Robeson County North Carolina Fair Festival
Late September turns Lumberton toward its fairgrounds. The Robeson County Fair is a nine-to-ten-day agricultural fair filling the Robeson County Fairgrounds with livestock shows, home exhibits, rides, food and local entertainment. Lumberton is the county seat of Robeson County, and hosts it.
The fair’s own site is already headed with its next announced run, September 30 through October 9, 2027, billed as ten days of fun in 2027. The most recent edition in the fair’s own vendor and forms layers ran October 1 through 10, 2026. Two complications stay visible in this article: the fair’s tickets page carries prices it does not assign to 2027, and its headline anniversary billing does not sit in one settled year either.
About the Fair
Two name forms are in simultaneous use, recorded unmerged. Robeson County Fair is the site masthead and the name its history says was officially adopted in 1999. Robeson Regional Agricultural Fair is the form in its own history for 2018 to 2024 and in Extension previews for 2024 and 2025. Older forms belong to their eras: Robeson County Agricultural and Industrial Fair in the headings of the nineteen-eighties and nineteen-nineties, and Robeson County Farmers Festival at the founding. A directory form, Robeson Regional Agricultural Show, is a listing form only.
The present operator is the volunteer Fair Board, named in the vendor layer as the Robeson County Fair Board. The Jaycees and the fair corporation belong to the founding story below, not to a modern credit. Cooperative Extension’s Robeson County Center is a partner and 4-H organiser in its own layers, never the operator. Big Rock Amusements is the carnival provider, never an organiser.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Robeson County Fair, also published as Robeson Regional Agricultural Fair |
| Location | Robeson County Fairgrounds, Lumberton |
| Host town | Lumberton, which is the county seat of Robeson County |
| Grounds address | 3750 Martin Luther King Jr Drive, Lumberton |
| Timing | Annual fair in late September and early October, nine to ten days |
| Most recent edition | October 1 through 10, 2026, in the fair’s vendor and forms layers |
| Next announced edition | September 30 through October 9, 2027, in the fair’s own site header |
| Admission in 2025 and 2026 | Standalone gate price unverified in the layers fetched |
| Operator | The volunteer Fair Board, as the Robeson County Fair Board |
| Camping | None documented as a fair offer |
History
The fair’s own history page opens with its founders. The Lumberton Jaycees were organised in October 1946 by returned World War II veterans, and before the first festival a separate corporation was formed, the Robeson County Agricultural and Industrial Exposition, Incorporated. Incorporated on November 20, 1948, it owned the property and assets, paid insurance and maintained the property, its officers and directors totally separate from the Jaycees’ own. Those are founding-era forms, never the present operator’s legal name here.
For a useful comparison, see the Richmond County North Carolina Fair Festival for another county festival.
The first festival is documented directly, not calculated. The first annual Robeson County Farmers Festival was a one-day affair on October 7, 1947. Rain poured all day, but the show went on, with a parade the history says more than ten thousand people viewed, tickets at one dollar each and almost fifteen hundred at the barbecue dinner: the history’s own founding-era claims, never audited totals.
The early fair moved around Lumberton. Exhibits for 1947 were held in a tobacco warehouse on First Street, and the fair later used Armory Field and then the old-airport site, having also operated on West Fifth Street. A longtime volunteer’s note records the relocation in 1975 to the present site, described there by its highway. All of those are historic site layers; the current grounds address is the Martin Luther King Jr Drive address above, and no acreage is asserted for the present grounds.
Edition billings are recorded in their own layers, never reconciled. The history headings give a fiftieth annual for 1996 and a fifty-third for 1999, the year the name changed officially. Its 2019 layer sets a seventy-third annual. The 2021 fair was planned for a record breaking seventy-fifth year. The board’s vision text, dated to a March meeting in the 2024 section, celebrates a seventy-eighth annual. The current homepage celebrates an eightieth annual beside mission wording for the 2026 fair and beyond, while the same page is headed with 2027 dates, and a straight sequence would place the eightieth in 2026. That conflict is left standing: no edition number is asserted for 2025, 2026 or 2027, and no founding year is back-calculated, because 1947 stands on its own documentation.
Two missing years break any uninterrupted run, and the billings count them anyway. For 2020 the full board decided the fair would be cancelled, with virtual 4-H shows only. For 2021, a September vote passed by a two-thirds margin to close the fair, and the board also voted to close the grounds until 2022, with 4-H animal shows at an alternate location. No public fair was held in either year. The fair returned September 29 through October 8, 2022, opening one day and six hours late due to a hurricane, then ran September 28 through October 6, 2023 under the theme We Have it All, and September 27 through October 5, 2024.
