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Two Fair Board positions are open. Letters of interest are due at the regular meeting on Thursday, September 17, 2026. Read the public notice

Trinity County Fair logo Trinity County Fair Fairgrounds and Event Center, Hayfork
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Trinity County Fair

Exhibitors and competitions

Anyone can enter. You do not need to be a member, a professional, or particularly good at anything. If you grew it, baked it, sewed it, built it, photographed it, or raised it, there is a place for it in the exhibit halls.

Full exhibit halls are what make a county fair worth walking through. Entering is the most direct way to be part of it.

Enter Online How Entering Works

What you can enter

Exhibits are grouped into departments, each with its own classes and its own judging.

  • Home Arts

    Baking, preserves, canning, sewing, needlework, and the rest of what comes out of a kitchen or a sewing room.

  • Arts and Crafts

    Painting, drawing, photography, woodwork, ceramics, and handmade work of all kinds.

  • Floriculture

    Cut flowers, arrangements, potted and growing plants.

  • Made of Trinity

    Work made from what this county produces. A department you will not find at most fairs.

  • Special Divisions

    Collections, novelty classes, and the categories that do not fit anywhere else.

  • Junior Livestock

    Market and breeding animals shown by young people, with its own entry process and its own deadlines. Junior Livestock

[REPLACE: DEPARTMENT_CLASS_LISTS - add the class list for each department, junior and adult age brackets, entry limits per class or per exhibitor, and premium amounts. The Exhibitor's Handbook has all of this; it needs transcribing onto the site or linking as a document.]

How entering works

  1. Read the Handbook. The Exhibitor's Handbook is the rulebook. It lists every department, every class, and the rules for each. It is printed each spring.
  2. Enter before the deadline. Entries are registered in advance, not on the day. Deadlines fall well before the Fair.
  3. Bring your entry in. Exhibits are delivered to the fairgrounds during the receiving window before the Fair opens.
  4. Judging happens before the gates open. Your exhibit is judged, then displayed for the week with its awards.
  5. Collect your exhibit after the Fair. Along with any premium you have won.

This year's dates and deadlines

Entry deadlines, receiving and pickup times, and any entry fees for the next Fair are not published here yet.

[REPLACE: EXHIBITOR_DEADLINES - add the entry deadline, receiving window, judging day, pickup window, and entry fees once confirmed. Do not estimate any of these. An exhibitor who misses a deadline because the website was wrong has lost a whole year.]

Entering online

Entries are registered through the Fair's online entry system. You will create an account, choose your departments and classes, and submit before the deadline.

Go to the entry system

This is a separate system run by a third party, so it looks different to the rest of this site. If you get stuck, call the Fair Office and someone will walk you through it.

Not comfortable online?

Call the Fair Office at (530) 628-5223 or come into the office at 6000 Hwy 3 and someone will help you enter. Plenty of exhibitors do it this way.

Office hours: [REPLACE: OFFICE_HOURS]

Exhibitor of the Year

You do not apply for this one. Every exhibitor who meets the requirements is entered automatically, and the exhibitor with the highest accumulated points across departments takes the award.

There are three of them: Exhibitor of the Year, Junior Exhibitor of the Year, and School Exhibitor of the Year.

Entering in more than one department is what builds points, so a person who enters a quilt, a jar of jam, and a photograph is competing for it whether they meant to or not.

[REPLACE: EXHIBITOR_OF_THE_YEAR_DETAIL - the point system, the minimum requirements to qualify, what each award is worth, and how a school enters the school category.]

Premiums and awards

Classes carry cash premiums, and there are champion and best of division awards across the departments. Many are sponsored by local businesses and families.

[REPLACE: PREMIUM_AMOUNTS - add the premium structure once confirmed. Do not publish amounts from a previous year's Handbook without checking they still apply.]

Sponsor an award

Awards can be sponsored in a category you care about, or in memory of someone. Sponsors are named in the Handbook. Sponsorship

The quilt show

The Log Cabin Quilters Guild runs the quilt show at the Fair and receives quilts directly, separately from the general exhibit entry process.

[REPLACE: QUILT_SHOW_ENTRY - how to enter a quilt, who to contact at the Guild, when quilts are received, and whether entry runs through the Fair entry system or through the Guild.]

The quilt auction

A live quilt auction runs alongside the pie, cake and craft auction during the Fair. It is one of the Association's fundraisers.

The Exhibitor's Handbook

Everything an exhibitor needs is in the Handbook: departments, classes, rules, deadlines, and the awards. It is printed each spring and is the authority if anything on this page and the Handbook disagree.

Exhibitor's Handbook Rules, classes and entry information, PDF, [REPLACE: FILE_SIZE]

Printed copies are available from the Fair Office.

All forms and documents

First time entering?

It is less formal than it looks. Pick one thing you have made or grown, find the class it fits, and enter it. Nobody expects a first time exhibitor to know the system.

Call (530) 628-5223 and ask. The office would much rather answer a basic question than have you not enter.

Last updated: August 31, 2026