The farm's homepage says Demarest Farms is open for the 2026 season daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. At 7 p.m. the same ground on Wierimus Road is a line of cars with their radios tuned to 107.9FM. Every car in that line holds an online reservation, because the farm does not sell light show tickets at its market.
The 32 acres at 244 Wierimus Road get reset twice between now and Christmas, and each reset changes how you get through the gate. Picking and market hours run on walk-in logic. The Halloween Light Show runs on booked time slots. The Orchard of Lights that replaces it runs on online-only tickets and a vehicle-size rule. Knowing which system is live on a given evening is most of the work of a visit.
Daylight Is the Walk-In Version
Demarest Farms was founded in 1886, and the daytime operation is what that history built. The farm offers peach, apple and pumpkin picking, a petting zoo, and a farm market selling produce and baked goods. The homepage lists the 2026 season hours as daily, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The farm's pages carry little date information, so it is worth confirming those hours on demarestfarms.com before driving over.
Even the daytime version has some booking in it. A local-experts directory that profiles the farm says reservations are required for limited experiences such as pick-your-own peaches and pumpkins. One Tripadvisor reviewer also noted that a group ticket covered a set number of pumpkins, with extras priced separately. The ticket terms are worth reading before loading the car, and the market itself is the part with no such rules.
The Halloween Show Is Sold Before You Arrive
The Halloween Light Show is a guided vehicle tour through the same 32 acres, and the farm's Halloween show site states the entry rules plainly. Reservations are required and made through the farm's booking system. Tickets cannot be purchased at the farm market. Guests are asked to arrive 10 minutes before their reservation time, and the site warns of waits of up to 30 minutes between reservation time and tour start at peak times.
The published schedule runs from September 17 through October 31. Sunday through Thursday the hours are 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. On Friday and Saturday the show runs until 9:30 p.m. Today is September 29, so the show is well underway. Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, which puts the closing night on one of the later Friday and Saturday schedules if those hours hold. The hours page carries no year, so the booking system is the authority on which nights still have slots.
Plan Around the Line, Not the Drive
The farm describes the tour as taking about 20 to 25 minutes. It also gives the sequence at arrival. You line up in a designated area, a farm employee checks you in and gives instructions, and the route takes you through the orchard with the radio on 107.9FM. That means the radio dial is the soundtrack and the reservation slot is the ticket.
One Tripadvisor reviewer describes a timed Saturday entry at 5 p.m. for the holiday version of the tour. They arrived at about 4:50, joined lines of cars on the farm side, and were directed across Wierimus Road toward the orchards. By their account the process was efficient, and their row, the fourth, started moving within roughly eight minutes. The same reviewer put the drive itself at 25 to 30 minutes, a little longer than the farm's own estimate. The reviewer also reports $35 per vehicle rather than per person, which changes the math for a full car. That is one visitor's report from one night, not the farm's price list.
Put together, an evening looks like this on paper.
| Version | How you get in | Published hours | Walk-up? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Picking and farm market | Daily hours, with some pick-your-own slots reservation-based | 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, per the 2026 season homepage | Yes for the market |
| Halloween Light Show | Reservation through the farm's booking system | Sept. 17 to Oct. 31, 7 to 9 p.m. Sun. to Thu., 7 to 9:30 p.m. Fri. and Sat. | No tickets at the market |
| Orchard of Lights | Online tickets only | Select dates, 5 to 8 p.m. in 2025 | No |
The Orchard of Lights Reuses the Route and Changes the Rules
When the Halloween show closes, the farm's holiday event takes over the same acreage. The Orchard of Lights uses the same format of a guided drive through 32 acres, with tickets available exclusively online. The visitnj.org drive-through lights guide lists the 2025 run as select dates from November 22 through December 30. The farm's own orchardoflights.com pages describe the same arrangement and add a vehicle rule. Transit vans and other oversized vehicles cannot be accommodated.
The evening window also moves. The Halloween show starts at 7 p.m. The 2025 Orchard of Lights ran from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on its select dates, according to a holiday-events listing. A regional festival calendar for 2026 lists a Hillsdale run on November 27 through 29, the weekend after Thanksgiving. That listing is the only 2026 date I found, and it does not show the full schedule. The dates page on orchardoflights.com is the place to check for the rest.
Anyone carrying a group in a larger vehicle should find out about the size rule before booking. It is the one restriction on the property that is about the car rather than the calendar.
Where the Walk-Up Door Reopens
The farm market is the piece that stays open after dark. On Orchard of Lights nights the farm market and Santa stay open until 9 p.m. nightly through December 24, when the farm's site says Santa leaves for the North Pole. A separate holiday-events listing says visitors can also make s'mores and buy hot cocoa at the farm. So the property that turns into a reservations-only drive for the light shows has a walk-up counter with a fixed closing time on the other side of the route. Demarest Farms' own phone line, 201-666-0472, is the number listed on its light show sites for anything the booking pages do not answer.
Ana Moniz Premier Homes is based in Hillsdale, and questions about Wierimus Road nights, from where the line forms to which season's rules apply, are the kind of local detail we like to talk through. If a conversation about the market comes up along the way, Schedule a Market Consultation.
