At 9 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 15, food and art vendors, live musicians and families dressed in Halloween costumes filled Half Moon Bay’s Main Street to celebrate the annual Half Moon Bay Pumpkin & Art Festival. Lines for a pumpkin pancake breakfast or a photo taken with a 2,749-pound pumpkin circle around the block.  

In its 51st year, the festival continues to uphold the charm and tradition of a small-town event full of food, fall festivities and fun while supporting local businesses and nonprofit organizations that attend the festival.

“People just love pumpkins, smiling and being happy,” said Corrine Bucher, the executive director of a nonprofit called the Cabrillo Education Foundation. Bucher has returned to the pumpkin festival for 15 years in a row to work the pumpkin photo booth. “All things are just happy at this festival. Then I think about our photo booth and the magic of this gourd that grew to be 2,749 pounds. It’s a Guinness Book of World Record pumpkin. And that’s just magic. People think it’s magic.”

Bucher emphasized that this year’s winning pumpkin set a world record at the Half Moon Bay’s World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off.  

“The giant pumpkin that wins the weigh off gets hosted inside the booth and people come and get their picture taken with the pumpkin. This is a family tradition and I see the same families come through year after year,” Bucher said. 

The event also hosts numerous creative activities run by artists. Richard Art Felix, a collaborative public artist who ran a booth at the festival, gave people the opportunity to paint freely and contribute to a variety of murals. 

“I do this all around the world. I had around 500,000 people painting with me over the last 10 years and some 500 residents. Featured artists create a piece to engage the community, that is what I do. I engage communities, companies and schools,” Felix said. 

Felix’s main goal was to provide people a means to express themselves while building a collection of paintings. Crowds of children and adults of all ages flooded his booth and painted together.

“I create art that encompasses the participation of people. [The art is] great to activate exercise, inspire creativity in everyone,” Felix said. 

Stephanie Arbuckle, the owner of the local hat shop Stephanie’s Hat Box, opened her first booth at the festival. Arbuckle has been attending the festival for 23 years.

“It’s such an amazing rural agricultural area. Having the homegrown pumpkins and all the local artists and food is just amazing and goes beyond. It’s just a great community event that brings everybody together and it’s so safe,” Arbuckle said.