Oregon Country Fair

Leave your video camera at home and you'll have a great time!

The OCF is a favourite event of ours as the Organizers consistently provide a safe, friendly and music-filled carnival environment where topfreedom and nifty body painting is considered normal, healthy and fun. What you'll find at the Oregon Country Fair is a lot of people having fun. The fair is drug and alcohol free, although you're bound to run into a few (discreet) grass smokers here and there. There is also an entire area for kids including puppet shows and special kids' parades. The event is usually crowded by midday, but for the most part people tend to move around in a civil manner.

The costs tend to be reasonable with Saturday being a little more expensive than Friday or Sunday and, as a family-friendly event, it's no surprise that children under 10 are allowed in for free. Parking is around $5 per day and there are usually free shuttle buses from two locations in Eugene. Food prices vary, but again are quite reasonable compared to other events. With more than 300 booths and several stages of onggoing entertainment you'll be lucky to cover everything - even if you go for the entire weekend!

Topfreedom is prevalent everywhere as there are a lot of hippies and free-spirited types that attend every year and a lot of women who enjoy being body painted. Video cameras are banned, but cameras are permitted. Most people tend to be OK with having their picture taken but you should probably ask beforehand, just to be sure. Leave the video camera at home (they aren't permitted) and be sure to buy your tickets early. They DON'T sell tickets at the gate, so you have to get them in Eugene (14 miles from the fair location in Veneta) or through FastTix. The parking is easy, but so are the buses so either way to get there works. Arrive an hour before the gates open and you can hang out in the meadow and be entertained by a merry band of comedy players, jugglers, bicyclists in costume, stilt walkers, bands, and others acting like lunatics.

Visit the official Oregon Country Fair website!