What to Expect
The Daily Spine
The fair’s homepage, in its layer for the 2026 fair and beyond, promises 4-H youth activities, youth livestock and animal shows, vendors, home exhibits, local entertainment, food vendors and Big Rock Amusements daily. Its free featured attractions there are a clown circus, a petting zoo and a law enforcement static display. The clown act’s name is unmerged across layers: Lew-E’s Clown Circus on the homepage, Lewee the Clown in the 2025 preview, and Lew-E’s Comedy Circus in 2024.
The 2026 Forms Programme
The fair’s forms index documents the 2026 components without a day-by-day schedule. Its livestock side carries a Goat Show, Heifer and Steers, a Lamb Show, Poultry Shows, a Rabbit Show, a Breeding Goat Show and a Livestock Schedule. Beside them stand Home Exhibits, the King Arthur Baking Contest, the Lego Brick Blitz, the Chicken Wing Cookoff, the Diaper Derby and a Pumpkin Registration, each a 2026 form. A demolition derby is documented on the tickets page as a standing component taking place throughout the fair, watched free with paid admission in that page’s wording, its pit pass price still to be announced there. No pageant, grandstand concert lineup or tractor-pull programme for 2025 through 2027 is published fair-side, and none is added here.
The 2025 Edition, in Its Own Year
The Extension’s 2025 preview, fenced entire to 2025, brought back home exhibits, hand-crafted items, farm animals and youth livestock shows, with rides, games and food including collard sandwiches, barbecue sandwiches and hamburgers. New entertainment that year was Rafter K Rodeo and Shane Hansen’s Rock-N-Circus, and new competitions were the 4-H Lego Build Blitz and the Battle of the Drumline. Ember Fire Arts returned, the King Arthur Baking contest had adults making chocolate cake and youth making muffins, and Extension and 4-H planned a scavenger hunt. Its daily specials were Car Load Night, Youth Days, Canned Food Night and Church Bulletin Sunday, each a 2025 term only.
The 2024 Edition, in Its Own Year
The 2024 layers are likewise fenced. That year’s theme was A Breath of Fresh Fair, with The High-Flying Pages, MythiCreatures and Lew-E’s Comedy Circus, local entertainment opened by Rob Cole with special guest Anna Grace Hunt, plus Antique Outlaws and Carolina the Band. Its competitions included the Chicken Pickin’ Contest, the ChainSaw Competition, the Diaper Derby and the 4-H animal shows, and a press layer counted over forty-five Big Rock rides. The planned Friday opening was cancelled for weather, and the fair opened at one in the afternoon on Saturday, September 28. The Extension’s signature-food claim that year, that no other fair can highlight collard sandwiches like this one because the favourite got its start here, is recorded only as that layer’s claim, never as a verified origin.
Planning Your Visit
Finding the Fairgrounds
Arrive at the Robeson County Fairgrounds at 3750 Martin Luther King Jr Drive in Lumberton, the address in the fair’s own vendor layers and history. One address must never be mistaken for it: 455 Caton Road is the Extension center’s own footer address, a partner’s office, never a venue or gate. The grounds also appear as Robeson Regional Agricultural Fairgrounds in a 2024 press layer, unmerged with the current form.
Admission, and the Prices That Belong to No Year
Standalone gate prices for 2025 and 2026 are unverified: the Extension previews publish none, and a zero-priced vendor-system ticket placeholder is an artefact, never a free-admission claim.
The tickets page needs its own warning. It is headed with the 2027 dates, yet tells readers to come back next year for the 2027 ticket and hours information. Every figure on it is therefore year-unassigned, printed here as no year’s price. In that layer, pay-one-price admission is twenty dollars per person per day for patrons over thirty-six inches tall, including unlimited rides, shows and entertainment, and children under thirty-six inches are free with a paying adult. The same page gives gate admission only at ten dollars, eleven dollars and eighty-five cents online, and a Mega Pass at thirty-one dollars and fifty cents in its September window and thirty-five dollars once the fair begins. Its ride specials sit uneasily beside that includes-rides wording, a tension recorded, never reconciled. Parking is free in that page’s wording, year-unassigned like the rest, and its standing gate-hour lines carry the same unverified year, never printed as 2027 hours.
