Pricing Ellijay's Georgia Apple Festival: A Host Calendar for the Two

Jacob Mishalanie
Aug 16
14 min read

Updated: 16 hours ago

Fall color at Carters Lake in Gilmer County, Georgia

The 55th Georgia Apple Festival is two dated weekends, not one long apple month. Saturday and Sunday, 10–11 October 2026, then Saturday and Sunday, 17–18 October 2026. Both sit at the Ellijay Lions Club Fairgrounds, 1729 South Main Street, Ellijay, Georgia 30540. Admission on the Gilmer Chamber line this draft opened is $10, with under 12 free. Hedge that door price if the chamber or georgiaapplefestival.org moved. The parade is downtown Saturday, 10 October, at 10:00 a.m. Hours are a hedge. Confirm georgiaapplefestival.org the week of this draft before you print Saturday open and Sunday close in a guest book.

This page is the host calendar. It is not a reprint of theapple-season economycharts. It is not a rewrite of theDIY festival self-check. October is the peak month on AirROI’s Ellijay file dated 8 August 2026. That file will not be turned into a festival ADR band here. The job is nights: Thursday through Monday around each weekend, a two-night stay versus a three-night stay, and the empty Monday through Thursday between the two weekends. Date the nights. Leave the invented band off the wall.

The City of Ellijay is not the fairgrounds, and the fairgrounds are not downtown except when the parade is. East Ellijay is not the Lions Club gate. Cherry Log is not a second festival. Guests still type Ellijay. Your listing has to say which Saturday they are buying and which nights you will actually clean. Theweekend drivepost is how Atlanta arrives. This page is what you do with the two October cards once they are on the wall. A host who sells “apple weekend” without a date is selling a brochure. Sell 10–11 or sell 17–18.

Two October weekends, not one apple month

Write the dates before you write the orchards. First weekend: 10–11 October 2026. Second weekend: 17–18 October 2026. That is four public festival days and two separate host jobs. A guest who wants the parade needs the first Saturday. A guest who can only travel the 17th needs the second Saturday. A listing that says apple season and leaves both weekends at one generic October rate is not running a festival calendar. It is running a month label. Theapple-season economypost already holds the month. This page holds the weekends. Name the weekend in the first sentence of the listing, not in a footnote.

AirROI put October at the top of the Ellijay file. Peak-three on that snapshot is October, December, and November. The low band is January, February, and September. Those labels stay on the vendor page. They are not permission to invent a festival nightly band, a parade premium, or a midweek discount schedule this draft did not measure. Typical year on the file is named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31. Median month is named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31. Occupancy is 35.0 percent. Use those as context. Do not divide them by four festival days and call the result a rate. Do not invent a Saturday-versus-Sunday spread this snapshot did not print.

Thevisitor guidecan send people around the county for three days. Theorchard and cider trailpost can name the row. Neither page is this calendar. If a sentence needs a crush-season chart to justify the weekend, delete the sentence and write 10–11 and 17–18 instead. Two weekends is already enough work. A third invented apple month will flatten both of them. September on the AirROI file is already a low month. Do not drag September rates across these four public days, and do not drag festival shape onto the Tuesdays that are not festival days.

The Lions Club Fairgrounds at 1729 South Main

The festival is held at the Ellijay Lions Club Fairgrounds, 1729 South Main Street, Ellijay, Georgia 30540. That is a South Main address, not the square and not an East Ellijay shopping center on GA-515. Write the address in the listing if the cabin’s job that weekend is the gate. Write the drive from the cabin to 1729 South Main if you have driven it. Do not write a walk you have not walked. Do not sell parking you do not control. Do not sell a shuttle the Lions Club did not publish. Do not caption a ridge porch as the fairgrounds. The pin is the product. A wrong pin is a review.

Atlanta guests arrive on I-75 to I-575 to GA-515, through East Ellijay, then toward downtown and South Main. A weekday is typically about 80 minutes. Friday after 5:00 p.m. from Perimeter or Marietta is commonly 90 to 120 minutes. Confirm Maps the week of the draft, then again the Friday before each festival weekend. Theweekend drivepost is that highway. This page only needs the last turn: the fairgrounds are a specific pin. A Cherry Log porch is a different pin. TheCherry Log walkis allowed to stay a porch. It is not allowed to become a second fairgrounds. East Ellijay on 515 is the approach, not the gate.

