Richland County Ohio Fair Festival
For one August week, Mansfield does double duty. It is the seat of Richland County, and it also hosts the Richland County Fair at the fairgrounds on North Home Road, so courthouse town and fair town are the same place. The Richland County Agricultural Society runs the week, pairing a deep junior livestock programme with two harness-racing cards and an evening run that changes nightly. Its paperwork is candid: prices come chiefly from a single fair book, the history arrives in layers that refuse to line up, and its campground rules separate admitting a vehicle from admitting its passengers.
About the Mansfield Fair
The organiser is the Richland County Agricultural Society, printed in that exact form across state reports, the fair book, board minutes and press coverage. Its book-internal variants, The Richland County Agriculture Society and RCAS, belong to their pages only. The Junior Fair side carries the youth programme; the Senior Fairboard handles the senior and open side. Documented recent runs are August 4 to 10 in 2024, August 3 to 9 in 2025 and August 9 to 15 in 2026, each Sunday to Saturday. Ohio State University Extension in Richland County partners on the 4-H work and publishes the junior schedule, without running the fair. The county commissioners do not run it either, and state reports state the county is not financially accountable for the Society.
Its book mission ties the fair to agriculture, education, entertainment and youth leadership. In the older state reports fetched, from 2003 through the 2007 and 2008 cycle, the board numbered twenty-seven directors on staggered three-year terms, a count belonging to those years only. The 2024 book groups its directors by terms expiring in 2024, 2025 and 2026, and its officers for that layer are President James E. Schaub II, Vice President Christy Keith, Secretary Kathi Cutlip Mills and Treasurer Shirley Swihart.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Richland County Fair |
| Fair town | Mansfield, which also serves as the county seat |
| Organiser | Richland County Agricultural Society |
| Grounds | Richland County Fairgrounds, 750 North Home Road, Mansfield, Ohio 44906 |
| Fair office telephone | 419-747-3717 in the fair-side layers |
| Season | August, seven days running Sunday to Saturday in recent documented layers |
| The 2026 fair | Sunday, August 9 to Saturday, August 15, 2026 |
| Gate in the 2024 book | Ten dollars, with grandstand seating included |
| Camping in the 2024 book | Two hundred fifty dollars for the week |
History in Four Unreconciled Layers
The oldest layer fetched is a county history published in 1880, and it begins with a failure. An agricultural and mechanical society adopted a constitution in July 1829 and then died out. After a state law of 1846, it says, a permanent society was organised in 1849 and a fair held that autumn. Yet the volume quotes a state-board report describing the fair of September 22 and 23, 1857 as an eighth annual fair, which counts back to a first fair in 1850 and contradicts its own 1849 fair. It also records a later dissolution and an April 24 re-formation creating a new society whose name dropped only the word county.
The state auditor’s reports from 2003 through the 2007 and 2008 cycle agree the Society was founded in 1850 to operate an annual agricultural fair. That founding sits in the state record only: no auditor layer fetched gives a first-fair date, and no later report was fetched. The 2025 edition was billed as the 175th, which falls one short counted from 1850 and one high counted from an 1849 first fair. No layer explains the count, so the billing proves neither a start year nor an unbroken run.
For a useful comparison, see the Putnam County Ohio Fair Festival for another county festival.
A secondary Mansfield reference gives a start date of October 26, 1849 and a Mansfield state fair in 1872 and 1873. No fair-side or state layer corroborates either claim, so neither counts as fact here. The county’s own creation in 1808, organisation in 1813 and naming for rich soil are county facts, not fair-founding evidence.
What to Expect During Fair Week
Two Nights of Harness Racing Open the Grandstand
Harness racing remains current at Mansfield, documented in the book’s speed programme, board minutes, the state schedule’s 2026 asterisk and the national racing schedule for Mansfield that year. In 2026 the cards fell on Sunday, August 9 and Monday, August 10 at 5:30 p.m. The 2024 book ran its cards at the same hour, with track records in their years: Go Go Tiger and A TC Queenie each trotted 2:01.0, in 2001 and 2018, while Swing City paced 1:58.1 in 2020. An older state-record stakes name and the book’s circuit conditions stand unmerged; neither names the 2026 series.