One complete older ladder belongs to 2019 only. In the fair’s history, gate admission that year was eight dollars including parking, entertainment and special events, with only rides, games and food extra; midway wristbands and an advance ticket each cost twenty-five dollars. That gate-plus-extras structure differs from the tickets page’s pay-one-price structure, and neither crosses into the other’s year. Hours are fenced too: the only dated hours layer is 2024’s press layer, weekdays five until eleven and Saturday eleven until midnight, 2024 alone. Vendor money is fenced to 2026: an indoor booth at two hundred dollars, extra exhibitor passes at thirty-five dollars each, nonprofit booths at no charge, vendor terms only.
A Sample Fair Week
Arrive on the opening evening and walk the grounds once: exhibits first, then the livestock barns. Give a middle day to competitions and home exhibits, save an evening for the midway, and return on the closing weekend for anything missed.
How It Compares
Compared with a one-day town festival, this fair is deliberately long and enclosed: nine to ten days on its own gated fairgrounds, built around judged livestock, home exhibits and a midway. Compared with a state fair, it is deliberately county-scaled, its board local and voluntary. Its nearest namesakes share only words; no other regional agricultural fair’s dates, prices or programme prove anything about this one.
Visitor Checklist
- Arrive at 3750 Martin Luther King Jr Drive, not at the Extension office address
- Treat every tickets-page price as year-unassigned
- Keep the 2019 eight-dollar ladder in 2019
- Check the year’s own forms index for livestock and contest entries
- Do not assume a senior term beyond the published layers
- Keep 2025 and 2024 programme items in their own years
- Budget for food and games until the year’s prices are set
- Remember there is no fair camping documented
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Lumberton rewards a slower look beyond the gates. Named the county seat in the eighteenth century, it grew around its courthouse, and the fairgrounds sit inside that town’s life rather than apart from it. The farm roads that send livestock and exhibits in each fall belong to the same county the fair celebrates.
Why It Matters
The fair matters because it is Robeson County’s own agricultural gathering, kept by a volunteer board whose stated vision is remembering the past while nurturing future generations, and whose mission is to foster partnerships and coordinate resources to provide the best fair within the area: the board’s own statements, carried as such. Its record is honestly untidy: two live name forms, two cancelled years its billings still count, an anniversary whose year conflicts on its own homepage, and a tickets page postponing its next year’s information. Its 2019 claim to be the county’s largest educational and entertainment event is that layer’s billing, never a verified standing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the Robeson County Fair held?
At the Robeson County Fairgrounds, 3750 Martin Luther King Jr Drive, Lumberton, the county seat, which hosts the fair. The Extension center address on Caton Road is a partner’s office, never the venue.
How much does admission cost?
No year’s gate price may be quoted from the tickets page, because it postpones its 2027 information while carrying year-unverified figures: twenty dollars pay-one-price, ten dollars gate only, Mega Pass figures in the thirty-dollar range, all year-unassigned. The only year-fenced ladder is 2019, eight dollars including parking and entertainment, rides extra. Standalone 2025 and 2026 gate prices are unverified.
How old is the fair, and has it run every year?
The first festival was held on October 7, 1947, documented directly in the fair’s history, so no founding is calculated from billings. It has not run every year: 2020 was cancelled and 2021 was cancelled with the grounds closed until 2022, yet the billings count those years, and the current eightieth annual billing conflicts between 2026 and 2027 on the fair’s own homepage, so no edition number is asserted for any recent year.
Can visitors camp at the Robeson County Fairgrounds?
No camping is documented as a fair offer. No camping, recreational vehicle or overnight-stay offer appears on the fair’s own site, tickets page, history page or vendor layers, and no area campground may be described as a fair offer.
What to Expect From the Next Robeson County North Carolina Fair Festival
How often is Robeson County North Carolina Fair Festival held?
The fair is annual, a nine-to-ten-day fair in late September and early October at the Robeson County Fairgrounds, apart from its documented 2020 and 2021 cancellations.
When is the next Robeson County North Carolina Fair Festival?
The next announced edition is the site header’s run, September 30 through October 9, 2027, billed as ten days of fun in 2027. No 2027 prices or hours are published yet; the tickets page says that information is still to come. The most recent documented edition ran October 1 through 10, 2026.
Will the dates change?
The dates move every year because the fair follows a late September and early October window, not fixed dates: September 30 through October 9 in announced 2027, October 1 through 10 in 2026, September 26 through October 4 in 2025, and September 27 through October 5 in 2024.
The fair ends, as it began in 1947, with a county bringing what it grows, raises, bakes and builds to one fairground to be judged beside its neighbours.
