layer. Boom and Bloom Bonanza, ticketed aboard-Battleship party, Saturday 7:30, fireworks 9. Price unreconciled: rundown Free to thirty against body thirty-nine, including chair, popcorn, music, dancing, under-five free; family guide thirty, also under-five free. Paid item only the party, never watching fireworks.
Smaller Stages, Shows, and Displays
Boxing: Saturday and Sunday, 2 to 5, Convention Center, 515 Nutt Street, USA Boxing sanctioned. Dance Party: Friday, 6 to 9, same venue, 10 Convention Center Drive, forms not merged. Coin Show: Saturday, 10 to 5, and Sunday, 10 to 4, Elks Lodge, 5102 Oleander Drive, free. Art Show and Sale: through April 12, Hannah Block Historic USO and Community Arts Center, free, street number in conflict, 120 South Second Street (rundown) against 118 South Second Street (festival parking list), neither settled. Aviation Display: Wilmington International Airport, Saturday, noon to 5, and Sunday in guide layers. Airlie Party: Friday 11, Airlie Gardens, 5725 Oleander Drive, ticketholders only, then free After Garden Get Down at 2; standalone 2026 price unverified; patron form two hundred ten dollars, plus tax; pair value four hundred twenty dollars, Pin Pals; neither a gate price. Corvette Show: Sunday, Jeff Gordon Chevrolet, spectators free, entrants thirty dollars to enter the contest, twenty dollars to display only, entrant money, never admission. Tunes and Blooms: Sunday from noon, Greenfield Lake Amphitheater, free.
Planning Your Visit
Choose Events First, Then Build Around Them
No general admission, so choose events, not a pass. Free first: Street Fair, parade, coronation, shore fireworks, Tunes and Blooms. Then ticketed: concert, Garden Tour, Home Tour, Battleship party. Check each event page for venue. Festival office phone 910.794.4650 is a contact form, not a venue. Free means free for that event only.
Tickets, Timing, and Getting Around
Outside-channel tickets carry a warning: tickets not bought through its ticketing provider or box office may be lost, stolen, or counterfeit. Parking prices are unverified in every festival-side layer fetched. The exact weekend moves with Easter, and 2027 is a save-the-date only, with no programme or price asserted. Satellite cycle events are festival-cycle events, never festival-week programme: January Chefs’ Showcase, March Spring Fashion Show and Scholarship Pageant, April 4 Azalea Sweep. No festival camping offer is documented in the layers used here.
A Sample Weekend
Friday: Garden Tour, Street Fair evening, Friday concert. Saturday: parade, Home Tour, Coin Show, Battleship party or shore fireworks. Sunday: Street Fair, garden or art show, Tunes and Blooms. One day only: Saturday. Book ticketed events first.
How the Festival Compares Within Itself
Compare the festival’s own layers, not another event. Free: coronation, street fair, parade, boxing, coin show, aviation, fireworks, closing music. Ticketed: concerts, tours, parties. Private: receptions and gala, not public. Do not call the whole festival free or expensive from one layer.
Checklist for Your Visit
- Choose events first: there is no general festival ticket.
- Book ticketed events first: concerts, Garden Tour, Home Tour, Battleship party.
- Treat free events as free for that event only; budget for food, merchandise, bleachers.
- Check each event’s venue by name: no single grounds, venues change by year.
- Do not use the ticket office address as a venue; Unit B7 is not Airlie Gardens.
- Confirm the year’s dates before booking travel: the April weekend moves with Easter.
- Expect downtown parking to be unpriced in festival layers; check the rate itself.
- Leave camping and overnight stays out of the plan: no festival camping offer.
- Buy tickets only through the festival’s own ticketing channel or box office.
- Keep the 2027 dates as a save-the-date only until a programme and prices appear.
Beyond the Festival Grounds
No festival grounds exist to step beyond: the surroundings are Wilmington itself, host city and county seat. Downtown gives the street-fair and parade setting, Airlie Gardens the garden-party setting, and the Cape Fear River the fireworks backdrop, with the Battleship as coronation and party site. Tour gardens show residential Wilmington; shuttle-only Secret Gardens reach beyond the centre. Beaches are the wider Wilmington area, not a festival site.
Why the Festival Matters
The festival matters because a 1948 gardens celebration grew into a five-day civic showcase of gardens, artwork, history, and culture. Free street events give access, ticketed events give depth, and the citywide spread makes the festival Wilmington in festival week. Its recent history matters too: a cancelled 2020 edition and a reimagined 2021 form show edition numbers running through a year with no festival held, honestly recorded rather than smoothed away.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a general admission ticket for the North Carolina Azalea Festival?
No general admission is published in any year. Structure: free, ticketed, and private events, so admission is decided event by event. Free: Street Fair, street parade, coronation, shore fireworks. Ticketed: concerts, Garden Tour, Home Tour, Airlie Party, Battleship party. Private receptions and gala are not public events.
When does the North Carolina Azalea Festival take place?
Annual five-day Wednesday to Sunday celebration, first few weeks of April, exact weekend changing with Easter. 2026: April 8 to 12. 2025: April 2 to 6. 2027: April 7 to 11, save-the-date only, no programme yet published in the layers used here.
Which parts of the festival are free and which parts require tickets?
Free: Coronation, Street Fair, Parade, Aviation Display, Boxing, Coin Show, Fireworks, Tunes and Blooms, After Garden Get Down. Ticketed: both concerts, Garden Tour, Airlie Party, Dance Party, Thalian performance, Celebration of African American Arts and Culture, Home Tour, Boom and Bloom Bonanza. Private: Celebrity Reception, school, hospital, and Brigade visits, Patrons’ Party Gala, not public ticketed events.
Where does the festival take place, and is there one main site?
No single grounds or main site. Across Wilmington: Historic Downtown (Street Fair, parade), Live Oak Bank Pavilion (concerts), Airlie Gardens (Airlie Party), Battleship (2026 coronation, fireworks party), gardens and homes (tours). Ticket office, 5725 Oleander Drive, Unit B7, office only, never a venue.
What to Expect From the Next New Hanover County North Carolina North Carolina Azalea Festival
How often is the New Hanover County North Carolina North Carolina Azalea Festival held?
Held annually, once a year, as a five-day Wednesday to Sunday celebration in April, with the exact April weekend moving from year to year with the changing date of Easter, so each year’s dates must be checked against that year’s own announcement.
When is the next New Hanover County North Carolina North Carolina Azalea Festival?
Next announced: 80th North Carolina Azalea Festival, April 7 to 11, 2027, save-the-date only, no 2027 programme, lineup, venue change, or price asserted. Wait for the festival’s own 2027 event pages before booking around any specific event.
Will the dates change?
Yes, the dates change with Easter. 2025 ran April 2 to 6, 2026 ran April 8 to 12, and the announced 2027 edition runs April 7 to 11, so no year’s dates should be treated as permanent.
Plan event by event, venue by venue, year by year. Wilmington in April, at garden peak, is the setting celebrated since 1948, and five days across the city, rather than a single ground, are the festival itself.
