Suffolk County New York Long Island FunFest Festival
Suffolk County has no county fair. No agricultural society runs one here, no fair board publishes a premium book for one, and neither of the state’s fair directories carries a Suffolk County fair in its 2026 listings. What the county does have each June, in the recent documented years, is the Long Island FunFest: a commercial carnival produced by Dreamland Amusements on the Grant Campus of Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood, a hamlet in the Town of Islip in western Suffolk. It is a large midway, a bill of stage and thrill shows, and fireworks on Saturday nights — not a livestock show, not an exhibition fair, and not a county fair in any recognised sense. This article treats it on exactly those terms: what it costs, when it opens, and what the gate covers.
About the FunFest
The Long Island FunFest is a travelling carnival production, staged for eleven days on a borrowed college campus. The organiser of record is Dreamland Amusements, the midway company named in the event’s own site footer and policies; the company describes itself as providing carnivals and event rentals for over thirty years. Suffolk County Community College is the venue host and nothing more: no source makes the college, the county government, or any agricultural society, fair board or extension body an organiser. The county seat is Riverhead, far to the east, and Riverhead does not host the FunFest; the seat has a separate country fair of its own. The operator bills the FunFest in its own copy as the largest fair on the Island. That superlative is the operator’s billing, not a verified ranking, and its fuller wording claims only the family fun of a state fair, never the status of one.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Long Island FunFest |
| Event type | Commercial carnival production — not a county fair |
| Operator | Dreamland Amusements |
| Venue | Suffolk County Community College, Grant Campus, Brentwood |
| County seat | Riverhead — the seat does not host this event |
| 2026 run | Thursday, June 11 to Sunday, June 21, 2026 |
| 2026 hours | Monday to Wednesday and Friday 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Thursdays 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. |
| Gate in 2026 | Five dollars per person per day over thirty-six inches tall; shorter children free with a paying adult |
| Parking | Free, on campus |
| Camping | None offered |
A Carnival’s Short and Unnumbered History
The history has to be told as the record gives it, because the operator publishes no founding year and bills no numbered edition. An older local layer records that the event was created by Bob DeStefano, a co-owner of Dreamland Amusements, and that the company’s owners are Long Islanders based in Stony Brook; that is colour only, not a founding date, and none may be computed. What can be documented is a sequence of June runs at the same campus. A 2016 layer shows a smaller event: twenty-eight rides and a split gate of two dollars on Thursday, five dollars from Friday to Sunday. A 2019 layer shows an eleven-day run, June 13 to 23, with a five-dollar gate and tribute concerts. The company’s own later account records no Long Island operation at all in 2020 and only a limited schedule in 2021, so no unbroken annual run may be claimed. The recent sequence is continuous, though: June 15 to 25 in 2023, June 13 to 23 in 2024, June 12 to 22 in 2025, and June 11 to 21 in 2026. One honest oddity belongs here rather than in any dates box: the event’s own homepage currently carries a span of June 17 to 27 with no year attached, matching neither the documented 2025 nor the documented 2026 run, and it is recorded exactly as found, unassigned, because assigning it a year would be invention.
What to Expect
A Midway of More Than Thirty Rides
The heart of the event is its carnival midway, billed in the current layers at over thirty rides and attractions, spanning thrill, family and kiddie rides. The event’s own homepage names two of them: the Flash Dance thrill ride and the Delusion, which it calls one of a kind. Counts belong to their years — twenty-eight rides was the 2016 figure — so the thirty-plus bill is the current description, not a permanent inventory. Midway games and food stands ring the rides.
Shows Included With Admission
The feature that sets the FunFest apart from a bare travelling carnival is its show bill, included in the gate price rather than sold separately. The 2026 bill, as the operator’s listings publish it, runs to the World of Wonders Amazement Show, an old-time sideshow of ten acts including a sword swallower and a human blockhead, with its Museum of Marvels; Circus Murcia, with high-wire and aerial work, jugglers, clowns and a Globe of Death motorcycle act; the Aqua Live Spectacular, a water stunt show; and an educational petting zoo. Show bills belong strictly to their own year: the 2025 bill shared the circus and the petting zoo but differed elsewhere, offering a transforming robot car act, a BMX stunt show and a dinosaur experience instead, and none of those may be promised to a 2026 visitor.
