New Hampshire's 2026 agricultural fair season opens at the end of April and closes on Columbus Day weekend in October. Fifteen listings in this directory carry the agricultural tag, and they are not interchangeable. Some are two-day county 4-H shows built around animals and judging. One runs eleven days with a midway. Below is the whole season in date order, with only what each record confirms.
One planning note before the dates. Nine of the fifteen carry rides. Six do not, which matters if you are bringing kids who expect a midway and a ride bracelet.
Late April and May: the expos come first
The season starts at Deerfield, inland from the coast. The New Hampshire Farm, Forest & Garden Expo runs April 30 to May 1 with animals, competitions, crafts and food on its record. The same town hosts the New Hampshire Sheep & Wool Festival on May 9 and 10, which also carries animals, competitions, crafts and food, with fiber as the connective tissue between the livestock side and the vendor side.
Deerfield ends up carrying three of the fifteen, because the Deerfield Fair itself closes the season in the first week of October. If you want one town to learn in this category, that is the one.
July: the fair season proper
Rockingham County opens July with Stratham 4-H Summerfest, July 17 to 19, which carries free admission, animals, competitions, food, kids' activities and live music. It is the only 4-H listing here with a free-admission flag.
Then the two five-day fairs land back to back. The North Haverhill Fair runs July 22 to 26 in Grafton County with animals, competitions, food, live music and rides. The Cheshire Fair follows in Swanzey, July 30 to August 2, carrying the same five features.
August: 4-H, sunflowers, and Cornish
The Belknap County 4-H Fair in Belmont overlaps Cheshire's closing weekend, August 1 and 2. It is a two-day fair with animals, competitions and food, and no rides on its record. That is the shape of a county 4-H fair: the animals and the judging are the event, not the midway.
Two agricultural listings sit in the second week of the month. The Woods, Water, and Wildlife Festival in Milton runs August 8 with animals, food and kids' activities. Concord's Sunflower Bloom Festival runs nine days, August 8 to 16, tagged agricultural, seasonal and family, with food, kids' activities and live music.
The Cornish Fair closes the month, August 21 to 23 in Sullivan County, with animals, competitions, food, live music and rides. Its record carries a sourced founding year of 1950, and it is the only agricultural fair in this dataset that does. We do not publish founding years we cannot source, so read the absence elsewhere as a gap in our data rather than a statement about any fair's age.
Labor Day weekend: two big fairs, the same five days
September 3 to 7, 2026 runs Thursday through Labor Day Monday, and two of the state's larger agricultural fairs hold the entire stretch at opposite ends of New Hampshire. The Lancaster Fair sits in Coos County in the Great North Woods. The Hopkinton State Fair sits in Contoocook in the Merrimack Valley. Both carry animals, competitions, food, live music and rides.
If you are traveling for one of those, you are not casually adding the other. Pick the region first and the fair second.
Mid-September through Columbus Day
The Hillsborough County Agricultural Fair runs September 11 to 13 in New Boston with animals, competitions, food and rides.
The Granite State Fair in Rochester is the longest agricultural run in this dataset, September 17 to 27, eleven days. A run that long normally means the program differs day to day, so work from the fair's own daily schedule instead of assuming every attraction is open on the day you go.
The Deerfield Fair takes October 1 to 4. Then the Sandwich Fair closes the season in Center Sandwich, October 10 to 12, Saturday through Columbus Day Monday. It is the only agricultural fair in our data carrying a parade, and it carries crafts as well, which is unusual in this group.
Nine have a midway, six do not
Rides appear on nine records: Lancaster, North Haverhill, Sandwich, Cornish, Cheshire, Hopkinton, Hillsborough County, Granite State and Deerfield.
The six without are the Farm, Forest & Garden Expo, the Sheep & Wool Festival, Stratham 4-H Summerfest, the Belknap County 4-H Fair, the Sunflower Bloom Festival, and Woods, Water, and Wildlife. None of those six is a lesser day out. It is a different day out, and the animals carry it.
If you plan to exhibit rather than attend
Entering an animal, a pie or a quilt is a separate process from buying a gate ticket, and entries usually close weeks before the fair opens. The fair's own premium book is the authority on classes, entry fees and deadlines.
This directory carries dates, towns, counties and features. It does not carry entry rules, and a listing here is not a substitute for a fair's own rulebook.