An Evening Card That Never Repeats Its Tuesday
The 2026 card moved to wiener dog races on Tuesday at 7 p.m., then Wednesday rodeo, a Thursday county tractor pull, Friday motocross and a Saturday demolition derby at 5 p.m. In 2025 Tuesday held a Christian concert by Riley Clemmons and Jordan Feliz, the week’s only non-free grandstand event in the president’s layer, before rodeo, a tractor and truck pull, motocross and the derby. The 2024 book opened Tuesday with Touch A Truck at 6 p.m., then rodeo, a truck-pull circuit and county pull night, motocross and a closing derby, with fireworks in a republication of that year only. Tuesday changed in every year fetched, so no Tuesday act is a standing feature.
The Junior Fair Fills the Barns and Arenas
In the 2026 Extension schedule, livestock showing spreads across the Show Arena, Horse Arena, Draft Horse Arena and Poultry Barn, covering poultry, sheep, goats, rabbits, feeder calves, born-and-bred steers, market beef, beef breeding and market hogs. Saddle-horse classes span western and English riding, gymkhana and versatility, draft horses work in hitches and halter classes, and a dog agility show lands on opening Sunday. A new show arena in the minutes and an Old Show Arena in the schedule’s weigh-in wording stand unmerged.
Pageants, Baking Contests and the Halls
The Hartz Building carries the Junior Fair King and Queen Pageant and Coronation on opening Sunday, Bakea-Rama and Skilla-Rama and the Talent Show, all in the 2026 Extension layer. Youth Hall holds 4-H booths and still-project judging. Fairhaven Hall hosts an opening ceremony in the book’s layer, vendors and nonprofits in the 2025 press layer and livestock interview judging in the Extension layer. The Arts and Crafts Building, holds open-class arts, cooking, baking, needlework, canning and plants. The Nature Park is a permanent feature, and two livestock sales in the 2025 press layer lead toward the Friday Showman of Showmen. No midway operator appears in the 2024 book or any 2026 layer; McGinnis Rides is named only in a 2025 fair-side social post quoted by the press.
Planning Your Visit
Getting to North Home Road
Aim for the Society’s long-form address: 750 North Home Road, Mansfield, Ohio 44906. The fair’s documents also print a shortened street form for the same grounds. No other Richland community hosts any part of the current fair.
What the 2024 Book Charged at the Gate
Every complete price ladder behind this article comes from the fair’s own 2024 book, governing 2024 in its terms. General gate admission was ten dollars, children forty-eight inches and under were free, and grandstand seating was included in the gate. A Membership Ticket and a Season Ticket, each carrying seven admissions, each cost forty dollars, and a Commercial Exhibitor’s Pass cost eight dollars for one day or forty dollars for seven admissions. That eight-dollar figure bought an exhibitor’s day pass, never the public gate.
Memberships were on sale through August 2, 2024 at forty dollars, open to county residents aged eighteen or older, one per person, with directors required to be members. The same forty dollars carried seven admissions plus the right to vote in an election held on the Friday between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Exhibitors faced their own entry-form condition: all entries must either purchase a season pass or a membership pass. On Senior Citizens Day the book charged senior citizens five dollars; on Armed Forces Day veterans and active-duty visitors entered free with proper identification; Kids Day ran Tuesday from noon to 4 p.m. with a ten-dollar gate and wristband.
The admission page pairs Senior Citizens Day with Monday, August 7 and Armed Forces Day with Thursday, August 10, pairings belonging to the 2023 calendar. Elsewhere in the same book, the grandstand block places those days on Monday, August 5 and Thursday, August 8. The admission page’s day-numbers are a stale layer inside the book.
Rides cost one dollar per ticket, twenty-four for twenty dollars, with wristbands at twenty dollars Sunday through Wednesday and twenty-five dollars Thursday through Saturday. Grandstand extras were components, not a second gate: reserved seats at ten dollars on rodeo, pull, motocross and derby nights, pit entry at ten dollars and back-gate entry at twenty dollars on pull and motocross nights, and back-gate entry at twenty dollars at the derby. The 2026 grandstand layer repeats that pattern, grandstand included, but states no gate price, and no figure here is a 2026 price. Press coverage of 2025 states a ten-dollar admission and gates open from 8 in the morning until 10 p.m., in its layer only. Never mistake for admission a one-hundred-dollar golf-cart pass from a 2023-effective addendum, exhibitor entry fees, a two-hundred-eighty-five-dollar booth lease recorded by the commissioners for the 2026 fair, or a thirty-dollar nightly vendor camping rate from a May craft show at the same grounds.
