Everything you need to know: Keene Pumpkin Festival returns Oct. 21.

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Below, everything you need to know about the event:

When and where:

The festival runs from 2 to 7 p.m., closing Main Street from Central Square to Railroad Square. The event is free and will be held rain or shine.

Gilbo Avenue will remain open for traffic. Drivers should anticipate that roads leading to Main Street and Central Square will be blocked off, said Mike Giacomo, board chair of event organizer Let It Shine and a Keene city councilor.

Food and craft vendors will line Main Street parking spaces. And in a return to the festivals of the past, all food vendors will be local nonprofit organizations.

Activities:

The children’s costume parade will kick off the event at 2 p.m. Trick-or-treating downtown at participating businesses will be from 2 to 4 p.m.

Central Square will be used as a community pumpkin-carving site, with about 1,000 free pumpkins available for people to carve, Giacomo said. The pumpkin guts will be collected by Elm City Compost. People are discouraged from bringing their own pumpkins, Giacomo said. (There also won’t be a pumpkin count.)

Live bands will be playing at the Central Square bandstand and dance performances will be at Railroad Square throughout the event. Some festival sponsors will have their own games and activities at the festival, too.

Two screenings of the documentary “Let it Shine: The Story of the Keene Pumpkin Festival” by local filmmaker Gavin Key will be held at The Colonial Theatre on Main Street at 1 and 5 p.m. Admission is free.

The pumpkin tower is also coming back by popular demand, Giacomo said. The tower, over 30 feet tall, will be at the head of Main Street, and topped with a 1,000-pound pumpkin.

Pumpkins carved by local elementary school students will be set up on Main Street beginning on Friday for the festival.

Festival organizers said on Facebook that dogs will not be allowed at the festival due to a city ordinance.

The festival is still looking for volunteers to support the activities and clean up after the event.

A headquarters tent will be set up at the intersection of Roxbury Street and Central Square. There will be an information table and merchandise for sale from past Pumpkin Festivals, as well as shirts for this year’s festival produced by Keene-based Beeze Tees.

For more information visit the Keene Pumpkin Festival Facebook page.

To hear more about the festival and the organizer’s goals for the day, watch this episode of The Sentinel’s talk show Sentinel Sources, with Mike Giacomo and James Rinker, The Sentinel’s community engagement journalist.

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