The biggest ticketed fall farm just outside Madison, with 8 acres of corn maze and a wagon ride out to 14-plus acres of pumpkins — but it had published no 2026 dates, hours or prices when we checked, so everything here is last year's number and a phone call away from certainty.
Ticketed, with separate weekend and weekday rates. Visit Madison's listing for the 2025 season gave weekend passes of $15-$16.75, seniors 60+ at $13, weekday tickets $10-$12 and children under 2 free; no 2026 prices had been published on the farm's own site when it was read, so price_from is null rather than a guess.
Schuster’s is the large ticketed fall farm that Madison households default to, and on paper it earns the position: 8 acres of corn maze, a separate kiddie maze, a wagon ride out to more than 14 acres of pumpkins, pumpkin cannons, pig races, a goat walk, barnyard animals, bonfires and a haunted forest at night. That is a full-day inventory.
The problem is that we cannot tell you what it costs or exactly when it is open, because the farm has not said.
When our researcher read schustersfarm.com in August 2026 — the home page and the Fall Fun page, with several other pages on the domain blocked — neither carried 2026 season dates, hours or prices. That is not unusual for a farm that puts its updates on Facebook, but it is a real inconvenience for anyone planning a drive and a budget.
What we do have is scaffolding from elsewhere. A tourism listing for the 2025 season gave a window of roughly September 20 to November 1, weekend passes at $15 to $16.75, seniors 60 and over at $13, weekday tickets at $10 to $12 and children under 2 free. A regional directory gives 2026 day-by-day hours: Monday to Thursday 9am to 6pm, Friday 9am to 10pm, Saturday 10am to 10pm, Sunday 10am to 6pm, closed Tuesdays. An August 2026 article confirms only the broad shape — ticketed, closed Tuesdays, hours that vary by day.
Treat all of that as a working assumption and confirm it on 608-764-8488. A five-minute call removes every uncertainty on this page.
If the pricing structure holds, the weekday-versus-weekend gap is the main lever a family has. At 2025 rates, four weekend passes at $16.75 is $67; four weekday tickets at $10 is $40. That is $27 for the same corn maze, the same wagon ride and the same pumpkin field, and it is a bigger saving than anything else available here.
The trade is the atmosphere. A big farm on a quiet Wednesday is a different experience from the same farm on an October Saturday, and for some households the crowd is part of the fun. But if you are choosing on money, midweek is not close.
Pumpkins are picked from the field at the end of the wagon ride. Our record does not say whether they are included in admission or priced separately, which is the second question for your phone call — at farms of this size they are usually extra, and assuming otherwise is how a budget slips.
Fall Fright@Night and the Haunted Forest are a separate event from the daytime festival, with their own schedule and their own pricing. Friday and Saturday are the days the farm runs to 10pm, and that late window is what the night operation occupies.
The practical consequence: do not buy a daytime ticket for a Friday and expect to stay through for the haunted attraction. And do not bring a seven-year-old to a Friday evening expecting the daytime farm, because after dark this becomes a scare venue rather than a family one.
Deerfield is a short drive east of Madison on Highways 12 and 18, which is a genuine advantage — this is the big attraction farm you can reach in under half an hour from most of the city. It also means it absorbs a lot of Madison’s fall demand on a Saturday.
October in southern Wisconsin is wet, and a farm with 14-plus acres of pumpkin field and 8 acres of maze is going to have soft ground and rutted paths in the second half of the month. Boots rather than trainers, and something to lay the pumpkins on in the boot of the car.
One more thing worth knowing from our record: the farm ran a Reptile Rendezvous from August 16 to October 4, 2026 alongside its regular programming. Whether that is included with admission is not something we can tell you, but it is a reason for reptile-minded children to push for an early-season visit.
No 2026 season dates have been published. For reference, the 2025 season ran roughly September 20 to November 1. The farm is closed Tuesdays, and a regional directory gives 2026 hours as Monday to Thursday 9am to 6pm, Friday 9am to 10pm, Saturday 10am to 10pm and Sunday 10am to 6pm. Weekday tickets were meaningfully cheaper than weekend ones in 2025, so a Monday or Thursday is where the value sits. Friday and Saturday evenings are the only times the farm runs late, which is when the Haunted Forest and the night side of the operation come into play.
