Yuma County Fair

The Junior Livestock Shows at the Yuma County Fair begin at 8:00 each morning, every day of the fair. The fairgrounds gates open later: at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, the opening day, and at noon Wednesday through Sunday. Members of 4-H and FFA show their animals, and their projects stay on display through the week. Jim Allen, the 2026–2027 president of the fair’s board, asks fairgoers to “visit the exhibits, attend the livestock shows, and support these remarkable young people.”

Six days in spring on 32nd Street

The 2026 fair, the 74th, ran from March 31 to April 5 on the grounds at 2520 East 32nd Street. Its theme was “America the Beautiful: Celebrating 250 Years.” General manager Eric Wofford told KYMA News, “That’s really our theme this year celebrating our 250 years…so a lot of decor, that kind of stuff, is very patriotic.”

Local talent and new bands played the main stage from the time the gates opened until they closed. Strolling acts moved through the grounds, and Guido’s Family Stage held family entertainment. The Theatre Building houses the Open Entry Exhibits, the entries submitted by the community. The Theatre and Legacy Event Buildings filled with vendors, food demonstrations, and performances through the day. Outside were the carnival rides and a beer garden. On Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. came the demolition derby, and the fair’s notice advised, “grab your seats early!”

A private nonprofit, Yuma County Fair, Inc., runs the fair. A thirty-nine-member Commission elects its Board of Directors each year, and fair management handles the day-to-day work. Wofford, who runs that management, told AZFamily in 2024: “I grew up here, I like what I do and we put this on for the community.” He expected about 160,000 people at that year’s fair.

The fair takes only a week of the grounds’ year. The fair’s own pages count the grounds in use at least 200 days a year in one place and list more than 300 events in another. Those events include rodeos, monster truck shows, dog shows, R.V. rallies, weddings, quinceañeras, and high school proms. A fifth annual Fall Fest, with carnival rides and its own demolition derby, was set for October 16 to 18, 2026.

Under the flight path

Marine Corps Air Station Yuma lies right across from the fairgrounds, as AZFamily reported in 2024. Yuma County said that some events on the grounds had interfered with training at the base. It called it a safety concern to have thousands of people in the fly zone, and the county discussed moving the fairgrounds altogether. The fair proposed its own fix. Before the 2024 fair opened, it moved six buildings out from under the flight path and rearranged the ride area, where the rides had stood in the path of the aircraft. Wofford called it a huge project. “We relocated because we were on the flight path. We’ve been here since 1953,” he said.

April 1953

In March 1953, Arizona Highways printed a spring calendar of events across the state. It listed the “First Annual Yuma County Fair, Yuma” for April 22–26, between a women’s golf tournament in Phoenix and the Masque of the Yellow Moon at Montgomery Stadium. The same issue reported that most newcomers to Arizona were settling in Maricopa, Pima, Pinal, and Yuma Counties.

That first five-day fair drew about 40,000 adults and thousands of children. Governor Howard Pyle called it the largest county fair in the state and told Phoenix to sit up and take notice. Nonprofit filings compiled by Cause IQ give 1956 as the year the fair’s corporation was formed.

Counting from 1953 brings the fair to its 75th edition. In his welcome letter, Allen writes of “a tradition that has brought our community together for three-quarters of a century.” Wofford told AZFamily, “I have memories of when I was a kid and there’s generations that go back.” The Arizona Fairs Association lists the 75th Annual Yuma County Fair for March 30 to April 4, 2027.