Welcome to Pennsic 2026.
This is an attempt to explain the camping fees for Pennsic, but this page is in no way, shape or form any sort of official information (for that, see the links below).
If this is giving you a headache, it's not you. I've been going to Pennsic forever, and explaining it still gives me a headache.
The following numbers appear to be the same as last year, so they are still:
I hope I have updated all the amounts and dates below correctly, but use your head if I missed something.
Pennsic fees are a bit complicated, due to a number of factors I'll explain below.
Everything here is an attempt to more clearly explain the official information, which is available at the following links:
This table is a summary of the different amounts you'll pay both ahead of time and at the gate. Feel free to refer to it to refresh your memory, but it'll make a lot more sense after you read the explanations below.
Every year Pennsic is usually scheduled as starting on the last Saturday in July and ending on the second Sunday in August. Thus, the actual date numbers shift a little each year. If you're looking at this page and it hasn't been updated for the current year yet, you can do the math and figure out the actual dates.
| Landgrab | Teardown | |||||||||||||||
| Prereg'd | Teardown | |||||||||||||||
| Singles | Teardown | |||||||||||||||
| Fri | Sat | Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
| 7/24 | 7/25 | 7/26 | 7/27 | 7/28 | 7/29 | 7/30 | 8/31 | 8/1 | 8/2 | 8/3 | 8/4 | 8/5 | 8/6 | 8/7 | 8/8 | 8/9 |
| First Week | Second Week | |||||||||||||||
| Category | Dates Camping | Total | Prepay Amount | Remaining | Pre-paid discount | SCA discount | Pay At Gate | Total You Pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minors | any | $40 | $40 | |||||
| Infants | any | $20 | $20 | |||||
| two weeks, prereg, SCA | 7/25 to 8/9 | $265 | $230 | $35 | -$10.00 | -$25.00 | $0 | $230 |
| two weeks, prereg, not SCA | 7/25 to 8/9 | $265 | $230 | $35 | -$10.00 | $25 | $255 | |
| two weeks, not prereg, single camper, SCA | 7/26 to 8/9 | $265 | $0 | $265 | -$25.00 | $240 | $240 | |
| two weeks, not prereg, single camper, not SCA | 7/26 to 8/9 | $265 | $0 | $265 | $265 | $265 | ||
| "second" week, prereg, SCA | 7/31 to 8/9 | $225 | $190 | $35 | -$10.00 | -$25.00 | $0 | $190 |
| "second" week, prereg, not SCA | 7/31 to 8/9 | $225 | $190 | $35 | -$10.00 | $25 | $215 | |
| "second" week, not prereg, SCA | 7/31 to 8/9 | $225 | $0 | $225 | -$25.00 | $200 | $200 | |
| "second" week, not prereg, not SCA | 7/31 to 8/9 | $225 | $0 | $225 | $225 | $225 | ||
| "second" week, early, prereg, SCA | 7/31 to 8/9 | $265 | $190 | $35 | -$10.00 | -$25.00 | $0 + $40 | $230 |
| "second" week, early, prereg, not SCA | 7/31 to 8/9 | $265 | $190 | $35 | -$10.00 | $25 + $40 | $255 |
Note 1: Pre-registering and pre-paying is required for camping group space allocation. See "Space Allocation" below.
Note 2: Even if you pre-register only for the second week, you can decide to arrive early and just pay the extra amount at the gate (aka Troll). See the table entris above labeled early
Questions to ask yourself:
Long story short, you only really have two options, which are:
a) pre-pay for the whole 16 days (7/25/2026 to 8/9/2026)
b) pre-pay for only the last 9 days (8/17/2026 to 8/9/2026, aka "second week" but it includes the middle Friday/Saturday/Sunday).
Either way, if you have an SCA membership, they apply the $25 discount at the gate, so if you are coming in for the time span you prepaid for, you owe $0 at the gate.
If you pay for the last 9 days and decide to come for the first week anyway, then you just pay the extra $40, as well as the $25 that you owe. See the last two rows in the table above, marked early.
