Pumpkinfest gearing up for its 25th anniversary this Saturday

Jeff Green | Oct 03, 2019

The Battersea Pumpkin Festival started out in the 1980’s as a harvest festival for a small village that is surrounded by farms and farm families.

The world has changed drastically over the last 25 years, and the Pumpkin Festival has certainly developed its own unique traditions, but it has remained true to itself over all that time; it remains a harvest festival.

This year there are some special events planned to mark the occasion. The corn maze, which has been on hiatus for a couple of years to let the corn field next to the Battersea Ball Park lie fallow, is back and it features a special theme for the 25th anniversary. There will also be a new petting zoo this year, the Barnyard Zoo, from 10am-3pm.

The Festival gets underway at 9am, but the Holiday Country Manor will be service breakfast from 7am-10am. At 9:30 all are invited to gather at the ball park to get ready for the parade, which starts at 10 sharp(ish). Events will be running throughout the day: games in the ball park, rides on the model railway, the corn maze, crafts and pumpkin carving ‘Under the Big Top’, the haunted bait and bolt, wagon rides, music around and about the park and the village, the pie social and pie eating contest, vendor village, Little Betty at the Creekside Bar and  Grill, and much more.

This year there is a new event that everyone can participate in, a photo challenge. Visitors to the festival are invited to snap photos throughout the festival and post them to the Pumpkinfest Facebook page. There will be a contest winner who will receive a significant basket of prizes.

The village is small and it does get crowded as the festival day ramps up. To avoid traffic, visitors are invited to park at Storrington Public school. Hogan bus lines has provided two busses to shuttle people to the festival and back at the end. The bus will remain available until the last car has left the school.

Amanda Pantrey has been the chair of the festival committee for the last two years. She said that she is really looking forward to the festival this year as she does every year.

“It gets better and better and it is so great to work with so many people helping out,” she said.

There are about 15 organisers who attend meetings, and dozens of others who volunteer in one way or another one.

“The festival has a super laid-back feel to it. That’s what I love about it,” she said.

For full details about the festival, go to events.southfrontenac.net, click on pumpkinfest on the calendar, then click on The Vine Line on the page that comes up.