DeKalb County Georgia Stone Mountain Pumpkin Festival

Each autumn, Stone Mountain Park turns its Crossroads area over to the Pumpkin Festival, its documented fall event in the city of Stone Mountain, Georgia. The park’s own site bills the event simply as the Pumpkin Festival. Its press releases for the 2024 and 2025 editions carried a longer form, Pumpkin Festival: Play by Day, Glow by Night, while tourism and listing layers call it Stone Mountain Park’s Pumpkin Festival. The phrase Play by Day, Glow by Night runs through the organiser and tourism layers as the event’s theme, and it is treated here as a slogan, never as the name of a separate event. One clarification belongs up front: the city of Stone Mountain is not the seat of DeKalb County. Decatur holds that role, and the festival’s home is the park, not a county-seat fairground. The documented record covers three consecutive autumn runs, in 2024, 2025 and 2026, and everything in this article is fenced to those editions and the layers that describe them.

About the Festival

The organiser is Stone Mountain Park itself. The park’s official site is the layer that carries the dates, the hours, the programme and the ticket terms, and no separate presenting organisation is named in any captured layer, so none is invented here. The events layer places the festival in the park’s Crossroads area, and tourism and listing layers print the park’s address as 1000 Robert E. Lee Boulevard, Stone Mountain, with no postcode reproduced here. The shape of the event is consistent across the documented editions: a gated, ticketed run of autumn weekends, with festival attractions opening in the early afternoon and the grounds transforming after dark into an illuminated night programme. By day the emphasis falls on scenes, characters and shows; by night, under the Glow by Night theme, the same grounds carry lighted scenes, trails and performances. The festival is therefore best understood as one event with two halves rather than two events sharing a gate, and visitors who arrive for only one half see an incomplete version of it.

Quick Facts

Detail	What the record shows
Published name	Pumpkin Festival (park’s own site); Pumpkin Festival: Play by Day, Glow by Night (park press releases, 2024 and 2025)
Theme	Play by Day, Glow by Night (organiser and tourism layers)
Organiser	Stone Mountain Park; no separate presenting organisation is named in any captured layer
Venue	Stone Mountain Park, Crossroads area (organiser events layer)
Address as printed	1000 Robert E. Lee Boulevard, Stone Mountain (tourism and listing layers)
County seat	Decatur is the seat of DeKalb County; Stone Mountain is not
Documented editions	September 14 to November 3, 2024; September 13 to November 2, 2025; September 19 to November 1, 2026
Admission structure	Gated event included with a Daily Attractions Ticket or an annual Mountain Membership; no festival-only ticket exists in any layer
Parking	Charged separately: twenty dollars per vehicle per day, or a forty-dollar annual parking pass
Attendance	No figure is published in any layer gathered

History

The honest starting point for this festival’s history is a gap: no captured layer states a founding year, and no layer publishes an annual-ordinal billing that would let a reader count editions backward. The 2024 run is the first edition documented in the record gathered here, presented as exactly that — the earliest documented edition, not a proven first edition. That run opened on September 14, 2024 and closed on November 3, 2024, operating on Fridays through Sundays plus Monday, October 14, according to the park’s press-release layer. The 2025 edition followed the same weekend pattern, running from September 13 to November 2, 2025, with the extra Monday falling on October 13; the park calendar that year printed festival hours of 2:00 to 9:00 p.m. or 2:00 to 10:00 p.m. depending on the day. The 2026 edition, documented by the park’s events layer with listing layers agreeing, ran from September 19 to November 1, 2026, again on Fridays through Sundays, with Columbus Day, Monday, October 12, added. Three consecutive documented autumns establish the festival’s current rhythm; anything earlier belongs to a record the sources consulted do not print.