It's $20 for infants (age 5 and under), and $40 for minor children (age 6-17). I've never had to preregister kids so I don't know how that works with the rest of it, discounts, etc. Given the incredibly low price, I would not be surprised if the Cooper's/Pennsic keeps it simple and says just pay the $20 or $40.
It is extremely prohibited to preregister "ghost" children, i.e. abusing the much, much lower child rate to gain more land allocation, by preregistering kids who are either fictional or who are real but you have no intention of them attending. Kids are complicated, life is complicated, change happens, and the Pennsic staff aren't idiots, so you're not going to get strung up just because your kid had to cancel. But the Pennsic Staff are equally not-idiots in the other direction; expect them to deal with abuse of the minor pricing harshly, to quote the Land Agent's handbook.
Cooper's Lake and Pennsic offer a very, very reasonable price for preregistering kids. I don't know any more about it than the dollar amounts, but my impression is that they go to great lengths to make this event family-friendly in logistical terms. I don't have kids myself, but I really respect and appreciate that they do this.
This is Pennsic. Pennsic is not a tourist trap. Let's keep it like that.
On top of which, you can change your mind and just show up early and pay the difference between the whole event fee and the second-part-only event fee.
This page was originally written a few months before Pennsic 2023 and then updated for Pennsic 2024, Pennsic 2025, and now Pennsic 2026. It's possible I might have missed a date or two in the updating.
To reiterate, I am in no way official and it's quite possible I made a mistake here, so the official dates are and remain at the offical websites (see links below).
This is mostly summarized from the Pennsic Land website announcements page. Also see the Troll hours posted at Cooper's Lake Pennsic Registration Office. If the information on those pages differs from the following dates, then the following dates are wrong.
The "Second Week" starts Friday, July 31, 2026. That means that you get 8.5 days for your money (the .5 being because everyone has to be off site by noon on Sunday August 9, 2026).
NOTE: Important change that remains in effect for 2026 is that Troll is not open from midnight of July 30. Troll closes at the normal time, 10pm, on July 30 and opens at 8am, on July 31.
Historically Troll has had special hours on the evening before the middle Friday, i.e., July 30, 2026 They would open troll at midnight, so travellers arriving 1 minute after midnight on July 30, 2026, could troll in at the July 31, 2026 rate. They stopped doing that in 2022. So you will have to wait until Friday morning when Troll opens normally.
The final day, Sunday, August 9, everyone must be packed up and off site by noon.
Camping as a single camper means you don't get to set up camp until Sunday, July 26, 2026.
Camping groups get to set up camp on Saturday, July 25, 2026, or even on Friday, July 24, 2026 (depending on how well landgrab goes) but in both cases only AFTER the groups (ALL of the groups) on their block get the camp locations/borders agreed upon and signed off on, aka "completing Landgrab".
Note: Camping groups are required to leave space in their block for single campers, but they're not required to leave the best space, and in some blocks the terrain is quite obnoxious (steep slopes, mud, trees, etc).
But to be a member of a camping group, you must pre-register and pre-pay for at least the Second Week. Note that you can still come earlier if you only pre-register for the second week, you'll have to pay additional for the first week at Troll, but otherwise there's no difference.
Camp space is allocated based on pre-registration and camping groups are not allowed to include a single camper's space allocation in their camp. Camping groups can try to squeeze a single camper into the the group's existing allocation, but generally this is a huge pain in the ass.
See also "space allocation" below.
Note: Even if you pre-register only for the second week, you can decide to arrive sooner and just pay the extra amount (currently $40) at the gate (aka Troll).
Here are some important dates for Pennsic 2026.
To reiterate, I am in no way official and it's quite possible I made a mistake here, so the official dates are and remain at the offical websites (see links below).
This is mostly summarized from the Pennsic Land website announcements page. Also see the Troll hours posted at Cooper's Lake Pennsic Registration Office. If the information on those pages differs from the following dates, then the following dates are wrong.
