Hull Fair 2026 runs from Friday 9 October to Saturday 17 October, closed on Sunday 11 October. The roads around West Park shut at 6.00am on Tuesday 6 October, three days before the first ride opens, and once the fair opens no vehicle moves on Walton Street between noon and 1.00am. Walk in from Paragon Interchange in about 25 minutes. Do not plan on driving to the gate.
- Hull Fair 2026 runs Friday 9 to Saturday 17 October, closed all day Sunday 11 October. Hull City Council now shows those dates on its own Hull Fair page, but plenty of listings elsewhere, Wikipedia included, still carry last year's.
- Walton Street, Lowther Street and Walliker Street close at 6.00am on Tuesday 6 October, three days before the first ride opens.
- Once the fair is running, no vehicle moves on Walton Street between noon and 1.00am. Driving to the gate is not an option, whatever your satnav thinks.
- It is a 1.4 mile walk from Hull Paragon Interchange along a lit main road, roughly 25 minutes. That is the fastest way in.
- Hull City play Everton at the MKM Stadium, beside the fairground, on Sunday 11 October, the one day the fair is shut. The game was moved off the Saturday because of the fair.
A few minutes on foot from West Park, so the road closures never touch you.
Free on-site parking on Beverley Road, well outside the closed-off streets, with apartment kitchens and a lift.
Free on-site parking and a walk of about a mile along Anlaby Road into the fair.
A Grade II listed Georgian guest house in Hedon, a 20 to 30 minute drive from the fair-week noise.
When Hull Fair 2026 actually runs, and why half the internet says otherwise
The fair opens at 4.00pm on Friday 9 October and closes at 11.00pm on Saturday 17 October, with the Sunday off. Those dates come from Hull City Council's own licensee document, the Hull Fair Terms and Conditions 2026, whose current final version is dated 7 August 2026. The council's public Hull Fair page now carries the same dates, and its road closures subpage the 2026 closures, which was not the case earlier in the summer.
Plenty of other places still have it wrong. Wikipedia lists 10 to 18 October, which is the 2025 pattern rolled forward, and you can prove that is last year's without looking anything up, because 12 October falls on a Sunday in 2025 and on a Monday in 2026. If a listing hands you those dates, it has not been updated.
Here is the actual timetable.
| Day | Date | Open |
|---|---|---|
| Friday | 9 October | 4.00pm to 11.00pm |
| Saturday | 10 October | 12 noon to 11.00pm |
| Sunday | 11 October | Closed |
| Monday to Friday | 12 to 16 October | 2.00pm to 11.00pm |
| Saturday | 17 October | 12 noon to 11.00pm |
The Sunday closure is a residents' rest day and it has survived every attempt to shift it. The Showmen's Guild has argued for a reduced-hours Sunday, as Nottingham Goose Fair now runs, and it has not happened for 2026.
One thing to know if you are going on the first night: nothing opens until the Lord Mayor of Kingston upon Hull rings the bell at 4.00pm. No ride, no stall, no music. Turning up at half past three buys you a look at a very quiet fairground.
Which roads close, and from when
The closures start on Tuesday 6 October and run to 3.00pm on Sunday 18 October. That is twelve days of restrictions around a nine-day fair, which catches out anyone who books a room nearby for the weekend before.
- Walton Street, from 6.00am on 6 October until 3.00pm on 18 October.
- Lowther Street, from before the Sleights Close junction up to Walton Street, on the same dates.
- Walliker Street, from the Anlaby Road junction, on the same dates.
- Spring Bank West, lane restriction in place from 6.00am on 6 October.
- Anlaby Road, lane restrictions from 6 October until 19 October.
- Pulman Street, closed daily on a sliding timetable: 3.00pm on the two Fridays, 2.00pm on the two Saturdays, 4.00pm Monday to Thursday, each until 11.00pm.
- Granville Street and Sandringham Street, signed from 4.00pm on 9 October to 11.00pm on 17 October, though these close only in exceptional circumstances.
