Georgia Apple Festival or the Apple Arts Festival: how they differ, and doing both in one day

Two festivals, two addresses, one set of weekends

Say “the apple festival” in Ellijay in October and you could mean either of two events. The Georgia Apple Festival is the large one: the 2026 edition was billed as the 55th annual, and the City of Ellijay says it is presented by the Ellijay Lions Club and the Gilmer County Chamber of Commerce. It is held at the Ellijay Lions Club Fairgrounds, 1729 South Main Street, south of downtown.

The Apple Arts Festival is what the Chamber calls a sister festival. It sets up in the parking area behind the Downtown Ellijay Welcome Center at 10 Broad Street, on the same weekends, and in the Chamber’s words it “adds fun arts & crafts and delicious food to the downtown scene.” Admission is free, so there is no ticket to think about downtown. The two are separate grounds, and a ticket question only comes up at the fairgrounds.

• The Apple Arts Festival is a sister festival of the Georgia Apple Festival held in downtown Ellijay. It runs on the same weekends and adds arts and crafts and food to the downtown area. Gilmer County Chamber, 2026 Apple Arts Festival
• The Apple Arts Festival is held in the parking area behind the Downtown Ellijay Welcome Center at 10 Broad Street, Ellijay, GA 30540. Gilmer County Chamber blog, The Apple Arts Festival Returns To Ellijay This Fall (updated Aug. 5, 2026)
• The festival is held at the Ellijay Lions Club Fairgrounds, 1729 South Main Street, Ellijay, GA 30540. Georgia Apple Festival (official site), Home

Side by side

• Admission. Georgia Apple Festival: $10 per person. The festival FAQ says children 12 and under are free; some Chamber and Lions Club pages say “under 12” instead. Apple Arts: free, per the Chamber.
• Hours in 2026. Fairgrounds: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. Apple Arts: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays, per the Chamber’s dated 2026 schedule (see the hours note below).
• Size. The Chamber counted over 250 vendors at the fairgrounds in 2026, and the organizer’s 2026 list has 235 craft and merchant booths plus 39 food stands. Apple Arts has more than 65 vendors and describes itself as a curated, small-festival setting.
• Vendor rules. At the fairgrounds, items must be handmade, handcrafted or grown by the artist, who must be on site, and wholesale resale and multi-level marketing items are not allowed. Apple Arts vendors are juried, and buy-sell items are not permitted.
• Pets. Not allowed at the fairgrounds; service animals are. Apple Arts welcomes well-behaved, leashed pets.
• Other rules. The fairgrounds are smoke-free with no weapons allowed, and the Lions Club’s festival page lists no alcohol, no firearms and no pets.
• Weather. Both are rain-or-shine events.
• Access. The Chamber describes Apple Arts as accessible. At the fairgrounds it notes uneven outdoor ground, and the festival does not rent wheelchairs or scooters.
• Extras. The fairgrounds had the 2026 list’s demonstrations and attractions: a petting zoo and pony rides, a kids train ride, a kids zone, blacksmith forging, chair caning and chainsaw carving.

Prices and kid tickets are covered in more detail on our tickets and admission page, and the downtown event has its own page, the Apple Arts Festival guide.

The hours question

Apple Arts hours are the one place the Chamber’s own pages disagree. Its dated 2026 post, The Apple Arts Festival Returns to Ellijay This Fall, gives 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays. Its 2026 series page and Apple Arts hub say the sister festival happens on “the same dates and times” as the main festival, which opens at 9. The Apple Arts FAQ still showed 2025 dates when we checked. We use the dated 2026 schedule.

In practice that means the fairgrounds were the earlier opener, and on the 2026 schedule both closed at the same time: 6 p.m. on Saturday and 5 p.m. on Sunday. If an exact opening time matters for your plans, the Chamber takes Apple Arts questions at applearts@gilmerchamber.com.

Doing both in one day

Nothing published by the organizer or the Chamber describes a combined visit, so here is what the sources do support. The fairgrounds and the Welcome Center are about 1.8 miles apart by road, by this guide’s map measurement. We have not found a published walking route or walking time, and we will not guess one.

Option one: drive between them

Downtown, the Apple Arts FAQ says free public parking is available throughout downtown Ellijay, though the Chamber’s 2026 Eventeny listing calls downtown parking limited. At the fairgrounds end, parking on site is limited. The Chamber’s parking page lists lots within walking distance of the festival: the Ellijay Lions Club lot, two Gilmer County Parks and Rec lots, the Gilmer County Civic Center and River Gate Parking in East Ellijay. It advises arriving early because lots fill up quickly, and it warns that festival traffic patterns can change and may not show up in map apps.

Option two: the Hipp Street shuttle lot

The Chamber’s 2026 list of shuttle lots included Downtown Ellijay (Hipp Street), which is one block east of the courthouse square. Like every shuttle lot, it is paid parking: the lots are run by local community organizations, fees vary by lot and cash is preferred. The shuttle from the lots to the festival is free. Parking there puts you a short distance from Apple Arts before or after you ride to the fairgrounds, but remember which lot you parked in so you catch the right shuttle back.

Two cautions. The Chamber had not published shuttle hours or frequency, and says shuttle details are posted closer to each festival, so do not count on a particular last bus. And no animals, service animals included, may ride the shuttle buses, which are school buses kept allergen-free. If a dog is coming, Apple Arts is the only half of the day it can join, and the organizer says it has no kennel service this year.

A simple order that fits the 2026 hours is fairgrounds first, then downtown. Bring cash either way: the Chamber says many fairground vendors take cash only, and ATMs are available at the fairgrounds. Our parking and shuttle planner maps every lot, and the festival day planner builds a timed plan from published hours.

If you only have time for one

Bringing a dog settles it: Apple Arts. Cost is the next factor. Apple Arts is free, while two adults with children 12 and under pay $20 at the fairgrounds gate. If the kids want pony rides, the train or the blacksmith, those were on the fairgrounds list. If you want the full scale of the event, the City of Ellijay says there are too many exhibitors at the main festival to see in one day and suggests staying the weekend. If you would rather browse a smaller, juried show and then eat on the square, downtown is the easier fit.

For restaurants and shops around the square, see our downtown Ellijay guide. The Downtown Ellijay Welcome Center at 10 Broad Street is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., according to the Chamber.

What about 2027?

As of Oct. 19, 2026, neither event had announced 2027 dates. The organizer’s standing rule is the second and third weekends in October, and the Chamber describes Apple Arts the same way, which would put both on Oct. 9-10 and Oct. 16-17, 2027. Treat those as expected dates, not announced ones. We track the status on our 2027 page.

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Questions

Written by the Ellijay Apple Festival Guide Editorial Team. AI tools help us draft; people check every fact before it publishes.

Dates, rules and hours can change. The organizers have the final word: Georgia Apple Festival (official site)