One of the few Virginia pumpkin festivals built around evening visits, with genuinely inclusive admission, and the Thursday or Friday online ticket costs a family of four $28 less than turning up at the weekend gate.
Thursday and Friday: $15 per person at the gate or $13 online; $14 for seniors, military and first responders at the gate or $12 online. Saturday and Sunday: $20 at the gate or $18 online; $19 discounted at the gate or $17 online. Free for children 3 and under. Admission includes parking, one hayride, the corn maze, Kidz Zone games, farm animals, live music on weekends, and access to food trucks, vendors and the Cottage Shoppe. Pumpkin picking, horseback and pony rides, face painting and laser tag all cost extra.
Rough cost for a family of four: about $48.00 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.
Sinkland Farms is unusual in two ways that both save you money, and one that costs it.
The first is the evening format. Thursdays in October and every Friday of the season run 4:00pm to 8:00pm rather than a daytime block. Almost no Virginia pumpkin festival is built that way. It means you can go after work or after school without burning a weekend day, and in late September and early October it means you are walking a field in the best light of the day rather than the hottest part of it.
The second is that those evening sessions are cheaper. Thursday and Friday admission is $15 at the gate against $20 at the weekend, and online tickets knock another $2 off every tier. So the cheapest legitimate way in is a Thursday or Friday online ticket at $13, and the most expensive is a weekend gate ticket at $20. For a family of four that spread is $52 against $80. Twenty-eight dollars for choosing a different day and buying in advance is a better return than most farm discounts.
The inclusion list here is unusually honest and unusually generous. Parking, one hayride, the 5-acre corn maze, the Kidz Zone slides and jump pads, the farm animals, weekend live music, and access to the food trucks, vendors and Cottage Shoppe are all covered. Plenty of farms charge for parking alone.
But read the exclusions carefully, because this is where the day inflates. Pumpkin picking is extra. Pony and horseback rides are extra. Laser tag is extra. Face painting is extra. The hayride included in your ticket is the ride out to the pumpkin patch, and then the pumpkin is a separate transaction. That sequencing matters with children in tow: you have already ridden to the field before anyone learns that the pumpkin costs money.
Take the weekend online family-of-four figure of $72, add four pumpkins, add two pony rides and a round of face painting, and a hundred-dollar-plus afternoon arrives without anyone behaving extravagantly. The gate figure is the floor.
The farm cites more than 40,000 visitors a season and a national ranking from a 2025 magazine list. Both of those are marketing claims in origin, but the visitor number is the one to take seriously as a planning input rather than a compliment. Forty thousand people across roughly six and a half weeks of Thursday-to-Sunday operation is a lot of traffic through one Montgomery County farm.
Concentrate that into weekend midday and you have the busiest hours of the season. If you are going on a Saturday or Sunday, be there for the 10:00am opening. The maze, the Kidz Zone and the hayride queue all behave differently at 10:15am than at 1:00pm.
The 4:00pm to 8:00pm sessions are the best value here, but plan for what they actually are. Christiansburg is at elevation and October evenings in Southwest Virginia get cold quickly after sunset. By mid-October the last hour of an 8:00pm session is fully dark. Bring more layers than the afternoon temperature suggests, and a light for the walk back across the parking field.
The upside of dark is the atmosphere: live music, food trucks and a Terrace Bar work better at night than at noon, and the corn maze is a different experience in low light.
Mixed-age groups. The Kidz Zone with its slides and jump pads handles the youngest, the 5-acre maze and laser tag give teenagers something that is not aimed at toddlers, and the Terrace Bar, craft vendors and live music mean the adults are not just supervising. That breadth is what justifies a three-to-four-hour visit and, by extension, the weekend price.
A family that wants twenty minutes and a pumpkin is paying for a lot of festival they will not use. For them, a free-entry patch is the better math.
The festival runs September 19 through November 1, 2026, on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, plus Thursdays in October. Thursday and Friday sessions are 4:00pm to 8:00pm, which means sunset light and a cooler field. Saturdays and Sundays run 10:00am to 5:00pm. An October Thursday or Friday evening is both the cheapest and the quietest way in. If you need a weekend, arrive at the 10:00am open rather than after lunch.
Three to four hours on a weekend, when live music, vendors and food trucks give you reasons to stay. The four-hour Thursday and Friday evening sessions are effectively the full visit whether you want them to be or not.
A large operation by Southwest Virginia standards. Saturday and Sunday between about 11:00am and 3:00pm will be the peak of the peak. The Thursday and Friday evening sessions exist partly to spread that load and they are the better-value ticket as well.
Parking is included in admission, which is worth noting because it is not always. The surface is not described. Riner Road is rural Montgomery County, so assume field parking and soft ground after rain.
Not documented. A hayride to the patch, a corn maze and a field site make for uneven ground throughout. Call 540-382-4647 ahead if wheelchair or stroller access is a concern.
You want a quiet farm. This one draws more than 40,000 visitors a season and the weekend midday hours are the busiest of them. Skip the weekend entirely if the crowd is the thing you are trying to avoid.
Christiansburg sits in the Blue Ridge foothills between Roanoke and Blacksburg, so a fall visit pairs naturally with a drive on the Parkway. Do the Parkway first and the farm second on an evening session, rather than fighting leaf traffic afterwards.
On a Saturday or Sunday, $20 each at the gate is $80, or $18 each online is $72. On a Thursday or Friday, $15 each at the gate is $60, or $13 each online is $52. Children 3 and under are free, so a family with a toddler pays for fewer heads.
Parking, one hayride, the 5-acre corn maze, the Kidz Zone games, the farm animals, live music on weekends, and access to the food trucks, vendors and Cottage Shoppe. Pumpkin picking, pony and horseback rides, laser tag and face painting all cost extra.
No. Admission includes the hayride out to the patch but the pumpkins themselves are a separate purchase. Budget for them on top of the gate price.
Yes, and it is the distinguishing feature. Thursdays in October and every Friday of the season run 4:00pm to 8:00pm. Those sessions are also $5 per person cheaper than weekend admission.
September 19 – November 1, 2026. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, plus Thursdays in October. Hours: Thursdays (October only) and Fridays 4:00pm-8:00pm; Saturdays and Sundays 10:00am-5:00pm.
Admission starts at $12 per person. Thursday and Friday: $15 per person at the gate or $13 online; $14 for seniors, military and first responders at the gate or $12 online. Saturday and Sunday: $20 at the gate or $18 online; $19 discounted at the gate or $17 online. Free for children 3 and under. Admission includes parking, one hayride, the corn maze, Kidz Zone games, farm animals, live music on weekends, and access to food trucks, vendors and the Cottage Shoppe. Pumpkin picking, horseback and pony rides, face painting and laser tag all cost extra.
3060 Riner Road, Christiansburg, VA 24073, in Montgomery County. It is one of 3 patches we track in Southwest Virginia.
We track 3 patches in Southwest Virginia. At $12 a head this one sits below the regional median of $15, undercutting 1 of the 2 paid patches we track here.
Its season runs about 44 days against a regional average of 42, so it is broadly in line with the rest of the region.
What sets it apart locally: it has u-pick fields, which most Southwest Virginia patches on our list do not.
There are 6 other patches we track in Montgomery County. All Southwest Virginia patches →
sinklandfarms.com
Checked August 2026.