Northampton County Pennsylvania Blue Valley Farm Show Festival
On five evenings in mid August, a stretch of American Bangor Road outside Bangor turns into a working showcase of Northampton County agriculture. The queue title carries the words County and Festival, but the event itself is the Blue Valley Farm Show, the annual August farm show of the county’s Slate Belt country. Judged exhibits fill the buildings, baking contests draw entries from across the county, and young livestock exhibitors bring their animals into the ring. It opens after the working day and saves its longest hours for Saturday.
About the Blue Valley Farm Show
The show is organised by Blue Valley Farm Show Inc, the incorporated form carried on its own premium book and vendor Info Sheet. In tax-exempt listing layers the organiser stands inside a longer group form, Pennsylvania State Association Of County Fairs, Blue Valley Farm Show Inc, belonging to those layers only. The Info Sheet speaks of the Farm Show committee in its vendor guidance, and that committee wording is that document’s alone. Penn State Extension and the county 4-H programme run the livestock Round Ups and the Youth Livestock Sale held at the show, making them programme partners here and never the organiser.
Bangor hosts the show, and every fair-side and state layer places it there, at 707 American Bangor Road, Bangor, Pennsylvania 18013. A different number, 700 American Bangor Road, belongs to the Slate Belt Senior Center at the same complex in its own layers and is never a second address for the show. Post Office Box 70 in Bangor appears in the tax layers for the incorporated organiser and is a mailing address only, never the grounds. Some vendor listings print Roseto beside the 707 address, but that locality wording never makes Roseto the host town. No layer names a township for the grounds, so none is claimed here.
Easton is the county seat of Northampton County, and Easton does not host this show. The seat rests only on the Pennsylvania State Archives county courthouses table, which records the county’s creation on March 11, 1752, a county date and never a fair date.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Blue Valley Farm Show, the annual August farm show of the Slate Belt and Bangor area |
| Host community | Bangor, Pennsylvania |
| County seat | Easton, which does not host the show |
| Grounds | 707 American Bangor Road, Bangor, Pennsylvania 18013 |
| Organiser | Blue Valley Farm Show Inc |
| Documented 2026 dates | August 11 to 15, 2026 |
| Documented 2025 dates | August 12 to 16, 2025, from a vendor listing layer |
| Admission | No visitor gate price is published in any fair-side layer |
| Parking | No visitor parking price or term is published |
| Camping | No fair-side camping terms are published |
Two Billings That Refuse to Add Up
This show’s history has to be told honestly, because the record contains no founding statement at all. Neither its own premium book nor its vendor Info Sheet states a founding year, a first show or a history, so no founding year can be printed for it.
For a useful comparison, see the Montour County Pennsylvania Montour-Delong Community Fair Festival for another county festival.
What survives instead is billing, and the billing contradicts itself. A newspaper layer from 1992 billed the show opening that August as the 47th annual Blue Valley Farm Show, describing its ground along Route 512 between Bangor and Pen Argyl. A fair flyer reprinted in a Slate Belt community paper billed a 75th Annual Blue Valley Farm Show on the same road. Those two billings do not reconcile with a continuous count, because the gap between the numbers is smaller than the years separating the layers. At least one year in the sequence was either not counted or not held, and no layer explains which or why.
So no founding year may be worked backwards from either billing, no edition count may be carried into the present, and no unbroken run may be implied. A tax layer dating the organiser’s exempt status ruling to August 1991 is a ruling date in that layer only, never a founding. A show so billed in 1992 was already a settled Slate Belt institution by then.
What to Expect
Judged Exhibits and the Baking Contests
The standing heart of the show is the judged exhibit. Its own vendor Info Sheet has exhibits and vendors setting up on the Monday and Tuesday of show week, with nothing dismantled until after the Saturday close. The show’s 2025 premium book fills in the contest side, and everything in it belongs to the 2025 edition. Its state baking contests cover Angel Food Cake, Blue Ribbon Apple Pie, Homemade Chocolate Cake and a junior baking class, with prizes of twenty five dollars for first, fifteen for second and ten for third. Its Vegetable Quick Bread Contest paid forty, twenty and ten dollars in the same order. Its Peach Dessert Contest, sponsored by Gulick’s Farm and open to Northampton County residents only, paid forty dollars and half a bushel of peaches for first, twenty for second and ten for third. First place winners in that book could advance to competition at the 2026 Pennsylvania Farm Show, the state show’s business and not this show’s.
