Gourd-geous: Pumpkin festival carves new post-pandemic face

LACONIA — Under unseasonably warm sun by day and a cartoonishly bright full hunter’s moon by night, thousands reveled in the sights, sounds and smells of New England fall at the New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival downtown over the weekend. 

After several years of pandemic-induced hiatus and a 2022 return that struggled to get off the ground, the festival arrived with force this year, drawing crowds from across the Northeast who described it “as everything a fall festival should be.”

“We look for festivals,” said Brenda W. She and her husband Mark hail from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and venture across the region for the express purpose of visiting such events. They said they’d never been to a pumpkin festival before, and were lovestruck by the pumpkin-themed desserts at Laconia Village Bakery and Congregational Church of Laconia.

The two-day festival filled Veterans Square with meandering shelves of jack-o-lanterns carved by local students, businesses and residents, while the City Hall parking lot and Beacon Street East overflowed with local and traveling food trucks, a beer garden and crafters.

“I thought it went fantastic,” said Karmen Gifford, president of the Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce, which hosts and organizes the event. Gifford noted she was glad to see more costumes and more attendees through a range of ages than last year.

In a trudging parade, Friday night’s zombie walk grunted through the streets, growing in number — as packs of the undead tend to do — along the way. A sold-out dinner train on the Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad glided into the historic train station, bellowing its horn. The evening was capped with a dance party at the CAKE Theatre with attendees of all ages. Both nights, the bricks of the train station and cathedral of the CAKE were bathed in cobweb lighting, giving the square a ghoulish glow.

With temps in the mid-70s, Saturday’s programming — starting early with the Runaway Pumpkin road race, continuing with Wicked Cornhole’s bean bag toss tournament, and featuring Wicked Witches of the Lakes Region dance performances, hourly pie eating contests, and the largest children’s costume parade yet — was a monster smash.

Saturday night, festive spooky tunes turned Veterans Square into a dance floor, and the evening, and the festival itself, concluded with a zany laser show at the pumpkin display.

“It’s just what I hoped it would be,” Mayor Andrew Hosmer said of the festival. “I don’t know how it gets better than this.”

Hosmer, notably, came out on top of the 1 p.m. round of the pie-eating contest. He cleaned his half-pound of apple pie, made by Lakes Region Community College culinary students, in a feat of athleticism that his opponents, including local radio personalities, could not replicate. He claimed afterward his win continued a lifelong streak, beginning in the eighth grade, of being an undefeated pie-eating contest champion.

An attendance number is elusive, but Laconia Police Chief Matt Canfield confirmed Monday the event was definitely larger than last year.

The festival first came to Laconia after it was forced out of Keene, where world-record-breaking numbers of pumpkins and an imposing tower, along with tens of thousands of visitors, gave the festival its fame. In its early years in the City on the Lakes, the festival sought to emulate its past iteration.

Coming out of its years off due to the coronavirus pandemic, the festival last year almost didn’t happen because, Gifford said at the time, of insufficient volunteer engagement. An outcry brought it back, and while attendees gave overall positive reviews, a lack of a large-scale jack-o-lantern display led one local to remark that it was “a pumpkin festival without any pumpkins.” 

An expanded footprint, increased number of food vendors, and a reimagined pumpkin display complete with its own laser show triumphantly replanted the festival’s flag this year, longtime local attendees said.

Sherry and Jeff C. of Belmont have been coming to the festival for years. They have always loved, they said, how it shows off more local vendors and businesses than a stereotypical fair, but emphasized this year it felt like the festival was reinvigorated. 

“It really feels like it’s expanding again,” Jeff said.

In the arms of Sherry’s sister Vickie, 3-year-old Lucas outstretched his arms toward the rampart of gourds. 

“All week he kept saying he wants to ‘go pumpkin town,’” Sherry said. 

A pumpkin tower, which carries a $15,000 price tag, was not possible again this year, though the festival’s reputation remains intertwined with it — several attendees, whether mentioning the tower or not, said they came expressly to bask in the jack-o-lanterns’ glow. But this year’s display, with the added enchantments of New Spectrum Lighting’s cobweb lights and Pinnacle Lasers’ flashy show, demonstrated its own power to bewitch. 

“We don’t count the pumpkins,” Gifford said. “It hasn’t been a focus of this festival, the way it was for Keene, and we don’t try to compete with that. Our goal is to really celebrate what we have, for fall and artistry and creativity.”

Gifford emphasized the success of the festival as one where the time and effort of volunteers, sponsors and local businesses coalesce — with a helping hand from mother nature — around a sense of pride. 

“We’re proud of our community. And so with everyone getting involved, I feel like there is a sense of pride to be able to showcase what we have here,” Gifford said. 

“You know,” she also remarked, “if we could have weather like that every time, and know that, boy, that would make our work a lot easier.”