On one of the weekends when I was home this fall, we decided to make the two-hour drive to Louisville to see what this Halloween tradition was all about. I saw photos all over social media of the Louisville Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular and it looked like an amazing experience.
We heard that there could be very long lines to enter the trail in the weekends leading up to Halloween but we were pretty lucky with only a 45-minute wait to enter the trail on a Sunday evening. It was definitely a sight to see with traditional pumpkin carvings to ones carved into your favorite cartoon characters. There was even a section dedicated as a tribute to celebrities that we lost in 2019. I cannot imagine the amount of time these artists take to put this together each year.
The event is celebrating its seventh year at Iroquois Park in Louisville, Kentucky from October 8 to November 3. The event includes 5,000 carved pumpkins lining a 1/3 of a mile, illuminated at night as an art show. The Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular first began in 1988 in Oxford, Massachusetts. Tickets range from $10 for children to $18 for adults, proceeds benefit Louisville Parks Foundation. I would highly recommend this for an evening of family fun that benefits a great cause.