The Round Ups and the Youth Livestock Sale
The other pillar is youth livestock. Northampton County 4-H holds its livestock Round Ups at this show, and Extension reports describe youngsters exhibiting animals prepared over months. The sale layer names the animals passing through the Youth Livestock Sale: dairy beef, goats, hogs, lambs, poultry, steer and meat rabbits. For 2024, Extension’s report fences the mechanics to that year alone, with the Poultry and Dairy Round Ups on Tuesday, August 13, a Round Robin Showmanship Championship during the week and the Youth Livestock Sale closing the show on Saturday, August 17, 2024. None of those 2024 arrangements is promised for any other year.
Music and Dinners in Their Own Years
Entertainment reaches this record one year at a time, and each act stays where it was billed. A Slate Belt layer puts a Steel Creek performance at the show on Friday, August 15, 2025, at half past seven, belonging to 2025 only. The 2022 schedule layer gives Monday, August 15 of that year to exhibits opening at five, a dairy youth show and open dairy show, and the Jesse Wade Gang playing country music, while its Wednesday pairs a poultry show Round Up with a charcoal broil steak dinner. The 2021 flyer layer differs again, with Tuesday morning exhibit judging, a Turkey Bar-B-Que dinner, Bingo, garden tractor pulls and an oldies act billed as New Individuals. Furthest back, the 1992 layer opens with a Talent Show and antique engines, plus hot dinners at the main building from local groups including Bady’s Grove, the Richmond Lions Club, Wind Gap United Methodist Church, the Blue Valley Rescue Squad and the Bangor Exchange Club. All of that is a 1992 bill, not a modern programme.
Planning Your Visit
Dates, Year by Year
The state agriculture guide lists the show from August 11 to 15, 2026, as its entry 38, and a performer layer treats Tuesday, August 11, 2026, as opening night. The 2025 span of August 12 to 16 comes from a vendor’s event listing rather than the show itself, corroborated inside that week by a Slate Belt performance layer and by the show’s own 2025 premium book. Layers built on the weekday pattern of a community paper place the 2024 show from August 13 to 17, and a guide layer headed with 2022 dates gives August 16 to 20, 2022. The 2021 flyer records exhibits entered on Monday, August 9, and opening on Tuesday, August 10, in that layer only. Separate from every year, the undated Info Sheet sets the daily rhythm at five until ten each night, with Saturday running from one until eleven. Those hours are an undated layer, never any single year’s dates.
The Gate That Nobody Published
No fair-side layer publishes what a visitor pays to walk in. Nothing in the show’s own book, its Info Sheet or the state guide prices general admission, so this article will not guess a figure or promise entry without charge. The money that does appear is all fenced elsewhere. An older registration layer, its year unstated, charged exhibitors two dollars for an exhibitor’s number with unlimited entries, an exhibitor fee and never admission. A Slate Belt layer carries ride wristband specials, twenty dollars for a two wristband special on its Tuesday and twelve dollars for a wristband on its Thursday, ride prices in that layer only. The Info Sheet’s one hundred twenty five dollar beverage licence is what a non food vendor pays to sell drinks. A twelve dollar race entry from 2022 and a five dollar book sale bag day are satellite money from other grounds events, not the price of the show.
Parking Rules and the Camping Gap
Visitor parking is the second open question, because no layer publishes a visitor price or promise. The only parking terms on the fair-side record are Info Sheet rules for exhibitors and vendors: two car passes per exhibitor space, towing for vehicles left in vendor parking without a pass, and no vehicles on the fairgrounds after four each afternoon. Those rules govern exhibitors and vendors, and tell visitors nothing about parking costs. Camping is simpler still: no camping rate, hookup term or fair week provision exists in the record, so camping at the Bangor grounds is unverified entire and no stay should be planned on it. Campgrounds trading on the Blue Valley name in Nebraska and Washington are different places and fill none of this gap.
A Sample Evening at the Show
Arrive as the day opens at five and start with the exhibit buildings, while judging results are fresh. Give the livestock barns their turn next, because Round Up classes reward patient watching. Eat on the grounds early in the evening, then drift towards whatever music the current year’s own schedule actually names. Save a last circuit of the vendor rows before the ten o’clock close, and keep Saturday in reserve if a longer day appeals, since the undated hours stretch that day from one until eleven.
