Pickaway County Ohio Circleville Pumpkin Show Festival
For four days each October, downtown Circleville turns into a pumpkin capital. The Circleville Pumpkin Show takes over the streets themselves: a giant weigh-in, seven parades, a midway on the pavement, and food stands selling the harvest as pies, donuts, burgers, chili and waffles. It bills itself as “The Greatest Free Show On Earth,” and the slogan rests on a plain term in its own record, that no admission charge or entry fee is made. There is no gate to pass and no fairgrounds to find; the town itself is the venue, centred on Court and Main Streets.
Run by Volunteers on the Streets of Circleville
The organiser is Circleville Pumpkin Show, Inc., a non-profit corporation formed on August 8, 1946, for the operation of the Pumpkin Show. That history text also carries an unpunctuated styling, Circleville Pumpkin Show Inc., and an encyclopaedia layer calls the body the Circleville Pumpkin Show Corporation; each wording stands in its own layer. Its permanent organisation is described in that history as made up entirely of volunteers, the mayor always its president in honour of the founder. Its Third Article purpose is “To provide for and hold an annual Pumpkin Show upon the streets of Circleville, Ohio,” and to demonstrate the resources of Pickaway County.
The history text is plain about money: the Show receives no subsidy or support, operates on income and donations, and reimburses the City of Circleville for extra police duty, so the city is a host that is paid back, never the operator. Poor Jack Amusements supplies the midway as a contractor; the county visitors bureau promotes without running it. The Show’s office, styled The Circleville Pumpkin Show, sits at 159 East Franklin Street, Circleville, Ohio 43113, phone (740) 474-7000 — a letterhead and navigation point for a street event, never a venue.
Quick Facts
| Item | Record |
| Event | Circleville Pumpkin Show, a downtown street show, not a county fair |
| Town | Circleville, Ohio, the seat of Pickaway County |
| Organiser | Circleville Pumpkin Show, Inc. |
| Setting | Downtown Circleville streets, centred on Court and Main Streets |
| Season | October, the third Wednesday through Saturday |
| Hours | 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, in the Show’s own layer |
| Admission | Free; no admission charge or entry fee, in the Show’s own record |
| Next Show | October 20 to 23, 2027, billed by the Show as its 120th |
From a Mayor’s Exhibit to a Corporation
The origin layer is consistent across the Show’s own history text and the layers that repeat it. In October 1903, George R. Haswell, then mayor of Circleville and superintendent of the water works, set out a small exhibit in front of his place on West Main Street: corn fodder and pumpkins, many cut into jack-o’-lanterns, a display the history text credits with getting the event dubbed “the pumpkin show.” Merchants joined in 1904, and the first merry-go-round stood at Main and Scioto Streets for the 1905 show.
The corporation came much later. On August 8, 1946, Circleville Pumpkin Show, Inc. was formed, its profits for the betterment of the citizens, with several thousands of dollars turned over to the city for community projects in that text. That year documents the company’s formation, not the birth of an event begun in 1903.
For a useful comparison, see the Perry County Ohio Fair Festival for another county festival.
Editions are printed only as billed. Press layers bill 2025 as the 118th and 2026 as the 119th, and the Show’s own site bills 2027 as the 120th; no edition is derived for another year or counted back from 1903. Even the hundredth refuses to sit still: a 2022 bank layer states the 100th Pumpkin Show was celebrated in 2005, while an October 2006 student newspaper layer headlines the 100th for that year and the Show’s own site calls its 2006 pie a 100th Anniversary pie. The two layers stand unreconciled.
The missed years come down in three disagreeing tellings. The local paper’s October 2020 account, the most specific layer, names 1918, 1942 and 1943 as cancellations, says 1944 was reduced to a Junior Fair, and calls the 2020 cancellation that of the 114th Pumpkin Show in its own wording. A 2017 state history blog layer allows just three exceptions, one in World War I and two in World War II; a 2022 bank layer counts only two cancellations, once in World War I and again in 2020, with reductions in 1943 and 1944 instead; and an encyclopaedia layer reports the Show as held through the 1918 and 1919 influenza outbreaks, against the local paper’s 1918 cancellation. Every layer supports one miss: 2020, cancelled for COVID-19, for which the Show’s own site still sells souvenir pins and magnets; no unbroken run is claimed here. The superlatives are billing: “Ohio’s Oldest Festival” is the Show’s own site headline, and its history text’s “sixth largest festival in the United States” travels with over 300,000 persons, against over 400,000 visitors in bureau and other layers, the figures standing as competing billing, not counted totals.