For a useful comparison, see the Steuben County New York Fair Festival for another county festival.
Fireworks on Saturday Nights
Both Saturday nights of the 2026 run close with fireworks by Grucci, the Long Island fireworks firm. They form part of the admission-included programme rather than a separately ticketed extra, and they anchor a Saturday visit: the grounds open at 3 p.m. on weekends, leaving a long evening before the sky show ends the night.
Planning Your Visit
Getting to the Grant Campus
The campus sits in Brentwood under two published address forms, which describe the same ground and stand unmerged: 485 Wicks Road in the operator’s and listings’ layers, with directions to the Wicks Road entrance, and 1001 Crooked Hill Road in other 2026 layers, the college’s own published address. The event’s own site places it just off Exit 53 on the Long Island Expressway, and parking is free in every current layer. Layers that call the site the Grant Campus, the Michael J. Grant Campus or the Brentwood Campus all mean this one venue, never three.
The Gate, the Wristband and the Ticket Book
For 2026 the published gate is five dollars per person per day, charged to patrons over thirty-six inches tall; children under that height enter free alongside a paying adult. The gate buys entry and the shows, not rides. An unlimited-ride wristband costs forty-two dollars on site, or forty dollars in cash; the advance online layer offered wristbands at twenty-nine dollars each, two for fifty-five dollars or four for ninety-nine dollars. Single ride tickets cost one dollar and fifty cents each, twenty for thirty-two dollars (thirty dollars cash), or fifty for sixty-two dollars (sixty dollars cash) with one free ride in the largest book, and rides take several tickets apiece. The event’s own tickets page also publishes fee-inclusive online specials — one wristband at forty-one dollars and twenty-five cents, four at one hundred sixteen dollars and seventy-five cents, fifty ride tickets at fifty-six dollars and twenty-five cents. Those are online-layer figures, not gate prices, and the two sets of numbers must not be mixed into one ladder. The same five-dollar gate and wristband prices were published for 2025, as that year’s layer; the two-dollar weekday gate in older coverage belongs to 2016 and 2023 only.
Thursday Means Carload Night
The one exception to the ordinary gate is Thursday, when the general admission ticket is not valid at all: both Thursdays of the run, June 11 and June 18 in 2026, are Carload Nights, and sixty-two dollars per vehicle, or sixty dollars in cash, covers admission and unlimited rides for every legally seat-belted occupant. For a family that would otherwise buy several gates and wristbands, that flat vehicle price is the event’s signature bargain, and it explains why Thursday hours start an hour earlier, at 4 p.m. Anyone arriving on foot on a Thursday should check the terms first.
A Sample Saturday Evening
Gates open at 3 p.m. on a Saturday, so a family can arrive in full afternoon, walk the midway end to end, and choose between the wristband’s freedom and a shared book of tickets. The middle of the evening suits the included shows — circus and sideshow first, the water stunt show while there is still light — with midway food for supper in between. After dark, a last round of the big rides carries the visit through to the Grucci fireworks.
Not a County Fair, and Not the Island’s Other Fairs Either
Three confusions follow this event around. First, there is no Suffolk County Fair behind this title: no agricultural society, fair board, premium book, livestock show or 4-H programme exists for it in the record, and the state directories’ silence about a Suffolk entry is the fact of the matter. Second, the genuine Long Island Fair at Old Bethpage, in neighbouring Nassau County, is a separate agricultural fair with its own grounds, season and programme; the two share only the words Long Island, and none of its farming content belongs in Brentwood. Third, the same operator runs other Long Island events, including a larger fair production in Uniondale and mall carnivals elsewhere in Suffolk itself; same company does not mean same event, and none of their dates, acts or prices describe the FunFest. Even the county seat’s own country fair in Riverhead is a separate, volunteer-run October occasion, not a parent event and not a pedigree.
A Short Checklist Before You Go
- Confirm the day’s opening hour: Thursdays start at 4 p.m., weekends at 3 p.m., other days at 5 p.m.
