Gates open this week at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose, where five days of carnival rides, livestock competitions and family entertainment mark the 82nd edition of a tradition that has run nearly every year since 1941. The fair takes place tomorrow through next Sunday at 344 Tully Road, with hours running from 4 PM to 10 PM tomorrow and Thursday, 1 PM to 11 PM Friday and Saturday, and 1 PM to 10 PM next Sunday.
The County of Santa Clara announced the fair's return in a social media post, telling residents that “the wait is finally over” and pointing them toward tickets for “shows, arts, crafts and cows,” according to the County of Santa Clara. The fair traces back to October 1941, when it was first held on the 97-acre Mira Monte Farm site the county had purchased the year before, according to the Fairgrounds Heritage Foundation of Santa Clara County. That property has since grown into the 165-acre fairgrounds that host the event today.
Food, festivities and fun for the whole family! The wait is finally over – the Santa Clara County Fair starts this week. Get your tickets now to enjoy the shows, the arts, crafts and cows! Learn more at https://t.co/cKItx6elIy. pic.twitter.com/7Xlvyiscn2
— County of Santa Clara (@SCCgov) August 18, 2026
New August Dates and What Tickets Cost
Unlike its traditional late-July slot, the 2026 fair was shifted to its new August 19-23 window to better align with vendor and carnival operator schedules, according to Helm & Sons Amusements, the carnival operator running this year's midway. General gate admission is set at $19 for adults and $14 for seniors 65 and older and youth ages 6 to 13, with advance online presale tickets discounted to $15 and $10, respectively, per AllEvents. General parking runs $20, and unlimited ride wristbands from Helm & Sons cost $35 in presale or $40 at the gate, with express upgrades available for front-of-line access.
Families looking to save can target the fair's theme days: Wacky Wednesday tomorrow offers a $20 gate fee that includes unlimited carnival rides, while BOGO Thursday provides buy-one-get-one-free admission and ride passes, designed to boost early-week turnout before weekend crowds arrive. Every stage will host live music, headliners and family acts across all five days, and admission works on a combined structure of gate tickets plus Magic Money for rides.
What You Can and Cannot Bring Through the Gates
The fair maintains a lengthy list of prohibited items, including alcohol or flasks, glass bottles or cans, hard-shell coolers or ice chests, and loose or catered-style food. Also banned are tents, large shade umbrellas, bikes, skateboards, scooters and roller blades, drones, guns, knives or any type of weapon, mace or pepper spray, illegal drugs or narcotics, firecrackers or fireworks, grills, charcoal or flammable liquids, cannabis products of any kind, vape pens and cigarettes. Comfort animals or pets are not permitted, though registered service dogs are allowed. Any prohibited items found on the fairgrounds will be confiscated. On the allowed side, fairgoers can bring camel packs and non-breakable water containers, diaper bags and blankets.
4-H Livestock and a Fairgrounds in Flux
Beneath the rides and stage acts, the fair keeps alive its oldest tradition: the 4-H and FFA Junior Livestock Auction, which has run continuously since that inaugural 1941 fair. Livestock competitions were among the only attractions maintained during scaled-down pandemic editions of the event, a detail Hoodline noted when covering the pared-down 2022 fair.
The fairgrounds property itself has been at the center of a much bigger regional debate. Santa Clara County terminated exclusive lease negotiations in January for a proposed 15,000-seat international cricket stadium at the site after talks with Major League Cricket and the San Francisco Unicorns fell through, according to San José Spotlight. That collapse pushed county leaders to restart a master planning process for the full 165-acre parcel. County officials had originally approved an exclusive negotiating agreement for the 12-to-14-acre stadium project back in 2022 before financial and timeline hurdles arose, the outlet reported.
Other institutional plans for the property remain active even as the stadium deal fell apart. The county has set aside 9 acres under a lease with San Jose State University to build a track and field facility and the Speed City Legacy Center, honoring civil rights icons Tommie Smith and John Carlos, a project Hoodline covered when the state allocated $9 million toward it in 2022. Separately, the county approved an agreement in April 2022 setting aside 15 acres for a San Jose Earthquakes professional soccer training complex and youth academy, a plan that includes four private fields for the team alongside six public soccer fields maintained by the county.
Attendance at the fairgrounds overall has fallen far from its mid-20th-century peak of more than 1.4 million annual visitors across public and private events, dropping to roughly 850,000 by 2003 as Silicon Valley urbanized rapidly around San Jose. Modern five-day county fairs now draw approximately 80,000 attendees, according to figures cited by Wikipedia. Even so, this week's fair offers a familiar rhythm of shows, arts, crafts and cows on a piece of land that county leaders are still trying to figure out how to use for the next chapter of Silicon Valley.