Three to four hours for the daytime festival. The Haunted Forest and Fall Fright@Night are a separate evening event with separate pricing, not an extension of the day ticket.
A big ticketed farm ten minutes outside a city of a quarter of a million draws accordingly, and October weekends are the crush. The compensating structure is six operating days a week with hours that vary by day, so the weekday visit is genuinely quieter and genuinely cheaper. Friday and Saturday running to 10pm spreads the evening load but also stacks the daytime and night crowds into the same site.
Not published in our record. This is a large farm off a US highway east of Madison; assume field parking on peak weekends and soft ground after October rain, which in Dane County is most of October.
Not published. Eight acres of corn maze, a wagon ride out to a pumpkin field and a haunted forest are uneven-ground activities by nature. The animal areas, pig races and food stands are the parts likeliest to work. Since pricing is unpublished anyway, an accessibility question is worth folding into the same phone call on 608-764-8488.
You need a fixed price before you commit. No 2026 pricing was published on the farm's own site when we read it, and the figures in this listing are 2025 comparison points from a tourism listing. Skip Tuesdays, when the farm is closed. And do not book the daytime festival expecting the Haunted Forest — it is a distinct night event with its own schedule and its own ticket.
Deerfield is close to Cottage Grove, where Door Creek Orchard is the quiet counterweight — a working heirloom apple orchard with no maze, no hayride and no admission published. A morning of apples at Door Creek and an afternoon at Schuster's is a well-balanced Dane County Saturday, and it gives you a free stop to offset a ticketed one. Eplegaarden south of Madison in Fitchburg is the other free-entry orchard in the county.
No 2026 prices had been published on the farm's own site when we read it in August 2026. For 2025, a Visit Madison listing gave weekend passes at $15 to $16.75, seniors 60 and over at $13, weekday tickets at $10 to $12 and children under 2 free. Call 608-764-8488 to confirm current rates.
It is closed Tuesdays. A regional directory lists 2026 hours as Monday to Thursday 9am to 6pm, Friday 9am to 10pm, Saturday 10am to 10pm and Sunday 10am to 6pm. The farm's own site had not published 2026 hours when we checked, and no 2026 season start or end date exists anywhere we looked; in 2025 the season ran roughly September 20 to November 1.
No. Fall Fright@Night and the Haunted Forest are a separate night event from the daytime festival, with their own schedule and pricing. Budget for them as a second visit rather than an add-on.
The farm advertises more than 14 acres of pumpkins, reached by a wagon ride from the main site, alongside 8 acres of corn maze and a separate kiddie corn maze.
2026 dates had not been published when we last checked. In past seasons it has run: Closed Tuesdays; open the rest of the week with hours that vary by day. Check with the farm before driving out.
Admission pricing was not published when we last checked. Ticketed, with separate weekend and weekday rates. Visit Madison's listing for the 2025 season gave weekend passes of $15-$16.75, seniors 60+ at $13, weekday tickets $10-$12 and children under 2 free; no 2026 prices had been published on the farm's own site when it was read, so price_from is null rather than a guess.
1326 US Highway 12 & 18, Deerfield, WI 53531, in Dane County. It is one of 4 patches we track in Madison Region.
We track 4 patches in Madison Region, 2 of which are free to walk into. The farm has not published a gate price, so it cannot be compared on cost — call before you budget.
What sets it apart locally: it has a corn or crop maze, hayrides, an after-dark attraction, which most Madison Region patches on our list do not.
One caveat worth repeating: this farm had not published its 2026 dates when we last checked, while 2 of the 4 patches we track in Madison Region had. Treat any date you see elsewhere as last year's until the farm confirms it.
There are 3 other patches we track in Dane County. All Madison Region patches →
schustersfarm.com
Checked August 2026.