Pets are not allowed at the festival. Service animals only. Put that in the pre-arrival note if the cabin is pet-friendly and the guest thinks the dog is coming through the gate. Kennels have been mentioned on Lions Club pages in other years. Hedge that amenity. Confirm the live festival FAQ. A five-star cabin review that loses a star because the dog was turned away at 1729 South Main is a briefing failure, not a fairgrounds failure. The address is the product. The rule at the address is part of the product. Say it before they load the crate.

Ten dollars, and under twelve free

Gilmer Chamber copy this draft opened printed admission at $10, with children under 12 free. Hedge both lines. Confirm georgiaapplefestival.org and the chamber page the week you publish guest books. A door price is not your nightly rate. A door price is what you tell a family of five before they drive up 515. Do not invent a wristband deal this packet did not open. Do not invent a Saturday-only ticket. Do not invent a two-weekend pass. Quote $10 as the chamber figure, then tell the guest to recheck the site. If the live page moved the dollar, the live page wins. This draft will not lock a ticket the clerk or the chamber later changed.

Under 12 free changes the cabin math without changing a rate band this page will not print. A three-bedroom that sleeps eight is a different festival product than a loft that sleeps two. AirROI already shows 45.2 percent of the Ellijay file at eight or more guests. That is a vendor stay-shape, not a ticket forecast. Use it to decide whether the first photograph should be the table or the porch. Thewho bookspost is the guest. This page is the door price you mention in sentence two of the weekend message. A family that heard “kids are free at the gate” still needs beds, a table, and a Friday arrival that survives 515.

Do not pair visitor spending with host revenue. Thevisitor spendingpost is a different file. This page will not divide a tourism number by 1,065 listings and call the result a festival ADR. $10 is a ticket. named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 is a median month on a vendor snapshot. They do not live in the same sentence as a forecast. Tell the guest what the gate costs. Tell yourself what nights you are selling. Leave the invented band off the card. A chamber door price is not a host yield.

The parade is Saturday morning downtown

The parade is downtown Saturday, 10 October 2026, at 10:00 a.m. That is the first festival Saturday, not the second. Write it that way. A guest who books 17–18 October does not get a parade this draft can prove. Do not invent a second parade. Do not move the 10:00 a.m. line to the fairgrounds. Downtown is the square. The fairgrounds are 1729 South Main. A cabin that sells “walk to the parade” needs a walk you have walked. A cabin that sells “easy drive to the parade then down to the gate” needs both clocks. Write both clocks in the Friday message.

Theweekend driveguest who leaves Perimeter at dawn on Saturday is buying the parade and a fairgrounds afternoon. The guest who arrives Friday night is buying a downtown Saturday morning without a 5:00 p.m. Friday crawl if they planned it. Confirm Maps. Confirm the chamber parade note the week of the draft. Hours for the rest of the festival stay hedged. The parade time is the one clock this page will treat as locked unless the chamber moves it. A 10:00 a.m. line does not tell you when the fairgrounds open. Those are two clocks. Hedge the second.

Parking downtown at 10:00 a.m. is a guest problem you should describe honestly. If you have a driveway that holds the household cars plus the guest truck, say so. If you do not, say the guest should plan for a downtown Saturday crowd and a second move to South Main. Theoverlookspost can take them up after the parade. This page will not rebuild that loop. It will only say the first Saturday has a downtown hour the second Saturday does not. A cabin that hides the two-stop morning will earn the review about the missing curb.

Hedge the hours on the festival site

Hours: hedge. Confirm georgiaapplefestival.org the week of this draft, then again the week before each weekend. Secondary pages have printed Saturday and Sunday hours in other seasons. This draft will not lock them. A guest book that states a close time the live site later changed is how you earn a review about a locked gate. Write “confirm hours on the festival site before you drive to 1729 South Main.” Then put the URL in the message. The Lions Club and the Gilmer Chamber are the joint venture. The live site is the clock. A printed rack card from last year is not the clock.

A hedged hour still has a host job. You need a checkout time that lets Saturday arrivals reach the gate, and a Sunday checkout that does not dump a family onto South Main before the site has opened if they wanted one more morning. You will not get that right from a national default. Change the window for the two festival weekends. Change it back on the Monday after each one. TheDIY festival self-checkis whether you can run that hygiene without a retainer. This page will not rewrite that test. If you will not change the window, do not sell the Sunday morning as a festival morning.

