There is a regular calendar of events in Lincolnshire, with some dating back over a century, with many very unique to their locality.

One of the most famous is the Agricultural Show, first held around the year 1884. It is one of the largest agricultural shows in the country, and attracts some 100,000 people during its two days (the Wednesday and Thursday of the last whole week of June) at the Showground at Grange de Lings, a few miles north of Lincoln.

The two-day RAF Waddington Air Show is held annually, usually during the last weekend of June, at RAF Waddington, and attracts some 40,000 people. The local RAF Scampton-based Red Arrows are the most famous and popular attraction at the show.

Dating back to 1742, possibly one of the country’s most unusual auctions takes place in Bourne, a market town on the western edge of the Fens, on the Monday before Easter. This auction is to let the grazing rights of the Whitebread Meadow. Bidding takes place while two boys race toward the Queen's Bridge in Eastgate. The end dash is meant to be the equivalent of the falling gavel in an auction.

Events in Lincolnshire also include the turning on of Christmas lights at the beginning of December in Bourne, Sleaford, Skegness, and other towns, a Christmas Market is held in Lincoln. This candlelit street market operates throughout the town, and has, over the past few years, become extremely popular.

The Spalding Flower Parade, which is held in late spring every year, attracts visitors from across Britain. It was started in 1959, and a prominent feature of the parade is the colourful floats decorated with tulip heads which compete for a cup.

Corby Glen, in South Kesteven, is host to one of the country’s oldest organised sheep fair, which has been held every year since 1238.

The Haxey Hood village (located in the north of the county) competition is certainly one of the most unusual in the UK, and takes place every January, as it traditionally has for over 700 years. On the afternoon of the 6th January, or Twelfth Day of Christmas (if on a Sunday, it is held on January 5), a form of large rugby football scrum, (called the "sway"), pushes a leather tube, (called the "hood"), to one of four pubs, where it remains until the following year's game.

There is a mid-Lent fair held in Stamford during the week after Mothering Sunday. Showmen converge on the town and rides and sideshows fill the main Broad Street, the Sheepmarket and the Meadows for a complete week. Stalls selling Grantham gingerbread and nougat are a traditional feature. The following week, the entire fair decamps to nearby Grantham.

Some of the other rather unusual annual attractions include the annual Scarecrow Festival held in Tetford and Salmonby (16 km south of Louth) in May, and the Belchford (7 miles north of Horncastle) Downhill Challenge which is held every two years, where soapbox racers race down the hill at up to 30 km/h.



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