IMPORTANT Troll will NOT BE OPEN 24 hours on Friday, July 31, 2026. According to Cooper's Lake Check-In Hours Troll is open noon to 10pm on Friday, July 24 (for people trolling in for landgrab only) and 8am-10pm the rest of Pennsic until 8/5, aka Wednesdasy of "Second week".>
Traditionally, in previous years, they kept it open 24 hours so you could check in just after midnight on Thursday, but they stopped doing that a few years ago.
| 01/05/2026 | Land website group registration begins. |
| 05/31/2026 | Physical Mail pre-registration of individual campers ends. |
| 06/15/2026 | Paid Land website pre-registration of individual campers ends. |
| 06/15/2026 | Land agents should make sure any pre-registration errors are solved. |
| 06/15/2026 | Cooper's Lake registration refund ends |
| 07/1/2026 | Unpaid Land website pre-registration ends. |
| 07/24/2026 | First Friday, "land grab" for camping groups starts. |
| 07/25/2026 | First Saturday, non-land-agent camping group members may enter. |
| 07/26/2026 | Sunday, single campers may enter and set up camp. |
| 7/31/2026 | Second Friday, "second week" begins.* |
| 08/9/2026 | Sunday, noon, all campers must be packed up and off site. |
Register for SCA membership here.
Scroll down on that page and click on the big brown button that says "Purchase Membership Now".
On the next page, scroll down read the Waiver (in the white box) and then click the checkbox labeled "This check indicates my acceptance of the Waiver", then click the button to the right of the checkbox, labelled "Continue to Membership Application."
The SCA associate membership is the one I usually get. You can get the "sustaining" membership for $45 and get access to mailings and so forth.
In normal years there is a cancellation refund deadline, after which Cooper's Lake Campground does not give refunds. That date will be at the the Pennsic Pre-registration Page. In 2026 it is June 15, which is also the deadline for pre-registering and pre-paying online.
If you pre-register and hence pre-pay, but don't cancel before the end of pre-registration aka the refund deadline, you don't get a refund.
(Also, to be clear, there are three legal entities involved in the big picture: Coopers Lake Campground, which is where the event takes place; The Pennsic War, which organize and run the event; and the Society for Creative Anachronism. I don't know much about the relationship between the Pennsic War and the SCA, but Pennsic will abide by any COVID-19 safety rules that the SCA requires, and the SCA will abide by any COVID-19 safety rules that the local, state and federal governments require.
As mentioned above, at Pennsic you're either a pre-registered camping group or you're a "single camper". The system and rules are set up to encourage people to pre-register as camping groups, but if you show up without pre-registering as part of a they'll still let you attend. You just won't get to choose your camping location until all the pre-registered groups have chosen theirs.
Even if your "camping group" has only a single person in it, it's still useful to register a camping group. As mentioned above, single campers aren't allowed onto the site until the day after "land grab" is completed and all of the pre-registered camps have had first pick of camping sites.
The only downside to a camping group is that you have to have at least one person who pre-registers and pre-pays. Note, you don't have to pre-pay for the entire event in order to pre-register, you can pay for only the second week. If you do pay for only the second week, you are allowed to show up earlier and pay for the first week at the gate.
Note: However, note that there must be at least one person representing the camping group at Pennsic for the entire event.
The main thing about pre-registering as a camping group is that you get a little more control over where in the campground you can set up your camp. I don't want to get too far into the details, but the campsite is divided up into regions called "blocks", and the camps list their first, second and third preferred block. If there's enough room in a block for all the people who signed up for it, great. If not, one or more of the groups will be moved to their second or third preferred block. Usually it's the smaller groups that get moved.
See The Pennsic Land website for more details.
Finally, now I can get to the point of this section, "space allocation". The groups assigned to a given block are required to sort out which group camps where in that block. Each camp is assigned a space allocation based on the number of paid, pre-registered people in the group, times 250 square feet.
Each camper is allocated 250 square feet. That doesn't mean you can bring a 10x25 foot tent and set it up. The space allocation is for your entire camp. For a single camper, that's things like:
Camping groups generally pool space allocation for common resources, typically things like:
Most camping groups require members to notify them ahead of time of tent footprints. This is especially the case for camping groups in blocks with "challenging" terrain, which requires even more planning ahead for where tents will go, based on terrain obstacles.