How This Show Stands Beside Its Neighbours
Northampton County’s other summer gatherings stay separate in the record. The state guide lists the Plainfield Farmers Fair, a different fair in the Nazareth area running July 21 to 25 in the 2026 guide, as entry 37, immediately before this show’s entry 38, and nothing from Plainfield crosses into Bangor. The county also has a standalone 4-H Round Up event based at the 4-H Center in Nazareth, separate entirely, while the Round Ups held at Blue Valley are programme inside this show. The Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg is a January state show on another scale entirely. Measured against those, Blue Valley is the Slate Belt’s own evening exhibition, built around county exhibits and young livestock exhibitors.
Visitor Checklist
- Aim for Bangor and 707 American Bangor Road, not Easton, which is only the county seat.
- Recheck the current year’s own dates before travelling, as each documented span belongs to its own year.
- Carry cash for food and rides, since no published layer prices the gate.
- Ask at the grounds about visitor parking on arrival, as no visitor parking terms are published.
- Make no camping plans on this record, because no fair camping terms exist in it.
- Treat any act or dinner named for 2025, 2022, 2021 or 1992 as history unless the current year repeats it.
- If exhibiting, note the older layer’s two dollar exhibitor number and the Info Sheet’s two car passes per space.
Beyond the Fairgrounds
The grounds earn their keep outside show week, although none of that activity is the farm show. A farmers market trades at the complex on Sundays from May into October in its own opening layer, the Slate Belt Senior Center runs a daily programme at its 700 American Bangor Road address, and races, cruises and breakfasts fill other dates there in their own layers. The 1992 layer’s geography still orients a visitor: the show sits along Route 512 between Bangor and Pen Argyl, deep in the Slate Belt. Easton, the seat, is a separate destination with no part in this event, and Nazareth’s fair and Round Up belong to their own grounds and weeks.
Why the Blue Valley Farm Show Matters
A farm show like this one does quiet work that bigger fairs cannot. It gives the Slate Belt’s growers, bakers and home exhibitors a judged table close to home, and the county’s 4-H members a real ring and a sale at season’s end. An event documented across recent editions through its own premium book, vendor sheet, the state guide and Extension’s reports, yet never publishing its own gate price, is plainly run for its exhibitors and neighbours first. That modesty is part of its character, and this record respects it by printing the gaps as gaps.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Blue Valley Farm Show held in Easton?
No. Bangor hosts the show at 707 American Bangor Road. Easton is the county seat of Northampton County, and the seat takes no part in hosting it.
What does admission to the show cost?
That question has no answer in the published record. No fair-side layer states a visitor gate price for any year, and the figures that do appear are exhibitor fees, contest prizes, ride specials or vendor charges, none of which is admission.
Can visitors camp at the fairgrounds during the show?
No camping arrangement can be confirmed. The show’s own book and Info Sheet contain no camping rate, hookup rule or fair week provision, so camping here is unverified entire.
Who organises the Blue Valley Farm Show?
Blue Valley Farm Show Inc organises it, under that incorporated name in its own publications. Extension and the county 4-H programme run the Round Ups and the Youth Livestock Sale held at the show, which is programme work and never the organising of the show itself.
What to Expect From the Next Northampton County Pennsylvania Blue Valley Farm Show Festival
How often is Northampton County Pennsylvania Blue Valley Farm Show Festival held?
The documented pattern is one five day run in mid August each year, proven by the 2025 book, the guide’s 2026 listing and Extension reports on the 2025 and 2024 editions. Evening opening with a longer Saturday is the standing rhythm in its undated hours layer.
When is the next Northampton County Pennsylvania Blue Valley Farm Show Festival?
On the documented record, the next edition is the one the state guide lists from August 11 to 15, 2026, at the Bangor grounds. No later dates are printed here.
Will the dates change?
They have moved gently within the same part of August, sitting mid month in 2022, 2024, 2025 and 2026 alike. A future edition could shift by a few days as calendars turn, so the current year’s own listing should always be checked before travel.
For a visitor willing to accept two unanswered questions about the gate and the car park, this show offers something rare: a county’s agriculture, judged and celebrated on its own ground, in its own month, by its own people.
