The council's own rule puts the Taro Fair on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday closest to 6 October. In 2026 that points to 9 to 11 October, and nobody has confirmed it yet.

The Taro Fair is the oldest thing in Petersfield’s calendar and, right now, the hardest to pin a date on. As of 4 September 2026 neither Petersfield Town Council, which manages the Heath, nor the fair’s operator has published dates for this year.

Here is what is actually established, why the answer is probably Friday 9 to Sunday 11 October 2026, and why the date you will find on the council’s own website is not the one to use.

The council’s own Heath page still gives the old rule

Petersfield Town Council’s The Heath page says the Heath “is the site of the annual Taro Fair, which is held on 6 October every year (unless a Sunday)”.

That has not been true for a decade. In April 2016 the council agreed to move it, and the Petersfield Post reported at the time that the fair “will be held this year on Saturday and Sunday, October 1 and 2, and in future years on the Friday evening, and the Saturday and Sunday closest to October 6”. The change was requested by the fairground operator to lift attendance, on the reasoning that a mid-week October date is hard for people to get to.

So the operative rule is the Friday, Saturday and Sunday closest to 6 October, not the 6th itself.

Why 2026 points to 9, 10 and 11 October

6 October 2026 is a Tuesday. That is the awkward case, because Saturday 3 October and Saturday 10 October are three and four days away respectively, which makes a naive “nearest Saturday” read give you the wrong weekend.

Take the rule as the council wrote it, from the Friday, and it resolves cleanly. Friday 9 October is three days after the 6th; Friday 2 October is four days before it. The 9th to the 11th wins.

The council has already answered this exact calendar once. The last time 6 October fell on a Tuesday was 2020, and Petersfield Town Council’s own statement that year, still on its site as Covid-Compliant Taro Funfair, names “the weekend of 9th to 11th October on Petersfield Heath”. Identical weekday, same three dates.

The rule also holds for last year. 6 October 2025 was a Monday, which puts the nearest Friday at the 3rd, and the Alton Herald reported on 8 October 2025 that the three-day fair had run “last weekend”.

None of that is a confirmation. It is the council’s published rule applied to this year’s calendar, plus the precedent from the last identical year. Check before you travel, and we will update this page the moment the council or the operator posts 2026 dates.

Who runs it

The fair is operated by John Searle Funfairs Ltd, which the Alton Herald describes as treating Petersfield as its home town. The same report notes the company moves on to Alresford’s traditional October street fair afterwards.

An earlier operator, the Walls fairground family, ran it until 2017. That is the year the fair did not happen at all: the Petersfield Post reported on 27 September 2017 that Walls Funfair was booked elsewhere for the 6 October date and could only offer 29 September to 1 October, and the council and the operators together decided against it. The fair returned afterwards and has run since, including in 2025.

The other year it did not run was 2020, cancelled on public health advice during the pandemic, in the statement quoted above.

What the fair actually is

It is a charter fair, and the council’s own history note explains the name: “Tarw” is the Welsh herders’ shout for “bull”, pronounced “Taro” in English. It is a survival of the cattle fairs held on the Heath annually until the 1950s, and it is now a funfair with rides and sideshows rather than a livestock market.

Neither the council’s pages nor the operator carries a price list for rides or wristbands, so any figure you are quoted in advance is somebody’s guess.

Getting there and parking

The Heath sits south east of the town centre off Heath Road, a short walk from the middle of Petersfield, and the Festival Hall car park is on Heath Road on the way in.

Fair weekends fill the nearby streets. Our parking in Petersfield page has the tariffs and the detail that catches people out: Castle Yard and Festival Hall are free on Sundays, while Swan Street charges the full weekday rate on a Sunday, and Central and The Causeway are capped at three hours. Check roadworks and travel before you set off.

There is no temporary road closure order for the fair in Hampshire County Council’s East Hampshire public notices list as of 4 September. The fair sets up on the Heath rather than on the highway, so a closure is not automatic, but it is worth rechecking that list closer to the weekend.

Still to be confirmed: the 2026 dates and opening times, from either Petersfield Town Council or John Searle Funfairs. On past form the announcement comes in September, so within the next few weeks.