The 2000’s brought a shift in the Keene Pumpkin Festival that moved it away from the small/medium community based fair it was initially meant to be and moved to an attraction for college aged students around New England to flock to and binge drink in the name of Halloween.
More and more out of town and out of state visitors especially made the event less about the community of Keene and more about the chaotic parties that happened on the weekend of the event. The increase of social media and instant messaging had a huge impact in the number and type of people who visited Keene on the last weekend of October and social media platforms like facebook, twitter and the now cancelled YikYak were the primary ways to get out the word of Pumpkin Fest faster and farther away than ever before.
In these pages we will explore Equinox newspaper articles, online sources and social media posts that show the dramatic shift in the culture of the Keene Pumpkin Fest in the years 2000-2013