Giant Pumpkin Festival rolls onto Center Street
Center Street was packed with people coming to see record-breaking giant pumpkins at Logan’s Giant Pumpkin Festival during the last week of Sept. 27.
This year’s festival was even bigger than last year, featuring over 100 vendors, food trucks and info booths for people to enjoy. There was also live music performed by local bands alongside pumpkin weigh-offs hosted throughout the day.
Dane Johnson/The Utah Statesman Alan Gebert’s 1,917-pound 2025 Giant Pumpkin Competition-winning gourd is seen on a truck bed on Center Street in Logan, as seen on Sept. 27.
Ronnette Anderson, co-owner of Anderson’s Seed & Garden and co-director of the festival, said they had festival merchandise like T-shirts and beanies attendees could purchase this year.
Mark Anderson, the other co-owner of the store and co-director of the festival, said they have gone through quite a few adjustments as the festival has grown in size over the last few years.
“Last year, we realized its footprint was too small for the amount of people that we had here,” Mark said. “We had a lot of the activities for kids on the sidewalk, and because we had so many people there, we had times where you couldn’t walk down the sidewalk. By pushing it to the north into our parking lot, we were able to expand our footprint and give people more places to go.”
Mark said they also worked hard to make this year’s festival safer and more comfortable for attendees.
Dane Johnson/The Utah Statesman Alan Gebert walks to the stage set up on Center Street with his arms up in celebration after being announced as the winner of the 2025 Giant Pumpkin Competition in Logan, as seen on Sept. 27.
“We’ve actually put the food vendors together in a separate area, and by doing that, we have been able provide more seating areas so people have a place to sit down and eat,” Mark said. “We also have bumped up our security for everyone here with extra police and EMTs.”
Ronette said she has enjoyed seeing the festival change over the years.
“It’s exciting to see it expand and see our family of helpers expand as well,” Ronnette said. “We’re hoping that we can always make it a new and different experience for the families that come and attend.”
This is the third year Anderson’s Seed & Garden hosted the festival. Mark said they decided to start hosting this event after they heard about another pumpkin festival being hosted in Utah.
“When we found out there was an actual pumpkin festival going on at Thanksgiving Point, we thought it would be really cool to host one as well,” Mark said. “Once Logan City redid Center Street, we thought it would be a great place for our pumpkin festival. It took us a year or two to really get all the details put together, and we worked closely with the Utah Giant Pumpkin Growers association to figure out how to make it work.”
On top of growing in size, Ronnette said the festival introduced new opportunities for younger vendors as well.
“This year we have the children’s market, and we’re so excited about that,” Ronnette said. “The Cache Valley Kids Market will be bringing in a large handful of children vendors, giving them an opportunity to be young entrepreneurs.”
Mark said his favorite part of the festivities is getting to interact with the people at the event.
“The best part of the festival is walking up and down the street to talk to the people that have come and getting to talk to all the vendors and find out how they’re doing,” Mark said. “It really is very gratifying and rewarding to get to hear how much fun people are having.”
Ronnette said they appreciate how much the community comes together to help them host this festival every year.
“I think it’s really important to recognize how the events and everything come together,” Ronnette said. “It’s so amazing to see how the businesses we reached out to are willing to contribute to make it happen and to be part of the family. We couldn’t do it without them.”
Mark said they are planning to continue to host this event for the foreseeable future and hope to make the event better every year.