Rain does not move the address. Confirm the live FAQ for weather language. Do not promise a refund the festival did not publish. Do not promise indoor halls the fairgrounds did not publish. An outdoor October weekend in Gilmer is weather. Theshoulderpost is the empty months after this card. The festival page is the two weekends you still have to staff if it sprinkles. Hedge the hours. Do not hedge whether you are on the calendar. A wet Saturday is still 10–11 or 17–18. It is not a reason to leave the cleaner unbooked.

Thursday through Monday around each weekend

The host job is Thursday through Monday around each weekend, twice. First block: Thursday 8 October through Monday 12 October. Second block: Thursday 15 October through Monday 19 October. Those are the nights a drive-market guest actually buys when the public days are Saturday and Sunday. Friday arrival is the Atlanta default. Saturday arrival is the parade-day default on the first weekend. Sunday departure fights checkout and the gate. Monday departure is how a three-night stay avoids that fight. A Thursday arrival is how a three-night stay also catches people who refuse the Friday crawl.

Write the block on the wall. Color protect. Pull any midweek laptop discount inside those Thursdays and Mondays. Do not leave 8–12 October at a September rate because you forgot to look. Do not leave 15–19 October at the same number as the empty Tuesday between the weekends. This page will not print the number. It will print the dates. Theapple-season economypost can keep the October peak. You still have to mark Thursday and Monday as festival-adjacent nights, not as leftover weekdays. A remote-worker discount on Friday 9 October is how you give the weekend away.

Professionally managed share on the AirROI file is 38.0 percent, marked WATCH. Blue Sky at 90 doors and Morning Breeze at 48 already know these ten days are a staffing problem. Turns land on Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and Monday. Linens and a cleaner who can work a Sunday night are the job. TheDIY versus hirepost is whether you hire that turn. This page is when the turn happens. A host who only staffs Friday and Sunday will drop a Saturday-to-Monday guest on an unmade house. Book the Sunday cleaner before you open the calendar. Do not hunt for one on 11 October.

The same block repeats a week later. If the first Sunday cleaner is also your second Thursday cleaner, write both dates on one text now. A host who treats 17–18 October as a copy of 10–11 without restocking paper goods will learn that on Saturday morning. Themarket listingpost can change the first frame between weekends. This page only needs the linen half: two Thursday–Monday blocks, one restock in the hole, and no invented nightly rate.

Two-night versus three-night

A two-night stay is Friday–Sunday or Saturday–Monday. A three-night stay is Thursday–Sunday, Friday–Monday, or, on the first weekend, Friday through the parade into Monday. Those are occupancy shapes, not rate bands. This page will not invent a two-night ADR or a three-night ADR. It will say the shape has to match the guest. Parade families want Friday night if they can leave Atlanta before the 5:00 p.m. crawl, or a very early Saturday if they cannot. Orchard-only guests may not need Thursday. Fairgrounds-only guests on 17–18 October have no parade to justify a downtown Friday.

If your channel manager holds one minimum all October, you will get this wrong. A two-night rule on a house that should have taken a Friday–Monday family loses the third night and creates a stranded Sunday–Monday gap. A three-night rule on a house that should have taken a Saturday–Sunday couple can sit empty while the fairgrounds fill. Change the minimum when the color changes. Write the rule in the listing for the week they are booking. “This is the first Apple Festival weekend; the parade is Saturday at 10:00 a.m. downtown.” “This is the second weekend; the gate is 1729 South Main.” Guests will self-select. The ones who wanted the other weekend will book the other weekend.

Do not use a national holiday minimum as a substitute for these dates. Columbus Day week is not the Georgia Apple Festival unless the calendar says the weekends match. Official festival dates beat federal holidays. Thewho bookspost is which guest you are writing for. Thedescriptionpost is the sentence. This page is the night count. Two nights and three nights are different products on the same cabin. One October template is how you sell neither. Write the night count in the first message, not in a house-rules PDF they open after they book.

The empty weekdays between the weekends

Monday 12 October through Thursday 15 October sit between the two public weekends. That stretch is not a third festival. It is the hole. A guest who wanted 10–11 is gone. A guest who wants 17–18 has not yet arrived. If you leave a festival minimum and a festival first frame on those nights, the house can sit. Decide what the hole is for: a two-night midweek at a non-festival shape, a turn-and-deep-clean, or a dark block so Sunday the 11th and Thursday the 15th both get a real reset. This page will not invent the midweek rate. It will not borrow a festival ADR to fill Tuesday.