Camping Without Assuming Admission Is Included
The 2024 book runs a priced, rule-bound fair-week campground. Its addendum prices a campsite at two hundred fifty dollars for the 2024 week, and camper lot rental at two hundred fifty dollars for the 2025 fair, due by Friday, August 9, 2024. No 2026 camping price was fetched fair-side. The Society’s June 2026 minutes record seven open sites offered through a camper lottery, and state no price.
Campers and golf carts enter through the East Gate only, check in with a campground committee member, and may not move in early unless approved and escorted. A special vehicle pass admits the vehicle alone; every person inside must hold an admission ticket or pass, so camping never includes admission under this book. Vehicles may stay for loading only until Sunday at 10 a.m., then face towing. Hookups are a single thirty-amp service, and drawing beyond it through an adapter cuts the power and ends the site’s use. The licensee must be eighteen or older and answers for everyone on the lot. Sites cannot be transferred or sublet, open fires are barred, quiet hours run from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. The one-hundred-dollar golf-cart pass is a vehicle pass, never a camping rate.
A Sample Day Built From the Documented Week
Start a Sunday visit with the opening-day junior programme: dog agility, early livestock classes and the Hartz Building pageant and coronation. Spend midday between Youth Hall’s still projects and the open-class rooms, Be in the grandstand before 5:30 p.m. for the first harness-racing card, and end the evening walking the midway rows and barns.
How the Years Compare With Each Other
The three recent cards show a fixed spine and a restless middle. Racing opens the grandstand on Sunday and Monday, rodeo claims Wednesday, motocross takes Friday and the derby closes on Saturday. Thursday belongs to pulling in every layer. Tuesday is the experiment slot, rotating from climb-on trucks, to a ticketed Christian concert, to wiener dog races. Prices agree only partly: the 2024 book’s ten-dollar gate is echoed in the 2025 press layer, while 2026 publishes components and no gate.
Before You Set Out
- Plan around Mansfield itself, since seat and fair town are the same here.
- Use the 2024 book only as a 2024 record, and confirm the current gate first.
- Carry proper identification for any veterans’ or active-duty promotion.
- Treat a camper’s vehicle pass as vehicle entry alone; every passenger needs a ticket or pass.
- Enter camping through the East Gate, and expect a single thirty-amp hookup.
- Leave the admission page’s August 7 and August 10 dates out of any plan; they belong to an older calendar.
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Mansfield carries the county’s working centre as well as its fair. The courthouse record places the Richland County Courthouse at 50 Park Avenue East in the county seat of Mansfield, and the county took its name from the rich quality of its soil. With courthouse and fairgrounds in one town, county business, restaurants and lodging all sit within reach of North Home Road. The grounds stay busy outside fair week through rentals and community events in older state layers and a year-round venue-rental operation today. Those uses are not fair programme, and no rental figure from them belongs in a fair budget.
Why the Mansfield Week Matters
The book’s mission ties this fair to agriculture, education, entertainment and youth leadership, and the documented week shows all four at once. Junior exhibitors sell animals, defend projects in interview judging and chase showmanship honours alongside open-class bakers and gardeners. Harness racing, lost at many county fairs, still opens the grandstand here. And the fair’s publications preserve their own disagreements in public view.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the county seat host this fair, or is it held elsewhere?
Mansfield does both jobs: it is the county seat in the courthouse record, and the fair’s own layers place the fair at its North Home Road fairgrounds.
What did the fair’s own book charge for general admission?
The 2024 book set general admission at ten dollars including grandstand seating, with children forty-eight inches and under free. No fair-side ladder for 2026 was fetched, so it is not a current price.
Does a camping booking cover entry for everyone in the vehicle?
No. Under the 2024 book, the vehicle pass admits only the vehicle through the East Gate, and every person inside must separately buy a ticket or hold a pass.
Which grandstand night changes most from year to year?
Tuesday, which moved from Touch A Truck in 2024, to a Christian concert in 2025, to wiener dog races in 2026.
What to Expect From the Next Richland County Ohio Fair Festival
How often is Richland County Ohio Fair Festival held?
It returns once each year, filling seven August days from Sunday through Saturday in the recent documented pattern.
When is the next Richland County Ohio Fair Festival?
The fair’s own homepage bills the edition after the 2026 run as August 8 to August 14, 2027, at the Mansfield fairgrounds, a forward announcement in its own layer.
Will the dates change?
Within August, the Sunday-to-Saturday span moves with the calendar, as recent runs and the announced 2027 edition show. The month and seven-day shape have stayed constant.
Read this fair on its own terms: the seat hosts, prices wear their year openly, the past arrives in arguing layers, and a campground pass covers a vehicle only.
