An after-dark Old West farm festival for fifteen dollars a head across just eight nights in October — the best answer on our list to Florida heat, and the wrong answer for anyone with an early bedtime.
$15 per person, tax included; ages 2 and under free. Tickets sold at the gate only, not online; cash and credit accepted. Gem mining bags, pony rides, animal feed and food are extra.
Rough cost for a family of four: about $60.00 in admission alone at the posted starting rate, before pumpkins, food, parking or any add-on listed above. Most families end up well north of that once they are through the gate.
Denmark Acres has made one decision that separates it from nearly every other patch in Florida: it does not open in daylight. Gates at 6pm, closed at 10pm, Fridays and Saturdays only, October 2 through October 24. That is eight nights and thirty-two hours for an entire season.
The decision is smarter than it sounds. The main enemy of a Florida fall festival is not rain or crowds, it is a heat index in the nineties at two in the afternoon, and an evening-only farm sidesteps it entirely. You walk a corn maze in air that is finally tolerable. Nobody queues for a hayride in full sun. If you have written off Florida patches because your last one was miserable and sweaty, this is the format that fixes it.
It also creates the one hard filter on this page. Everything here happens after dark. A three-year-old who is normally asleep by half seven is not going to enjoy hour three, and a child who does not like the dark will not like a corn maze in it.
Fifteen per person, tax included, under-twos free. For that you get hayrides, a large corn maze and a mini one, the haunted Old West cemetery, a petting zoo, a sandbox and rock tables, yard games, steer roping, the Old West town, and live music on Saturday nights. That is a lot of farm for the price, and the flat rate means no adult-versus-child pricing to work out — a family of two adults and two children over two is sixty dollars at the gate.
The extras are where the evening actually gets expensive. Gem mining bags, pony rides, animal feed and food are all priced separately. Gem mining in particular is the classic Florida farm upsell: it is visible, it is fun, and it is bought by the bag. Two children, two bags, two pony rides and dinner will comfortably double the sixty.
There is no online sale. You pay at the gate, cash or card. The upside is that nothing sells out from under you weeks in advance. The downside is that a 6pm arrival on a mid-October Saturday means joining whatever queue exists, and that a rained-out evening is discovered on arrival rather than by email. With eight nights in the whole season, a lost one is a big fraction of your chances.
Bug spray first. A Columbia County field at dusk in October is mosquito territory, and there is no version of this visit that does not involve standing in one. A torch second — for the maze, for the Old West town, and mostly for the walk back to a car parked on unlit grass.
The pumpkins, as at essentially every Florida patch, were trucked in and arranged; the state’s climate does not allow a commercial fall crop. Nobody here is pretending otherwise, and in the dark under string lights it matters even less than usual. What you are buying is four hours of a farm playing Old West after sunset, which is a perfectly good thing to buy for fifteen dollars.
The farm opens at 6pm and closes at 10pm, Fridays and Saturdays only, October 2 through 24. Arrive at 6pm rather than 8pm: you get the last of the daylight for the corn maze and the animals, the gem mining and pony rides have not built queues yet, and you leave a full hour of slack before close. Saturday nights have live music, which makes them the fuller experience and the busier one.
Three hours covers it comfortably, and the farm is only open for four. With twelve things on the activity list and a hard 10pm close, arriving after 8pm means paying full price for half a farm.
Eight nights, four hours each, is the tightest window on our North Florida list. That is thirty-two hours of operation for a whole season, so every night is a busy night, and the middle two weekends of October are the busiest. Tickets are sold at the gate only, so a queue at the gate is a real possibility at 6pm.
Not published. Farm parking in Columbia County is normally grass, and grass in the dark after an October storm is how shoes get ruined. Bring a torch or plan to use your phone light between the car and the gate.
Everything happens after dark on farm ground — sandboxes, fields, a corn maze and a hayride. Uneven surfaces in low light are the honest description, which matters if anyone in your group has mobility or vision difficulties.
You have a toddler with a fixed bedtime, or anyone in the group who will not enjoy walking a corn maze in the dark. There is no daytime option at all — a 6pm open is the earliest you can get in.
Lake City sits at the crossing of I-75 and I-10, so this is one of the easier North Florida patches to build around a drive rather than a local trip. Because it does not open until 6pm, a full day elsewhere before it is entirely practical.
Fifteen dollars per person with tax included, and children aged two and under are free. Tickets are sold at the gate only, not online, and both cash and credit are accepted.
No. The 2026 season runs 6pm to 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays from October 2 to October 24 — there is no daytime option.
The scary element is a haunted Old West cemetery sitting inside an otherwise family event with a petting zoo, gem mining and yard games. It is a farm festival with a spooky corner rather than a haunted attraction, but everything happens after dark, which is itself the deciding factor for some small children.
Eight. Fridays and Saturdays from October 2 through October 24 works out to four weekends and thirty-two total hours of operation, which is why every night runs busy.
October 2 – October 24, 2026. Fridays & Saturdays. Hours: 6pm-10pm.
Admission starts at $15 per person. $15 per person, tax included; ages 2 and under free. Tickets sold at the gate only, not online; cash and credit accepted. Gem mining bags, pony rides, animal feed and food are extra.
825 SW Wester Dr, Lake City, FL 32024, in Columbia County. It is one of 15 patches we track in North Florida.
We track 15 patches in North Florida, 2 of which are free to walk into. At $15 a head this one sits right on the regional median of $15, undercutting 1 of the 5 paid patches we track here.
Its season runs about 23 days against a regional average of 31, so it is a shorter window than most of its neighbours — miss it and the nearest alternatives will still be open.
What sets it apart locally: it has an after-dark attraction, which most North Florida patches on our list do not.
There are 3 other patches we track in Columbia County. All North Florida patches →
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
denmarkacres.com · news4jax.com
Checked August 2026.