The rule that matters most is the daily one. No vehicle moves on Walton Street between noon and 1.00am, starting at 11.00am rather than noon on both Saturdays. Walton Street is where the fair is. So for thirteen hours a day, every day, the fairground is a pedestrian site with no vehicle access at all.
The surrounding streets go permit-holders-only from Tuesday 6 October for twelve days, including Paisley Street, Lonsdale Street, Perry Street, Ruskin Street, Arthur Street and Little Anlaby Road. Residents describe fair week parking as havoc even with the permits, and drivers do ignore the signs. If your plan is to find a space on a side street, you do not have a plan.
Getting there without a car
Walking is the answer, and it is a better walk than people expect. Hull Paragon Interchange to the West Park fairground is about 1.4 miles, roughly 20 to 30 minutes depending on your pace and the crowds. Leave Paragon onto Ferensway, pick up Anlaby Road westbound, and stay on it until West Park. The venue's own directions describe the Anlaby Road approach as a well lit route, and during fair week it carries a steady stream of people going the same way.
Anlaby Road is a main road with pavements the whole way, not a shortcut through anywhere. That matters at 10pm with children in tow.
If you are driving into Hull but not to the fair, use park and ride. Two sites operate, with buses every 10 to 15 minutes running until 11.00pm:
- Priory Park, Henry Boot Way, Hull HU4 7DY
- Humber Bridge, Ferriby Road, Hessle HU13 0JG
Stagecoach also runs dedicated fair buses. Service 2 and 2F go from Paragon Interchange straight to the fair, up to every 10 to 15 minutes, dropping on Anlaby Road beside the site. Some late-afternoon journeys from Kingswood, Bransholme and east Hull extend directly to the fairground.
Coming by train, Hull Paragon is direct from Leeds in under an hour, from Manchester in around two hours, and from London King's Cross in about two hours forty minutes on Hull Trains or LNER. York, Doncaster and Sheffield usually mean a change at Leeds or Brough.
Last buses back from the fair have historically run at around 11.00pm to 11.25pm, and the last Hull to Leeds train leaves before the fair closes on weeknights. If you are travelling in for the evening from out of town, either book somewhere to stay in Hull or accept that you are leaving before the 11.00pm close. The 2026 timetables are not published yet, so check nearer the date.
If you are driving anyway
You can still drive into the wider area, you just cannot drive to the fair itself. The council routes vehicles to West Park via St Georges Road, Arthur Street, Carnegie Street and Old Anlaby Road, under the flyover. For the Ponderosa, take the road behind the MKM Stadium. You cannot leave via the Walton Street and Anlaby Road junction, and there is no access or exit through Lowther Street at all.
There is paid public parking at the MKM Stadium, which is the closest thing to convenient parking near the fairground and fills accordingly. Note the Anlaby Road bus lane runs from 7.00am to 6.30pm, which is easy to forget on a wet October evening.
Two more things for the satnav. The postcode to use is HU3 6GA, not the HU3 6JU still printed on the council's public page. And the postal address, if you need it, is Hull Fair, West Park Pavilion, West Park, Hull HU3 6NS.
A Premier League matchday lands in the middle of fair week
Hull City won promotion in May, beating Middlesbrough in the play-off final, so 2026/27 is their first season in the top flight since 2016/17. That changes fair week.
Hull City play Everton at the MKM Stadium on Sunday 11 October, kicking off at 2.00pm. The stadium sits directly beside the fairground in West Park, and Sunday 11 October is the single day of the run when the fair itself is shut. So the quiet day in the middle of fair week is the day a Premier League crowd arrives at West Park, on streets that stay closed and restricted throughout.
If you were going to book anything for that weekend, book it early and book it outside the closed-off streets. Rooms across Hull go first for fair week regardless, and the Saturday and the Sunday together will go first of all.