What to Expect

The daytime half of the festival, drawn from the park’s 2025 and 2026 layers, is built for families. Visitors encounter storybook and fairy-tale scenes with character encounters, live shows and storytelling, comedy performances, and a pie-eating contest, alongside the park’s own attractions. A parade belongs to this half of the day, but its name is one of the record’s open points: the park’s 2025 layer billed an all-new Pumpkin Parade, while a tourism layer names an Enchanted Glow-a-Long Parade. The two names are printed in two different layers and are recorded here exactly as printed; no source consulted settles whether they describe one parade under two names or two separate processions, and this article does not merge them. Festival attractions open at 2 p.m., per the organiser and tourism layers. One caution on hours: a family-events listing prints a 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. weekly span for the 2026 run, set unmerged against the park’s 2 p.m. festival opening. Both forms stand as printed. In the organiser record, the 10 a.m. figure belongs to the Summit Skyride, a park attraction with its own earlier opening — never the festival’s opening. After dark, the Glow by Night programme takes over: more than forty scenes spread across ten themed areas, a pumpkin-tree lighting, glow-in-the-dark mini-golf, illuminated trails and a dinosaur-themed nighttime experience. Its centrepiece is the Pumpkin Drone & Light Show, combining drones, lights, video, effects and fireworks — and the organiser-side layer states plainly that the show is weather-dependent. A tourism layer for 2026 also bills a Fire Queen performance as new that year; that element is fenced to the 2026 layer that carries it.

Planning Your Visit

Entry works through the park’s general attractions ticketing, and precision matters here because the layers disagree. The festival is a gated event, and admission to it is included with a Daily Attractions Ticket — a tourism layer prints the singular form, Daily Attraction Ticket, and both name forms stand as printed — or with an annual Mountain Membership. No layer describes a separate ticket sold only for the Pumpkin Festival, so visitors should not expect to find one. Prices conflict across layers and are never settled here. A deals-site layer describing the 2026 event puts the All-Attractions Pass as regularly priced at thirty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents. A travel-news layer on the 2026 edition quotes thirty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents for adults and thirty-six dollars and ninety-nine cents for children, with children aged two and younger free. A tourism listing layer for 2026 prints thirty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. A family-listing layer says tickets start at thirty-four dollars and ninety-five cents, but the year that figure belongs to is not firmly stated in the captured text, so it is fenced as year-unstated. Parking is a separate charge in every layer that mentions it — twenty dollars per vehicle per day, or a forty-dollar annual parking pass — and it is never part of admission. Because the run operates only on Fridays through Sundays plus a single Monday in each documented year, checking the park calendar for the specific day matters, as does the drone show’s stated weather dependence when choosing an evening.

For a useful comparison, see the Decatur County Georgia Bainbridge Fall Festival for another county festival.

A Sample Festival Day

A 2026 festival day, shaped by the documented hours, might run as follows: a family arriving late in the morning can ride the Summit Skyride, which opens at 10 a.m. as a park attraction, well before the festival itself begins. When festival attractions open at 2 p.m., the afternoon belongs to the daytime programme: the storybook scenes and character encounters first, then a live show or storytelling session, and the pie-eating contest. A parade passes during the day half, under whichever of its printed names the day’s layer carries. As evening approaches, the grounds shift character; the pumpkin-tree lighting marks the turn, and the night programme opens up — the illuminated trails, the glow-in-the-dark mini-golf and the dinosaur-themed experience. The Pumpkin Drone & Light Show caps the evening if the weather cooperates, and the grounds close at the calendar’s printed hour for that day.

How It Compares

The most instructive comparison sits inside the same park. The Stone Mountain Highland Games, held on the third weekend in October and running since 1972 according to the park’s own events page, is a separate festival; sharing a park and even overlapping the Pumpkin Festival’s season does not merge the two, and no Highland Games facts belong to this article. A second comparison is a warning rather than an event. A content-farm page about a Stone Mountain Pumpkin Festival 2025 circulates dates and programme items that appear nowhere in the park’s record and contradict it; the researchers quarantined that page, and none of its claims is used here. Against both comparisons, the Pumpkin Festival’s identity in the organiser record is specific: a weekend-only, afternoon-into-night event, built around scenes and light rather than competition or midway rides.

Checklist

• Confirm the specific date is a festival day; the documented runs operate Fridays through Sundays plus one Monday each year.
• Buy the park’s Daily Attractions Ticket or hold a Mountain Membership; no festival-only ticket exists.
• Compare prices across current layers before paying, because quoted prices conflict and none is settled here.
• Budget parking separately at twenty dollars per vehicle per day, or use a forty-dollar annual parking pass.
• Arrive knowing festival attractions open at 2 p.m.; the 10 a.m. opening belongs to the Summit Skyride.
• Keep the evening free for the Glow by Night programme and the pumpkin-tree lighting.
• Check the forecast, because the Pumpkin Drone & Light Show is weather-dependent.
• Plan for closing between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., as the park calendar varies the hour by day.

