Celebrating Halloweekend: off campus

Alyssa Wisniewski
Student Life Editor

On a Sunday, October 28, the city of Keene hosted The Monadnock Pumpkin Festival for its second consecutive year since 2014.
Many Keene State College students took advantage of the event being so close to campus.
Chock’ Full of Notes, the acapella group at Keene State performed at the festival. Brendan Goodwin, the music director of the group said there’s a lot of new members in the group this year.
This is Chock’ Full of Notes’ third performance this year and has been practicing twice a week, every week.
“We practice every Sunday from seven to ten and eight to ten on Wednesdays,” Goodwin said.
At Pumpkin Fest this year Goodwin said they decided to change their performance from last year’s Pumpkin Fest, “We did new material this year and also paid a lot of attention on the ‘nity gritty’ stuff to make sure we stay together.”
Briana Feldman, A first-year student says she enjoyed the experience of going to pumpkin fest as a Keene State student.
“A lot of people were talking about so my roommate and I decided to go and see it,” Feldman said.
After riots occurred in the 2014 Pumpkin Fest, security has increased to ensure the safety of others and the students on campus. This year, however, students who went to the event this year felt safe and unthreatened.
“The police department was there, but they were just watching to make sure everything was going okay and kept it safe,” Feldman said.
The students who went to the event say they really love the atmosphere at the pumpkin festival.
“There is a lot of music playing and the set up was so pretty,” Feldman said.
Students also enjoyed seeing all the different designs on the pumpkins.
“It was really cool seeing the different types of work everyone was doing, they had a lot of artistic abilities,” Feldman said.
Some pumpkins at the festival were traditional round but many others came in different shapes and sizes.
“There were so many different shapes and sizes. There were really tiny ones and really big ones with so many designs,” Feldman said.
Feldman said Pumpkin Festival was a good way for students to spend time with their friends after a stressful week, “It was really nice to get out, and I saw a lot of my friends and a bunch of other keene state students.”
As the event went on some students thought that pumpkin fest didn’t live up to some expectations they were told about before.
“I definitely think there was too much ‘hype’ about [Pumpkin Fest] for what it was, but it was a lot more than I expected too. I wasn’t expecting that many pumpkins,” Feldman said.
Towards the end of the festival, candles were lit to add to the atmosphere at the festival.
“I liked that the vendors were lighting candles and it looked so pretty. Everyone was just in a good mood throughout the day,” Feldman said.
The Monadnock Pumpkin Fest wrapped up around 7 p.m. Sunday night and Keene State College students loved the festival regardless of the security, weather, and doubt.