Change the first six photographs when you change the job. A parade hero on a Tuesday listing is the wrong frame. A fairgrounds caption on a Wednesday is the wrong frame. TheDIY festival self-checkis whether you will actually swap those frames. This page will not rewrite that checklist. It will only say the hole is a different product than the two weekends it sits between. Theshoulderpost is January, February, and April. These four days are a miniature version of that problem in the middle of the peak month. Treat them as a product decision, not as leftover inventory.

File the hotel-motel return on the 20th for October even if the hole printed zeros around two full weekends. Chapter 45 does not take the midweek off. Thehost licensepost is that desk. Keep the listing live enough that the second weekend can still find you. Keep the cleaner booked for the Thursday that starts the second block. Empty Monday through Thursday between the weekends is not a failure. Unpriced, unstaffed empty is. Two dated October cards and one honest hole is the whole calendar. Use the dates. Leave the invented ADR off the wall. Confirm the live festival site one more time on the Thursday that opens the second block.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the 2026 Georgia Apple Festival?

Two weekends: Saturday–Sunday 10–11 October and Saturday–Sunday 17–18 October 2026. Both are at the Ellijay Lions Club Fairgrounds, 1729 South Main Street. That is four public days and two separate host jobs, not one long apple month. Sell the first Saturday or the second Saturday. Do not sell a generic apple weekend without a date.

What does admission cost?

Gilmer Chamber copy this draft opened printed $10, with children under 12 free. Confirm georgiaapplefestival.org and the chamber page the week you publish guest books. A door price is not your nightly rate and not a festival ADR band. If the live page moved the dollar, the live page wins. Gilmer Chamber copy this draft opened printed admission at $10, with children under 12 free.

When is the parade?

Downtown Saturday, 10 October 2026, at 10:00 a.m. That is the first festival Saturday, not the second. This draft will not invent a second parade. The fairgrounds are 1729 South Main. Confirm the chamber note the week of the draft. A walk-to-the-parade claim needs a walk you have walked. downtown.” “This is the second weekend; the gate is 1729 South Main.” Guests will self-select.

What are festival hours?

Confirm georgiaapplefestival.org the week of the draft and again the week before each weekend. Secondary pages have printed Saturday and Sunday hours in other seasons. Do not lock a close time in a guest book until the live site still says it. A changed close time is how you earn a locked-gate review. A guest book that states a close time the live site later changed is how you earn a review about a locked gate.

Which nights should a host protect?

Thursday through Monday around each weekend: 8–12 October and 15–19 October. Friday is the Atlanta default. Monday is how a three-night stay avoids a Sunday checkout fight. Do not leave those Thursdays and Mondays at a leftover weekday shape. Pull laptop discounts inside both blocks before you open the calendar. The job is nights: Thursday through Monday around each weekend, a two-night stay versus a three-night stay, and the empty Monday through Thursday between the two weekends.

Should I require two nights or three?

Match the guest, not a national holiday rule. Two-night is Friday–Sunday or Saturday–Monday. Three-night is Thursday–Sunday or Friday–Monday. Change the minimum when the weekend color changes. This page will not invent a two-night or three-night ADR band. One October template is how you sell neither shape. A three-night stay is Thursday–Sunday, Friday–Monday, or, on the first weekend, Friday through the parade into Monday.

What about the days between the weekends?

Monday 12 October through Thursday 15 October is the hole, not a third festival. Decide whether those nights are a short midweek stay, a deep clean, or a dark block. A parade hero on a Tuesday listing is the wrong product. Unpriced empty between the two weekends is the failure, not the hole itself. Decide what the hole is for: a two-night midweek at a non-festival shape, a turn-and-deep-clean, or a dark block so Sunday the 11th and Thursday the 15th both get a real reset.

Can guests bring pets to the festival?

Pets are not allowed at the festival. If the cabin is pet-friendly, say so in the pre-arrival note before the guest assumes the dog is coming through the gate at 1729 South Main. Confirm the live festival FAQ for kennel language. A turned-away dog is a briefing failure, not a fairgrounds surprise. A five-star cabin review that loses a star because the dog was turned away at 1729 South Main is a briefing failure, not a fairgrounds failure. Keep going on Crest & Cove:the Crest & Cove intro·local SEO keywords that actually book·the five elements of a converting hero·how to compare STR marketing agencies·OTA fees without leftover occupancy lifts·this cluster.

Do short-term rental licenses transfer with the deed?

Do not invent a town permit fee this page did not confirm. This page will not invent the midweek rate. This page will not invent a two-night ADR or a three-night ADR. Under 12 free changes the cabin math without changing a rate band this page will not print.