A sister event was also added, in collaboration with Nassau County, at Old Bethpage Village Restoration on Long Island. The 2020 Blaze featured the same schedule and number of pumpkins, though visitation was down due to the pandemic. (Historic Hudson Valley declined to share the costs of mounting the event.) Those guests contributed $18 million to the regional economy in the form of ticket sales, hotel stays, and purchases at local restaurants and businesses. According to Historic Hudson Valley, the 2019 Blaze featured a whopping 7,000 jack-o’-lanterns and welcomed more than 175,000 visitors from around the country. It has also expanded from just a handful of nights to a nearly three-months-long showcase. The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze has since nearly tripled in size and attracted exponentially more visitors. In cooler weather, they are swapped out every few days. In warm weather, pumpkins have to be replaced daily. Out went the standard backyard gap-toothed grinners in came highly detailed, design-minded sculptures meant to evoke not only the traditional creepy disembodied heads and boogeymen, but also larger-than-life figures.
Michael Natiello, creative director for Historic Hudson Valley and the Blaze, took his cues from innovative gourd whittlers like the team at Martha Stewart and Brooklyn’s Maniac Pumpkin Carvers. But sprawling Van Cortlandt Manor, built in the early 1700s by Dutch landowners and located 12 miles north in what Schweitzer calls “Greater Sleepy Hollow country,” proved to be the perfect location. While the Gothic-meets-Dutch aesthetics of Sunnyside might have provided a match for a Halloween festival, its grounds weren’t equipped to handle hundreds of cars. “We hit on this idea of an artistic display of jack-o’-lanterns.” “We wanted to do something that was different than haunted houses or the typical Halloween fair,” says Schweitzer. “Irving’s Legend,” a seasonal performance at Sunnyside, the Tarrytown home of “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” author Washington Irving, had been a big success. Rob Schweitzer, vice president of communications and commerce for Historic Hudson Valley, recalls its origins as a fundraiser for the nonprofit. Now in its 17th year, the Blaze began as a humble local event - or as humble as a festival featuring 2,500 pumpkins and a few thousand visitors can be. But when it comes to Halloween festivals that combine chills with artistic panache, all set against the extraordinary backdrop of an eighteenth-century riverside landscape, the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze in Croton-on-Hudson rises to the top of many best-of lists. Sleepy Hollow or Poughkeepsie’s Witchcraft District may be the spookiest areas of the Hudson Valley each October.
The great jack o lantern blaze free#
Free for children 2 and under.Staff construct the most elaborate displays, like this tunnel of starry pumpkins, and an army of 1,000 volunteers helps scoop and light the pumpkins. In addition to the Hudson Valley location, there is a second Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze on Long Island at 1303 Round Swamp Rd, Old Bethpage, NY 11804. This all takes place at the Van Cortlandt Manor, 525 South Riverside Avenue, Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520. For reservations: buy tickets online, no tickets will be sold on site.
The great jack o lantern blaze professional#
More than 1,000 volunteers help scoop, carve, and light the pumpkins and every single jack o’lantern is hand-carved on site by a team of professional artists.Īdvance reservations required. Synchronized lighting and an original soundtrack add to the atmosphere.
That said, Halloween is the best time to visit as there is nothing more spooky and fun than the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze! The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving soaks the atmosphere as everyone looks nervously over their shoulders to check if the headless horsemen or Ichabod Crane is headed their way.
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