The Future of the Pumpkin Festival is Not Carved in ....er.....Pumpkin

(PFest sound intro)
From morning until the fireworks finale, tens of thousands of people meandered along Keene’s Main Street.

They were checking out cool jack-o’-lanterns with stems for noses, fiber and seeds for vomit, intricate patterns painstakingly carved as pieces of short-term art.

Food vendors lined the downtown streets selling fried pickles, kettle corn, and pumpkin pie in waffle cones.

Visitors packed local hotels, restaurants and shops.

And kids of all ages tried out their Halloween costumes a little early.

“I’m a skeleton”
“A monster bride”
“I’m a zombie ... I want to be deadly.”

(Pfest sound fading out)

Pumpkin Festival is part of Keene’s identity.

The city gained recognition internationally in 2003 for setting the world record for the most lit jack-o’-lanterns in one place.

Nonprofits from churches to athletic teams to arts groups use the event as their biggest fundraiser.

But Suzanne Woodward, Director of Center Stage, the festival’s organizer says the future of the festival is in question.

Tough economic times have cut back on what the city can spend to support it.

So Woodward’s told local nonprofits that rely on the festival to make themselves heard.

“I’ve told every one of them, if you have a concern about this and you really care, start writing letters. Write to the city council, call the mayor, write letters to the editor of the Keene Sentinel, let it be known that you care about his and don’t want it to go away. All their voices need to be heard."

Woodward says the festival costs about $200,000 to put on.

Last year the city pitched in $70,000.

This year, working to keep its spending down, the city budgeted just $25,000.

The bill for police security and public works will now be mailed to Woodward at Center Stage.

“The plan is we’re going to tap into our rainy day fund and make the festival happen, and if we have a good year then we’ll be able to pull it off for another year. If we don’t, then it may be the end.”

Woodward says corporate sponsors for the festival may be tapped out.

They covered nearly $90,000 of the festival costs this year.

Keene Mayor Dale Pregent calls Pumpkin Fest a great community event.

He thinks downtown merchants and other businesses can kick in to keep the festival going.

If the economy turns up, he said, the city may even be able to bring back some of its former funding.

“It’ll be going on as a community event, I’m very confident of that because I don’t want to see it fail, and we’ll see what we can do working with them this coming year, sure.”

Some vendors, though, are worried.

Vicki Bacon works a tent for the Keene SwampBats and sat on the Center Stage board for many years.

Bacon said it would be sad to lose an event the community so looks forward to and relies on .

“I think it would be great if some of the businesses that benefit from it helped to sponsor it. You know, the hotels, the restaurants, everybody makes a ton of money. If businesses understood how much it took to do this and you know maybe stepped it up a bit it would be nice.”

(PFest Vicki bacon sound)

Nick Sansone, who closes his downtown salon for Pumpkin Fest, said he’d still be willing to pony up for the festival.

“I think also defraying costs by maybe deputizing citizens, getting the local community involved in some of the aspects, cutting down the cost of the police force, a lot of interesting ideas … I think there’s a world of options for this thing, but it would be a shame if we lost all that money for all the great support for people who need help in our town.”

(Sansone sound)

Suzanne Woodward of Center Stage will be counting receipts over the coming days, trying to find out how sales of T-shirts and parking spaces stacked up against festival expenses.

“We’re gonna have to take a hard look at our budget at the end of this festival and decide, can we pull this off again.”

With more than 70,000 people on Main Street Saturday, it’s safe to assume it wasn’t, at least, a bad year.

For NHPR news, I’m Donna Moxley.