In an interview conducted by Tyler Harrington, he was able to gain an insight from a former student, now local politician on her accounts on what she thinks contributed to the riots of 2014. As the years, went on and the festival grew in notoriety the emphasis turned this local community festival into a tourist attraction; Which was featured in magazines and a list of must see events in New England.
As the Pumpkin Festival grew from year to year so did the tensions that were reaching an all time high. With the influence of these factors, the Pumpkin Festival of 2014 was a pot of boiling water ready to overflow.
1.) College Drinking Culture.
“One factor would most certainly be college drinking culture, which plagued/s the students of Keene State College as intensely as at any other college or university in” the United States. We had, and have, a population of young people that routinely consumes alcohol irresponsibly in our city, leading to property damage, noise complaints, and medical emergencies. Again, this is not a phenomenon unique to Keene State College…but certainly an issue that deserves more conversation in Keene.”
2.) Tension between Residents and Student communities.
“The negative perception that many residents of Keene held for Keene State students. Property taxes are undeniably high in Keene, and folks were not happy that the college did not pay these taxes. No matter the value of Keene State as a local employer, or the amount of revenue brought to the downtown economy by students, many residents just saw an institution that was buying up land and not contributing its fair share. This translated to a negative perception of all things “Keene State College”, including the students. Consciously or unconsciously, the students felt this negative perception and knew that they were not welcome in the community.“
3.) The Size and Scale of the Festival.
“A final factor in the events of 2014 would be the size of the Keene Pumpkin Festival itself. The festival was a point of attraction in local tourist booklets, and even gained national attention for breaking world Jack-O-Lantern records.”
4.) Social Media.
The use of social media played a vital role in spreading the word about this event. From Twitter, Facebook, and the popular app at the time Yik Yak; (which was where you could post and comment on a thread anonymously that people within a radius of your location can see). With these apps the masses of college students caught wind of this Festival and used it as a venue to get rowdy and disorderly for the weekend. With such an influx of out of staters the mentality that some of them possessed was “I don’t know anyone so I’m just going to go wild and once its over I don’t have come back”. This mentality proved to be dangerous because if you multiply it by hundreds of students in a small vicinity the mob mentality takes shape.
Even with all these factors brewing from years past, no one cold have predicted the magnitude of what was going to happen that day in October.