Surin Elephant Round-up 2026

The round-up is always held in the third week of November, with the shows on the weekend. In 2026 the fair opens on 14 November and runs to 25 November at Si Narong Stadium, with market stalls, a main stage and a concert stage. The rehearsal on Thursday 19 November is free and much less crowded, a good option if you'd rather skip the weekend crush. On Friday 20 November the elephants parade through town from the railway station, and the elephant buffet follows, with tables of fruit and vegetables about 400 m long laid out for them. In 2003 it set a Guinness record, with 269 elephants eating more than 50 tonnes of food.

The main event is the show on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 November, in the morning at the Surin Elephant Show Ground. The free shuttle runs from 07:00, which tells you when to get there. Prasat Sikhoraphum, a Khmer temple about 30 minutes' drive from town, stages a light-and-sound show on the Friday and Saturday evenings.

Seats in the main grandstand are free, on a first-come, first-served basis, so arrive early if you want one. Reserved, numbered seats in the other zones cost about ฿250–350 and are booked on the festival's official site, surinelephantshow.com, where booking closes at noon on Friday 20 November. A reserved seat saves you the early start and the scramble,. The parade, the buffet and the fair are all free.

The show opens with baby elephants paraded around the arena, then the bull elephants. Then the Kuy hunters pray to the sacred lasso and show how wild elephants were once caught, alone or from the backs of trained elephants. After that come the crowd-pleasers, elephants playing football and polo, painting, and a tug of war in which a single bull takes on a team of soldiers, with more added until there are about a hundred. The finale is a re-enactment of a battle between Siamese and Burmese armies, with elephants in the middle of the lines, ending in a Siamese victory.

The festival's roots are older than the show. The Kuy of Surin caught and trained wild elephants for centuries, and the round-ups were once royal hunts staged for kings and foreign guests. The modern festival began on a small scale in Tha Tum, north of town, around 1960, when elephants had lost their work in the forests, and later moved to Surin itself.

Surin is on the railway from Bangkok to Ubon Ratchathani. The fastest train, the Special Express that leaves Krung Thep Aphiwat at 06:10, reaches Surin at about midday, roughly 6 hours. Rapid trains take about 8 hours, and overnight sleepers arrive in the small hours, which suits an early start at the show ground. Buses and vans take 6–8 hours. Or fly to Buriram, the nearest airport, and drive about an hour.

Surin town is roughly 50 km from the Cambodian border, and some governments advise against travel near it. Australia says to stay 10 km away and the UK 20 km, while Canada and New Zealand say 50 km. The festival sites are in town and north of it, but skip the border temples and check your own government's advice before you go.

Surin has a modest number of hotels, and they fill for the festival weekend, so book as early as you can. Staying in town means you can take the free shuttle or walk to the show ground in the morning. If Surin is full, Buriram is the next-best base. It has the nearest airport, and it's about an hour by road, which is fine for the shows if you leave early.