A crowd swarms around a car destroyed by a 1,000-pound pumpkin at Great Salt Bay Community School in Damariscotta on Sunday, Oct. 13. This year marked the pumpkin drops return to the Damariscotta Pumpkinfest and Regatta schedule for the first time since 2019. (Johnathan Riley photo)
The 17th annual Damariscotta Pumpkinfest & Regatta brought the festival’s highest post-COVID attendance yet and produced a state record for Maine’s largest pumpkin.
This year featured the return of the car-crushing pumpkin drop, signaling the return of all the festival’s pre-pandemic events and its highest attendance in years, said Pumpkinfest Executive Director Jed Weiss.
“We’ve been rebuilding, and the last major piece was the drop,” Weiss said. “Every one of the events was packed.”
The weigh-off was held at Louis Doe Home Center in Newcastle for the second time after moving from its old location at Pinkham’s Plantation the weekend of Oct. 5-6. The site has better facilities for pumpkin boat-building and pumpkin drop-off, according to co-founder Bill Clark.
Charlie Lopresti, the weigh-off’s longtime master of ceremonies, broke the state record for largest pumpkin by over 200 pounds with a 2,365.5-pound fruit.
Due to the record-breaking pumpkin’s size, organizers had to use a new trailer in order to drive the giant squash through the Pumpkinfest parade, said volunteer Todd Sandstrom.
“I’m glad it didn’t immediately crush it,” Sandstrom said.
On the back of a good growing season, six squash weighed in at over 1,000 pounds at the weigh-off, Weiss said.
The “great” growing season also caused problems, however, as giant pumpkins often split when they grow too large, Weiss said.
“A record number of large pumpkins were lost in the last three weeks before the weigh-off,” Weiss said.
There was a dearth of usable pumpkins for boat building because of this, Weiss said. Organizers were forced to buy extra pumpkins from other growers to make up for it, he said.
According to Weiss, 72 pumpkins were deployed for the festival this year, beginning the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 9.
Artists painted, carved, and cut pumpkins throughout the Twin Villages on Friday, Oct. 11. Festival-goers packed the Main Street sidewalks while taking pictures of everything from a fish-decorated pumpkin to a pumpkin carved with a scene inspired by “Sleepy Hollow.”
The parade lasted over an hour during a cool and clear afternoon on Saturday, Oct. 12. Thousands saw local first responder vehicles lead the way for pumpkin and fall-themed floats as well as bands, a jump-rope team, and more.
The pumpkin drop spattered the football field at Great Salt Bay Community School with squash innards the morning of Sunday, Oct. 13.
Crowds watched a half-ton pumpkin crush a car after being dropped from 200 feet in the air. The second pumpkin dropped, weighing in at around 500 pounds, exploded against the ground to cheers from the hundreds gathered.
Small decorated pumpkins on wheels raced each other in the pumpkin derby the afternoon of Oct. 13. The alleyway between Elm Street Plaza and Beal House was filled to bursting with spectators, many of which were forced to climb on dumpsters or sit on each other’s shoulders to catch a glimpse of the action.
Dogs and humans alike gorged themselves on pumpkin pie while competing in the pie-eating contest Sunday evening, which Damariscotta Region Chamber of Commerce and Information Bureau Director Lisa Hagen said was the most successful it has ever been. The chamber helped distribute information about the festival and arranged for paid parking spaces.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had so many dogs or people participate,” Hagen said. “The amount of people who watched it – it was great.”
On the morning of Monday, Oct. 14, a crowd undeterred by the rain turned out to see the regatta in Damariscotta Harbor.
The lack of parking in Damariscotta’s back parking lot was not much of a problem for organizers, Weiss said.
“We plan for parking because that parking lot does not have enough space even when it is open,” Weiss said.
The parking lot was closed for public parking for the duration of Pumpkinfest activities due to the presence of Crooker Construction LLC’s equipment and work site. The project is part of a $4 million effort to improve the parking lot’s flood resilience.
Four buses shuttled people from free satellite parking lots along Main Street in Damariscotta, which Weiss said worked well.
The festival weekend also included the Wawenock Golf Club Scramble tournament, a pumpkin pancake breakfast at Wells-Hussey American Legion Post No. 42, a dessert-making contest, a kids zone filled with activities at the Central Lincoln County YMCA, a youth pumpkin hunt, and more.
Decorated pumpkins will remain until weather or rotting forces organizers to remove them, according to Weiss.
Weiss said Pumpkinfest is a “shot in the arm” for businesses to help them get through lean winter months.
“Nobody gets paid for Pumpkinfest,” Weiss said. “We do it for the community because we know what’s coming.”
Organizers will host a meeting at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24 at the Lincoln Academy Applied Technology and Engineering Building, at 89 Academy Hill Road in Newcastle, to discuss the lessons learned from this year’s festival and start planning next year’s. Pumpkinfest meetings are open to the public.
For more information, go to mainepumpkinfest.com.