The fixture list originally had this as Saturday 10 October at 3.00pm, which is why plenty of listings still show that date. It moved to Sunday 11 October because of the clash with the fair, and the Premier League's October amendments put it at 2.00pm with Sky Sports. The council's licensee document had the Sunday all along. Kick-off times can move again, so check the club's fixture list before you finalise travel.
Which night should you actually go?
Go on a weekday, early evening, and go on the first Monday or Tuesday if you can.
The busiest sessions are the opening Friday evening and the first Saturday, and it is not close. Organisers described the equivalent first Saturday in 2022 as the busiest day on record, with 400,000 visits across that week. In 2026 that Saturday is also the day before a Premier League home game next door, so West Park stays busy from Friday teatime right through to Sunday night.
Weekday early evenings, from the 2.00pm opening through to around 7.00pm, are the quiet time. That is what the council and Humberside Police have advised for years, and it is the right advice for anyone with young children, anyone using a wheelchair or pushchair, and anyone who would rather queue for four minutes than forty.
The site itself is 16 acres of flat tarmac car park, which helps with wheels of any kind. Be aware there is no published step-free route map or dedicated accessibility guide for the fair, so if you have specific access needs it is worth contacting the council directly rather than relying on what is online.
Where to stay for Hull Fair
There are two sensible strategies and they pull in opposite directions. Either book something you can walk to and forget the car exists, or book something with free parking well outside the closed-off streets and travel in. What does not work is staying in the centre with a car and hoping for the best.
| Place to stay | Where | Getting to the fairground | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| St Georges Hotel | St Georges Road, off Anlaby Road | A few minutes on foot | Walking in and ignoring the closures entirely |
| The Vale Apart Hotel | Coltman Street, off Anlaby Road | About a mile, 15 to 20 minutes on foot | Self-caterers who want to walk but keep a car |
| The Dorchester | Beverley Road, north of the centre | Short drive or bus, not walkable | Families and drivers who want the car unaffected |
| Lambert House | Hedon, east of the city | Roughly 20 to 30 minutes by car | A quiet place to stay away from the fair-week noise |
The walking option is the one we would book. St Georges Road runs off Anlaby Road a few minutes from West Park, and the bus stop is about 80 metres from the door.
One real catch, though. St Georges Road is the exact street the council names as the vehicle entry route to West Park, and neighbouring Arthur Street and Walliker Street go permit-only from 6 October. There is no parking at the hotel. If you arrive by car during fair week you drive into the most restricted corridor in the city. Come by train, and the whole problem disappears. Rooms are mostly shared-bathroom, with one en-suite single, so it suits solo travellers and match-goers more than families.
If you need the car to stay usable, go north instead. The Dorchester sits on Beverley Road on the opposite side of the centre from West Park, which means the closures never touch it.
It is a hotel and serviced apartments beside Pearson Park, about a mile north of the centre, with a lift and self-catering kitchens in the apartments. Two things to know before booking: there is a refundable deposit, and the minimum check-in age is 25.
Between those two, The Vale Apart Hotel on Coltman Street is the compromise, with free on-site parking and a walk of about a mile along the Anlaby Road corridor into the fair. And if you would rather not stay anywhere near a fairground, Lambert House is a Grade II listed Georgian guest house in Hedon, a market town roughly seven miles east, with free parking and no breakfast. It only works if you are driving, so do not book it expecting to walk. Reception is not staffed late either, which matters if you are coming back at eleven.
For everywhere else we list in the city, and the areas they sit in, start with our guide to where to stay in Hull. Sailing to Rotterdam while you are over this way? Our guide to hotels near the Hull ferry terminal covers the east side of the city, which the fair closures never touch. If you are planning a run of northern autumn nights out, our guide to the Blackpool Illuminations covers the other big one, and the two overlap by a fortnight.
One last thing for anyone reading this in a year's time. The same council document already carries the 2027 dates: 8 to 16 October 2027, closed Sunday 10 October. Book the Tuesday.
A few minutes on foot from West Park, so the road closures never touch you.
Free on-site parking on Beverley Road, well outside the closed-off streets, with apartment kitchens and a lift.
