Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival

About this event

The Art & Pumpkin Festival takes over Main Street in Half Moon Bay for its 54th year, running 9am to 5pm both days. Two hundred-odd artists and craftspeople, coastal food and drink, and the whole town given over to it. The set pieces are the Great Pumpkin Parade, this year led by Grand Marshal Sergio Romo of the Giants, and the giant pumpkins themselves — the champions from the Weigh-Off are trucked down to Main Street for photos. Alongside those: pie eating contests, a costume contest, pumpkin carving with Farmer Mike, who is marking his 40th year at the festival, and the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Run. Saturday finishes with a Moonlight Movie Night. Two lounges give you somewhere to sit down: the Harvest Moon Lounge run by Half Moon Bay Winery, and the Xfinity Take 5 Lounge. Plan the drive. Highway 92 backs up badly on festival weekends — sometimes an hour or more each way — and parking in town fills early. The festival runs shuttles and publishes transit options, which are worth using. Coming over Highway 1 from the north avoids the worst of it.