Cumming Country Fair & Festival: dates, prices and what to know

The 2026 Cumming Country Fair & Festival ends Sunday, Oct. 18. It runs 11 days, Oct. 8 to 18, at the Cumming Fairgrounds, 235 Castleberry Road, under the theme “Fairs, Family & Freedom.” Gate admission is $10 for ages 11 and up and free for ages 10 and under. If another site told you $7, or “ten days,” read on: both numbers are out of date or wrong, and this guide explains where they came from.

When is the fair open on the final weekend?

Two days are left. Saturday, Oct. 17 runs 10 AM to midnight. Sunday, Oct. 18 opens at 12:30 PM. The sources disagree on when Sunday ends. The Fairgrounds hours and pricing page says 10 PM, but the City’s BigTickets listing and the Discover FoCo calendar both say 9 PM. If you are going Sunday evening, plan to be finished by 9 so the earlier time can’t catch you out.

For future years, the 2026 pattern on the hours page was:

• Monday to Thursday: 4 to 10 PM. The Fairgrounds events calendar shows 11 PM, but the hours page and the City calendar both say 10.
• Friday: 4 PM to midnight.
• Saturday: 10 AM to midnight.
• Sunday: 12:30 to 10 PM on the hours page, 9 PM on BigTickets.

Are there free or cheaper ways in?

Yes, and they are posted ahead of time on the fair’s daily specials page. On Saturday, Oct. 17, admission and rides are free from 10 to 11 AM. Sunday, Oct. 18 is Hero’s Day: active, reserve or retired military, law enforcement, firefighters and first responders get in free with valid ID. Also on Sunday, anyone 18 and under with a school coupon gets in and rides free from 12:30 to 2 PM.

One thing changed after opening day: the cheap ticket is gone. BigTickets sold admission for $7 until Wednesday, Oct. 7. Online admission now costs $10 plus a $1.60 fee, so the gate is the cheaper door. The gate takes cash or card, there are ATMs on site, and there is no re-entry. Pets, coolers and alcohol are not allowed.

What do rides cost?

Rides are paid for separately from admission. The BigTickets page lists ride tickets at $1.25 each, or 21 for $20, 55 for $50 and 120 for $100. The pay-one-price wristband is $35 on Saturday, Oct. 17, sold from 11 AM to 5 PM and good until close, and $30 on Sunday, Oct. 18. The same listing says the concerts are free with fair admission. Ride prices appear on the ticketing page, not the Fairgrounds hours page, so check BigTickets if a number matters to your budget.

Where do I park, and what does it cost?

Nobody has published it. We found no 2026 parking plan or fee on the fair’s pages, and BigTickets says nothing about parking either. The newest fee we found anywhere was $5, on listings from 2018 and 2019. Treat that as history, not a price. The Fairgrounds sits on Castleberry Road about half a mile (0.8 km) from the courthouse square. Our parking guide covers the downtown decks.

How did the fair start?

The fair is run by the City of Cumming at its own Fairgrounds. According to the City’s Our Community page, the City created the Cumming Fairgrounds in 1995, and the first Cumming Country Fair & Festival ran for five days that October. It now runs for 11. The Fairgrounds describes itself as “just 40 miles north of Atlanta.”

Don’t trust any edition number you see. The 2026 fair page says “Celebrating 31 years,” while the fair’s sponsor page says “30th Year.” The City has not published an official count, so we don’t give one.

How big is it?

The City calls it Forsyth County’s largest single event. Its two sources give different attendance figures. The City’s Our Community page says the 11-day fair typically draws 175,000 to 210,000 people. The Fairgrounds fair page says it draws more than 250,000. Both come from the City, and we give both rather than pick one.

Why do other sites say $7 and ten days?

The $7 is real, but it has expired. It was the 2026 presale price, and BigTickets ended that offer on Oct. 7, the day before the fair opened. The “ten days” comes from Discover FoCo’s listing, which says “Ten days of rides” even though its own dates run Oct. 8 to 18. That is 11 days, the same length the City gives. Several pages that rank for the fair’s name are news stories about earlier years, and we found none that gives the current hours, prices and free hours together.

When is the 2027 fair?

The dates have not been announced. The City says only that the fair runs for 11 days every October. We will add next year’s dates to our Cumming Country Fair page once the City publishes them.

What else happens at the Fairgrounds?

The grounds stay busy after the rides leave. Here is what the Fairgrounds events calendar and the organizers list for the coming year:

• House of Four Scythes Haunted Attraction: Friday, Oct. 23, Saturday, Oct. 24, Friday, Oct. 30 and Saturday, Oct. 31, 6 to 11 PM. We did not find ticket prices.
• Cumming Steam, Antique Tractor & Gas Engine Exposition: Nov. 13 and 14, 8 AM to 4 PM both days. It has antique tractors and steam engines, plus modern vehicles and large farm machinery. Admission was not listed.
• Nights of Lights: a ticketed walk-through Christmas light display, Nov. 20 to Dec. 27, 5 to 9 PM Sunday to Thursday and 5 to 10 PM on Friday and Saturday. Prices had not been posted, and the site says “Tickets Coming Soon.”
• City of Cumming Christmas Parade: Saturday, Dec. 12, 5 to 6:30 PM, finishing at the Fairgrounds. In 2025 it ran from Forsyth Central High School via Tribble Gap and Castleberry roads, with road closures from 4:30 PM. The 2026 route has not been published separately. Entry registration closes Dec. 7 at 5 PM.
• July 4: the Thomas-Mashburn Steam Engine Parade runs south on Tribble Gap Road from Forsyth Central High School to the Fairgrounds. The Antique Steam Engine Association organizes the parade, and the City runs the evening celebration at the Fairgrounds that follows. In 2026 the parade ran 10 AM to noon, and the celebration ran 4 to 10 PM with fireworks about 9:30. Appen Media called the 2026 parade the 68th annual. The 2027 schedule has not been published.

For everything else on in town this month, see what’s on in downtown Cumming.

Questions about the Cumming fair

Written by the Downtown Cumming Editorial Team. AI tools help us draft; people check every fact before it publishes.

Dates, rules and hours can change. The organisers have the final word: City of Cumming