Pumpkin Festival: Where to park, and how to get there

LACONIA — Roads and traffic patterns in downtown will be different than normal Friday and Saturday, Oct. 27-28, as the city hosts the New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival.

This year, organizers have decided to keep Main Street open to vehicular traffic throughout the festival, a move which is intended to increase accessibility to businesses on Main Street. However, several streets will close for the festival, and the closures will start on Friday morning and last through Saturday.

Road closures

Roadways affected by the festival include Beacon Street East, Canal Street, Hanover Street, and Veterans Square. Hanover Street will remain open for local traffic only until noon on Friday, to allow access to City Hall. After noon, vehicles will only be allowed to use Hanover Street to exit the City Hall lot onto Main Street.

The rest of the closures — Beacon Street East, Canal Street and Veterans Square — will begin on Friday morning and last until Sunday morning.

Although Veterans Square will be closed, Pleasant Street will remain open. Drivers attempting to access downtown via Church Street will be able to turn right at the Main Street intersection, then left onto New Salem Street, then left again onto Pleasant Street.

Parking

The downtown parking garage will only be open to vendors, and the City Hall lot will be used as a site for Pumpkinfest events, so those usual parking spaces won’t be open to the general public.

Instead, organizers are pointing to other lots available for parking. The city has public parking available at lots between Main and Pleasant streets, on Beacon Street West, and in spaces along New Salem Street.

Karmen Gifford, president of the Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce, said greater pains were taken in the first couple of years when the city hosted the event. Remote parking lots were arranged, along with shuttles, to deliver people to and from downtown.

“They didn’t get used,” Gifford said about the remote parking accommodations. Instead, people found spaces in downtown lots or streetside.

Most residential streets immediately outside of downtown allow for parking, she said, “just don’t park in front of a hydrant, don’t block someone’s driveway, make sure an ambulance can get past.”

This year’s plan was the result of a balance between the needs associated with hosting an event and the needs of people and businesses to pursue their daily activities.

“When we worked [on this plan], our different departments and I worked with event organizers to understand that there’s going to be road closures, there’s going to be parking issues with putting on an event like this,” yet the city also welcomes the festival, said City Manager Kirk Beattie. “The event needs to have what they need, but we need to be sure that we are being as least disruptive as we possibly can.”

He said that with the forecast looking ideal, large crowds are expected, and the benefits of such a festival will be felt long after the weekend’s disruptions are resolved.

“I think it’s important for a community to have positive events that shine a good light on the community and bring in more people to all of our businesses, and to see our community for what it is and all the good that we can do,” Beattie said. It’s hard to put a dollar figure on the value of the event, he said, but added that any person who comes for the event is likely to return for a subsequent visit.

“It’s just a positive for what it brings in, our businesses might see future business. It’s a positive event for our community, and that’s important,” Beattie said.

Friday events

While most visitors will arrive for Saturday’s events, there are many activities starting as early as 4 p.m. on Friday. Those include activities such as the KidsZones, a craft and artisan show, food trucks, vendors and performers, outdoor food and beer service, the pumpkin display judging, and an animated lighting display. The “Zombie Walk,” which goes from Veterans Square to the City Hall lot, starts at 6 p.m.

A full schedule of events can be found at nhpumpkinfestival.com.