Just as the days get colder and the fall colors get brighter, the excitement increases as Keene comes closer to the biggest weekend in town. Pumpkin Fest is known to be a highlight of the Fall in the New England region as it is a display of community engagement and celebration. “It is an event that makes a lot of people happy. Seeing all the smiles on everyone’s face is what inspires me to work hard every year,” Ruth Sterling, Pumpkin Fest primary organizer said.
Two days from now, Keene will go ‘more orange’ than any other day as pumpkins are lined up along Main Street and end in a jack-o-lantern pyramid in Central Square.
KSC sophomore Courtney Lacerte recalled seeing an incredible amount of pumpkins last year. “I just remember pumpkins everywhere. It was really beautiful,” Lacerte said.
“I remember the giant pumpkin wall,” CJ Lapierre, a KSC sophomore said.
Guinness World Record
Sterling said it is a priority of the organizers to bring the word record back to New Hampshire. Keene held the Guinness World record for most lit jack-o-lanterns in 2003 with 28,952, but in 2006, Boston beat the N.H. town scoring a total of 30,128 jack-o-lanterns.
File Photo/ Brian Cantore/ Photo Editor Pumpkin Festival brings people from New England and the U.S to Keene. The city’s population nearly triples on this date. Visitors and Keene residents carved almost 30,000 pumpkins last year.
Last year, Keene came close to the record, but fell short to Boston, gathering 29,381 jack-o-lanterns.
Sterling said Pumpkin Fest 2013 will be all about breaking the world record once again. “Generally, I would give you a different answer, but not today. Our hundred-percent focus for this year’s Pumpkin Festival is bringing the record home,” stated Sterling. She went on, “Boston has had it for too long. We were close last year and it belongs here.”
The event planners are deciding a game plan to ensure the victory for Keene. “We are setting strategy that won’t let anything get in the way of that record,” Sterling said.
For Sterling, nothing will interfere in accomplishing that goal. “No finances, nothing. I would give away ATMs to bring home the record,” Sterling said.
Kimberly Patrick will be the Guinness World Record official monitoring the counting. Patrick is the head of records management for Guinness in the U.S., according to a story in The Keene Sentinel.
Volunteers will keep a record of the jack-o-lanterns and announce if the record is broken the night of Pumpkin Fest.
This year Keene is competing with Newtown, Connecticut and Highwood, Illinois Pumpkin Festivals. Last year, Highwood fell short to Keene gathering 22,333 jack-o’-lanterns.
HGTV
A highlight of this year’s Pumpkin Festival will be the return of the television network HGTV. Last October, members of HGTV visited Keene to film a T.V. special named ‘Pumpkin Wars’. Although the company will not be holding another ‘Pumpkin War,’ the station will still be participating in the festivities.
This year, HGTV will be hosting Gilbo Avenue Welcome Center during the festival.
File Photo/ Karina Barriga Albring/News Editor
At the welcome center, there will be tables for activities such as pumpkin carving and a pumpkin log-in station.
This Pumpkin Fest’s HGTV star will be Meg Caswell, the winner of season six “Design Star,” a reality competition show that features interior design challenges. On Saturday afternoon, a meet-greet with Meg Caswell will take place in the welcome center.
Last year’s HGTV special in Keene was hosted by Dan and Jonathan Scott, from the HGTV show “Property Brothers.” The town competed against Highwood, Illinois for the most lit jack-o-lanterns.
According to Sterling, Luca Paris, a local business owner in Keene, got in contact with HGTV about coming back to Keene to be a part of the annual Pumpkin Festival.
KSC junior Kalie Randlett said she is excited about HGTV coming to Keene. “I want to see them this year. I’ll find them,” Randlett said and added that last year she didn’t get the chance to see the crew.
Lapierre said, “I think it’s a good idea [that HGTV is coming to Keene] because it’s an attraction to the festival.”
Scheduled Activities
At 6 a.m. on October 19, Main Street will officially be shut down for six hours for the transformation into the 2013 Pumpkin Festivals. The street will be reopened as a pedestrian area at noon.
Once the festival is open, there will be different attractions from The Auld Locals performance at 1:30 p.m. to the street performance by the KSC Dance Team at 3:15 p.m. and The Beatles “Studio Two” performance at 5:15 p.m.
File Photos/ Karina Barriga Albring/ News Editor
Street venders will offer from food to clothing and jewelry. Along with the entertainment and shopping experience the festival provides its visitors, rows and piles of pumpkins will decorate downtown.
Sterling said she prepares for the festival months in advance, but that her favorite thing about prepping is creating merchandise that people find ‘irresistible’ and immortalizes their memories at Pumpkin Fest.
“There will be four souvenir stations,” said Sterling. All the stations will include products from garden flags and t-shirts to flap jack cards and light catchers. “The t-shirts will have a tower of jack-o-lanterns on the back on a solid midnight-blue color.”
Regarding funding for Pumpkin Festival, Sterling said, “Our mission is to figure out who benefits, who would suffer if the festival stopped, and we ask them to help fund.”
“I want everyone who benefits to be on our supporters list,” said Sterling. There are many ways in which businesses can contribute to the festival. Donations can go from money and gift cards to feeding the volunteers. “I eat out around town and leave donation forms,” Sterling joked.
The festival will close down at 8:30 p.m. The town will then be reopened at 8:45 p.m. for the Pumpkin Dump Derby.
Community Service Coordinator at KSC Jessica Gagne Cloutier said, many KSC students will participate in the event. The participants will be divided in teams and each team will be given an area they have to clean. The team that finishes first will win money to donate for a cause of their choice.
The Pumpkin Festival is back in town for Keene residents and visitors to enjoy, to keep the tradition and enhance the community feeling, according to Sterling.
As the excitement keeps increasing, the festival organizers get ready to entertain and amuse an even tougher crowd. “We love to impress the ones that are unimpressed normally but then come and are blown away,” stated Sterling.
Karina Barriga Albring can be contacted at kbarriga@keene-equinox.com
Haley Erdbrink can be contacted at herdbrink@keene-equinox.com