What to Expect
Wednesday Morning Belongs to the Weigh-In
The Giant Pumpkin Weigh-In opens the Show on Wednesday morning at Court and Main Streets, its start time arriving in layers: 9:15 a.m. in the 2024 press layer and the bureau’s 2022 layer, 8 a.m. in the 2026 layers, the two hours left unmerged. Entries must be grown within a twenty-five-mile radius of downtown Circleville in the press layers; the first prize carried three thousand dollars in the bureau’s 2022 layer; and the giants stay on display at Court and Main all four days. The Show’s own 2026 list puts Troy VanArsdalen first at 2,455 pounds, a Pumpkin Show record in that list, then Pete Bowers at 1,709 and David Beyer at 1,657. Earlier crowns sit in their own years: 1,972 pounds in 2025, grown by Mike and Dusti Helberg in one layer and Mike Helberg in another; an unnamed grower’s 2,226 pounds in 2024; and the Liggetts’ thread of 2,388.5 pounds in 2023, a fifteenth win at 1,837.5 pounds in 2022, and a then-record 1,964 pounds in 2014.
Seven Parades, Two Crowns
Seven parades make the standing shape. Wednesday brings the Little Miss Pumpkin Show Parade at 3:30 p.m. and the Miss Pumpkin Show Parade at 8 p.m.; Thursday, the Baby Parade at 3:30 p.m. and the Parade of Bands, also styled the Bands and Youth Organizations parade, at 8 p.m.; Friday, the Pet Parade at 3:30 p.m. and the Lodges, Civic and Fraternal Organizations Parade at 8 p.m.; Saturday closes with the Ohio Festival and Events Association Queens Parade at 8 p.m. The 2026 Show added an eighth, an inaugural Tuesday Night Preview Parade themed “Pumpkin Show Celebrates 250 Years of Agriculture” in that layer, 2026’s alone. The royalty machinery, in the encyclopaedia layer, asks the Miss Pumpkin Show queen to be a junior from one of the seven local high schools and the Little Miss queen to be in the second grade at a school in Pickaway County, the crowned queens leading the parades. The Show’s own 2026 court names Queen Riley Strickler, with attendants Jolene Burbacher and Emzie Davis; a separate Little Miss Pumpkin Show exists in its pages for 2026, her name not fetched.
Two Pies That Must Never Be Merged
Lindsey’s Bakery bakes an annual giant pie, a tradition of more than sixty years in the bureau’s layer: over 400 pounds and six feet across, baked six hours and cooled six hours, displayed at the bakery on West Main Street through the Show and afterwards fed to hogs or donated to local farms for livestock. It is not the record pie. The Show’s own site remembers a separate creation, the 100th Anniversary Record Setting Pie made for the Show in 2006: fourteen feet across, built from 795 pounds of pumpkin, 360 of sugar, 400 of flour, sixty dozen eggs, sixty pounds of powdered milk and seventy-five gallons of water, mixed by fifteen people and baked ten hours. Organiser-attributed layers count more than 23,000 pumpkin pies and more than 100,000 pumpkin donuts sold during a Show, the organisers’ own figures, never audited totals, across a landscape of pumpkin burgers, chili, waffles, ice cream, fudge and taffy. A Pumpkin Pie Eating Contest runs on Saturday in the 2026 layers, children at 11 a.m. and adults at noon. The midway is Poor Jack Amusements’, twenty-five to thirty rides in the layers and twenty-nine in 2026, a new Italian pirate-ship ride headlining in one press layer. Premiums for grain, fruits and vegetables and school displays descend from the corporation’s purpose layer; baked goods, canned goods, flowers, arts and crafts and window decorating are judged in the 2026 layers, alongside Baby Judging, the Big Wheel Race, a talent contest and a decorated golf cart competition, with live music across three downtown stages.
Planning Your Visit
Free to Enter, Priced to Ride
Entry costs nothing in any year of this record; the money a visitor budgets is midway money. In the 2026 layers, an on-site unlimited-ride wristband cost thirty-five dollars per person per day, valid 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday only; a presale wristband cost twenty-seven dollars plus a fee of one dollar and twenty-five cents, sold until 11:59 p.m. on Monday, October 19, 2026; and twenty ride tickets cost twenty dollars plus a fee in advance against twenty-five dollars at the Show. A blog layer put 2025 wristbands at thirty dollars, a blog’s number rather than a Show-published price, and no 2024 ride price was fetched.
