Overview The Coastal Carolina Fair is an 11-day fall fair at Exchange Park in Ladson, outside Charleston, owned and run by a volunteer service club that gives the money away: from the 2023 fair, the Exchange Club of Charleston awarded $504,212 to more than 90 local nonprofits and students. It opens on the last Thursday in October, and gate admission covers the entertainment. The club calls itself the largest Exchange Club in the nation and has run the fair since 1957. Exchange Park covers more than 180 acres, with parking for over 10,000 vehicles. On site Rides and the midway run every night alongside the daily acts. For 2026 the fair listed magician TJ Hill, Universal Championship Wrestling and a cowboy circus on the Gazebo Lawn, and the Americana 250 Band Organ, with local performers on the Parkway Stage. The competition side runs 4-H shows and arena events, adult fine art, creative arts and youth art shows, a fiddle competition, a honey competition, a chili cook-off and a King Arthur Baking contest. A Senior Day sits on the calendar, and the gates run a clear-bag policy. Track record Charleston's county fair started in 1922 at College Park on Rutledge Avenue and moved to Marion Square in 1925 and the Johnson Hagood Stadium grounds in 1930. The Exchange Club took it over in 1957 as the Coastal Carolina Empire Fair, and in 1979 construction of I-526 pushed it to its present site in Ladson. Fair money helped build the first American Cancer Society Hope Lodge in Charleston, and grant recipients have included the Lowcountry Food Bank, the Dee Norton Child Advocacy Center, Lowcountry Orphan Relief and Dorchester Habitat for Humanity. Brand presence The fair's own site named McElveen as its lead sponsor in 2026. Sponsor levels run from a presenting sponsor through blue, red and white ribbon down to Patriot and bench-level sponsors, whose names go on benches, large-format signs and the digital billboards around the park. The Exchange Club of Charleston Foundation grants the proceeds across Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester and Colleton counties, as grants to local charities and as scholarships.