- Compare the online advance wristband prices with the on-site ones before choosing.
- If the whole family comes by car, price a Thursday Carload Night against separate gates and wristbands.
- Measure small children; those under thirty-six inches tall enter free with a paying adult.
- Carry cash; the published cash prices undercut the card prices on wristbands, tickets and carload entry.
- Plan to stay for the fireworks if you attend on a Saturday.
- Remember that guests under eighteen need an accompanying adult of twenty-one or older.
- Leave camping plans out of it; there is no camping at this event.
Beyond the Festival Grounds
The FunFest grounds are a working college campus rather than a fairground, in a residential hamlet of the Town of Islip, and the visit pattern follows from that. Because the gates open in the late afternoon or early evening, the event pairs naturally with a day spent elsewhere on Long Island, ending at the Brentwood campus as the midway lights come on. The expressway exit serving the campus makes the run an easy reach from much of the island, and parking is free on campus. When the eleven days end, the campus simply goes back to being a campus until the midway returns the following June.
Why a Carnival Carries Suffolk’s June
A county of Suffolk’s size without a county fair might look like a gap on the map, but the FunFest shows what fills such gaps in practice. A professional midway operator brings rides, games, food and a surprisingly full show bill to a borrowed campus, charges a gate low enough to keep the visit casual, throws the stage programme in with admission, and saves its best bargain for a flat-price carload night. It offers no heritage, no premiums and no agricultural mission, and does not pretend to. Its significance is simpler: for eleven evenings each June it gives one of the most populous counties in the state a big, bright, inexpensive summer night out, and it asks to be judged as that, not as the county fair it never claimed to be.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Long Island FunFest the Suffolk County fair?
No, in any formal sense. Suffolk County has no recognised county fair in the state fair directories, no agricultural society runs one, and the FunFest is a commercial carnival production by a midway company on a college campus. It is the event this title names, never an agricultural county fair.
What does admission cost at the gate?
For the documented 2026 run the published gate is five dollars per person per day for anyone over thirty-six inches tall, with shorter children free beside a paying adult, and parking on campus is free. The exception is Thursday, when the ordinary gate does not apply and entry comes only through the per-vehicle Carload Night price. The same headline gate and free parking were published for 2025.
What does the gate price include, and what costs extra?
Admission includes the show bill: in 2026 the sideshow and its museum, the circus, the water stunt show, the petting zoo and the Saturday fireworks all come with the gate. Rides cost extra, through an unlimited wristband at forty-two dollars, forty dollars in cash, or through individual ride tickets; games and food are paid for as you go.
Can visitors camp at the FunFest?
No. No camping of any kind appears in the event’s own pages or any listing layer: no tent sites, no recreational vehicle hookups and no exhibitor camping, because the venue is a college campus rather than a fairground. The event’s own parking, by contrast, is free and on campus.
What to Expect From the Next Suffolk County New York Long Island FunFest Festival
How often is the Suffolk County New York Long Island FunFest Festival held?
In each documented recent year it has run once, as a single eleven-day June production, recorded in 2019 and in every year from 2023 through 2026. The operator’s own record shows a break in its Long Island operations in 2020 and a limited 2021 schedule, so the pattern is annual in the current sequence rather than unbroken.
When is the next Suffolk County New York Long Island FunFest Festival?
No dates for a next edition have been published in the record this article rests on: the operator’s own site banners its next shows as still to be announced. If the recent pattern holds, the run would fall in June, across the same Thursday-to-following-Sunday span, but that is a pattern, not a published date, and the operator’s announcement governs.
Will the dates change?
They have moved slightly within June: the documented runs began on June 15 in 2023, June 13 in 2024, June 12 in 2025 and June 11 in 2026, each ending eleven days later. The season is stable while the exact span drifts, so any future span should be taken from the operator’s announcement rather than assumed.
The FunFest makes no claim to be what it is not. What Brentwood hosts each June is a big, professionally run carnival with a generous show bill, a five-dollar gate, free parking and one very good Thursday bargain. Suffolk County’s fair, in the agricultural sense, does not exist; its June carnival very much does, and on its own terms it is worth the trip.