Beyond the Festival

The festival sits within a park that runs other programming on the same grounds, and a visitor’s day can extend past the festival’s own elements through the park attractions included on the same ticket. The Summit Skyride, opening hours before the festival each day, is the clearest example: it belongs to the park, not the festival, yet it shapes how many visitors structure their arrival. Decatur, the county seat, frames wider trips elsewhere in DeKalb County. What the record does not support is any grander claim about the festival’s footprint: no attendance figure is published in any layer gathered, so the event’s scale can be described only through its documented programme, not through crowd numbers.

Why It Matters

Within the limits of the record, the festival’s significance is its consistency and its format. Three consecutive documented autumn runs, each spanning roughly seven weeks of weekends, make it the park’s recurring fall anchor in the sources consulted. Its day-into-night design — storybook afternoons giving way to more than forty illuminated scenes, a drone and light show and glowing trails after dark — distinguishes it from a single-shift daytime fair. The sources also model honest record-keeping: prices that disagree across layers, a parade carried under two names, and an attendance figure that simply does not exist in print. On this evidence it stands as a well-documented piece of the park’s calendar, uncertainties intact.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a ticket sold only for the Pumpkin Festival?

No. Every layer that addresses ticketing describes the festival as a gated event included with the park’s Daily Attractions Ticket or Daily Attraction Ticket — both forms are printed — or with an annual Mountain Membership. No source consulted describes a standalone festival ticket.

Why do the prices quoted for this event disagree with each other?

Because the layers themselves disagree. For the 2026 edition alone, a deals-site layer quotes the All-Attractions Pass at thirty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents, a travel-news layer quotes thirty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents for adults and thirty-six dollars and ninety-nine cents for children, and a tourism listing prints thirty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. A further figure, thirty-four dollars and ninety-five cents as a starting price, comes from a family-listing layer whose year is not firmly stated. Each price is recorded inside its own layer here, and none is settled.

Does the festival itself open at ten in the morning?

Not on the organiser’s record. The park’s layers put the opening of festival attractions at 2 p.m.; the 10 a.m. opening belongs to the Summit Skyride, a park attraction. One family-events listing does print a 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. span for the 2026 run, and that span is recorded here unmerged, exactly as printed.

Are the Pumpkin Parade and the Enchanted Glow-a-Long Parade the same parade?

The record does not say. The park’s 2025 layer bills an all-new Pumpkin Parade, and a tourism layer names an Enchanted Glow-a-Long Parade. No source consulted explains the relationship between the two names, so they are carried here as two printed forms, unsettled, rather than fused into a single parade the sources never describe.

What to Expect From the Next DeKalb County Georgia Stone Mountain Pumpkin Festival

How often is DeKalb County Georgia Stone Mountain Pumpkin Festival held?

The documented record shows one autumn run in each of the three years covered — 2024, 2025 and 2026 — with each run operating on Fridays through Sundays across roughly seven weeks, plus a single Monday. That pattern is what the sources support; the festival’s earlier history, including any founding year, is not stated in any captured layer.

When is the next DeKalb County Georgia Stone Mountain Pumpkin Festival?

No organiser-announced date for a future edition exists in the record consulted. The most recent documented edition ran from September 19 to November 1, 2026. Past runs suggest where a future edition would sit in the calendar, but a suggestion is not an announcement, and no specific future date is stated here as confirmed.

Will the dates change?

They have shifted modestly within the documented record: the 2024 run began on September 14, the 2025 run on September 13 and the 2026 run on September 19, with closing dates of November 3, November 2 and November 1 respectively. A future edition could move again by days or weeks, and only the park’s own announcement would settle its dates.

Closing

The Pumpkin Festival, as the park’s own record presents it, is an autumn weekend event with a deliberate split personality: storybook afternoons and glowing nights, ticketed through the park’s general attractions pass, and documented cleanly for three straight years, with its gaps left visible — the unstated founding, the unsettled prices, the twice-named parade.