Streets to Park On, Lots to Ride From
The Show’s own contact layer gives the standing parking record: free public parking on the city streets surrounding the Show’s limits, first come, first served, with private lots at fees their owners set. Handicapped parking sits on North Western Avenue in that layer. Shuttle terms exist only in a 2026 press layer: the AMVETS lot at 818 Tarlton Road charged ten dollars a car including the round-trip ride, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and the Ohio Christian University lot at 1476 Lancaster Pike charged five dollars a person and three dollars for children ages three to six, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Pets are permitted, in the Show’s own contact words, because “We are a hard surface event, meaning there are no grassy areas.” Baby Judging sat outside the streets in 2026: Thursday, October 22, from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Pickaway County Agriculture and Event Center on Lancaster Pike, a borrowed room that moves neither the Show nor its centre from downtown.
A Four-Day Rhythm
Wednesday rewards an early start: the weigh-in at Court and Main, the giants settling into their display, then the Little Miss parade in the afternoon and the Miss Pumpkin Show parade under the lights. Thursday suits families, the Baby Parade in the afternoon and the bands at night. Saturday closes with visiting queens parading at 8 p.m.
Where the Layers Refuse to Agree
The footprint is told two ways: the history text grows the Show from about three city blocks to more than eight, while a 2026 magazine layer spans nine blocks of downtown. The weigh-in keeps two start times and the hundredth two years, because the record keeps them.
Before You Head Downtown
- Arrive before Wednesday’s weigh-in if you can; the giants are the opening argument and stay on display once weighed.
- Carry a midway budget separately from food money: entry is free, while 2026 rides ran on wristbands and ticket packages sold by the day.
- Save Saturday evening for the Queens Parade at 8 p.m., the last of the seven standing parades and the Show’s farewell to the streets.
Beyond the Festival Grounds
Circleville carries its county-seat dignity a few steps from the pumpkin display: the Pickaway County Courthouse at 207 South Court Street, built in 1890, anchors the same downtown. The town’s most quoted landmark: the water tower was remodelled and repainted to resemble a pumpkin in 1997 in the press layers, one layer dating the tower’s building to 1976, and it stands all year as a landmark, not Show fabric. Lindsey’s Bakery on West Main Street ties the ordinary shopping street to the October ritual, and Haswell’s first exhibit stood on that same street in 1903.
Why a Street Full of Pumpkins Matters Here
The Show’s design explains its staying power better than any superlative. A volunteer corporation owns nothing but the event itself, takes no subsidy, pays the city back for policing, and turns its profits toward the citizens’ betterment. Its distinction is structural as much as seasonal: this is not a county fair wearing a pumpkin costume, but a town that closes its centre, weighs its harvest at the main crossing, parades its children, bands, pets and queens past the shopfronts, and feeds the crowd the crop it is celebrating.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the Circleville Pumpkin Show charge admission?
No. The Show’s own history text states that no admission charge or entry fee is made, and no gate, season pass or ticket ladder exists in its record for any year. The money visitors spend goes on rides, food and games.
Is this Show the same event as Pickaway County’s county fair?
It is not. This article concerns a downtown street festival run by Circleville Pumpkin Show, Inc. in October; the county’s agricultural fair is a separate undertaking under a different body in a different part of the year, and nothing from its programme, prices or grounds belongs to the Pumpkin Show.
How large do the winning pumpkins actually get?
The Show’s own list records the summit: Troy VanArsdalen’s 2,455 pounds in 2026. The recent thread runs through the Liggetts’ 2,388.5 pounds in 2023 and 1,972 pounds in 2025.
Can visitors bring pets to the Show?
Yes, on the Show’s own contact terms: pets are permitted, and the catch, in its own words, is hard surfaces with no grassy areas, so dogs spend the day on pavement among the crowds.
What to Expect From the Next Pickaway County Ohio Circleville Pumpkin Show Festival
How often is Pickaway County Ohio Circleville Pumpkin Show Festival held?
Once a year, across four October days. The Show’s own standing frame fixes it to the third Wednesday through Saturday of the month, with published hours of 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
When is the next Pickaway County Ohio Circleville Pumpkin Show Festival?
The Show’s own pages agree on Wednesday, October 20 to Saturday, October 23, 2027, billed by the Show as the 120th Circleville Pumpkin Show, following the 119th billed for 2026 and the 118th for 2025.
Will the dates change?
The calendar rule is steady: the third Wednesday through Saturday of October shifts a few days with each year’s calendar, not by anyone’s decision. The shape around those days can change — 2026 carried a Tuesday preview night and an eighth parade in its layers, neither printed here as permanent.
When the barriers come down, Circleville keeps its pumpkin-painted tower and its October appointment. The founders promised to perpetuate the Show as an annual affair, in their history text’s words, and the streets, the scales and the bakery keep that promise by closing, weighing and baking again next year.
