Pumpkin Festival Packs Tons Of Fun Into Milford Center

MILFORD, NH — Eric Escobar could have painted a mural ahead of the 30th annual Milford Pumpkin Festival. Instead, the owner of Wicked Ways Inc. wanted those who walked the town center during the annual Columbus Day weekend event to see it unfold over the course of three days.

"Just to show people live art, really," said Escobar, who is co-owner of the tattoo parlor, art gallery and gift shop on Nashua Street. "I do it during the event so people can watch it. Then they can experience the whole process and see the different layers to get it up. It the awareness of art around Milford."

Milford Pumpkin Festival attendees stopped to take photos of the evolving mural in the middle of the packed downtown Saturday afternoon as music, food trucks, carnival games, street vendors and giant pumpkins filled nearly every inch from The Oval to Emerson Park. Weather worries dissipated in the days leading up to the event with the sun breaking through in time for the beer and spirits tasting in the Oval and lasting through the third day of the festival on Sunday.

"The early part of this week there was some chatter that there may not be as much with the crowds," said Wade Campbell, director of the Milford Pumpkin Festival. "But today (Saturday) when you try to get from one place to the other, it's wall-to-wall people from one side to the other."

This year's Pumpkin Festival was the biggest ever in terms of varied locations with three stages of music over three days and vendors in the town hall stretching from the auditorium to the banquet room.

"This year we put a stage down at Emerson Park to try to a draw down there," Campbell said. "It seems to have worked. The Postal Service then supplied us with a bigger stage so things down there seem to be a little more happening than in previous years."

Friday night, the U.S. Postal Service unveiled its Spooky Silhouettes forever stamp series with an official ceremony in front of the Milford Post Office that drew hundreds of people and attracted collectors from all over the country.

"It was excellent," Campbell said. "I think it exceeded their expectations for working out the way it did. They were extremely happy with it."

Another highlight of the Milford Pumpkin Festival Friday night was the Murphy-Clark Band's dedication of the song "Shine" to Milford second-grader Noah Lantaff, who is recovering from bone marrow surgery after battling childhood leukemia. The band passed out lyric cards to those in the crowd and live streamed the show to Lantaff in his room at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston.

Zoe Lantaff, the festival's entertainment director, said the response was overwhelming and that the family hopes Noah's story will help spur more people to be tested for a bone marrow match in the national registry.

And, of course, there would not be a Pumpkin Festival without lots and lots of pumpkins with this weekend’s biggest gourd award going to one that checked in at 2,148 pounds.

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Band To Dedicate "Shine" To Young Fan At Milford Pumpkin Festival