More than 642,000 people passed through the gates of the 2026 PNE Fair, setting a new post-pandemic high for the century-old festival. Attendance remains well behind what it was in 2019, however, when more than 731,000 made their way to Hastings Park for what would turn out to be the last pre-COVID fair. In a news release Tuesday, the PNE touted the opening of the new amphitheatre and “a new generation of entertainment experiences” across the fairgrounds as drivers of the growth from last year’s fair. “We are incredibly proud of what our team delivered this year,” said Shelley Frost, the PNE’s president and CEO, in the release. “This fair represented an important moment for the PNE. We welcomed guests into the Freedom Mobile Arch during the fair for the first time, introduced exciting new productions and celebrated some of the traditions that have defined the fair for generations. The response to the new programming has been fantastic, and hearing how much our guests enjoyed the variety of shows, exhibits and experiences has been incredibly rewarding.” The PNE Fair remains B.C.’s largest ticketed event, but it’s considerably smaller than it once was. Attendance was 612,404 in 2025, down from 637,920 in 2024 and 626,531 in 2023. The first post-COVID fair without any pandemic-related restrictions was held in 2022, and was attended by 529,770. All of those numbers are well below the 731,708 who attended in 2019. Near the start of this century, in 2001, the fair welcomed more than 952,000 guests.
