Photo Provided A birds-eye view shows an evening crowd at a past Barnesville Pumpkin Festival. The festival returns to the village from Sept. 25-28.

BARNESVILLE — The 61st annual Pumpkin Festival will soon be underway.

The Belmont County staple will run from Sept. 25-28 with the fan favorite Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off being held Wednesday, Sept. 24, starting at 6 p.m.

The “voice of the Pumpkin Festival” John Rataiczak said that the weigh-off will be livestreamed on the festival’s Facebook page. He added that a new addition to the livestream is that he will be teaming up with One JB Digital Media to go around the village to showcase the various local businesses during the livestream while the pumpkins are being removed from the scale.

“We selected 10 to 15 businesses to start this year. We’re starting off sort of small just to see how it goes,” Rataiczak said. “We’re going to do a video that’s sort of like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, that are just sort of fast-paced, quick interviews with the store owners,” Rataiczak said, noting they plan to get business owners more engaged than just asking ‘what does your store offer?’

“We want it to be more personal,” he said.

He added that he thought that showcasing the businesses in this new format would be more engaging than standard, run of the mill commercials.

Since the festival began livestreaming the weigh-offs in 2022, Rataiczak said, it has reached an audience of over 30,000 people.

Pumpkin Festival Committee President Tim Rockwell said the continued excitement for the festival is due to it being a homecoming of sorts for people who have moved out of Belmont County. He added that the festival brings roughly 100,000 attendees to Barnesville each year.

“I’ve seen people come home for the Pumpkin Festival that may not come home for Christmas or Thanksgiving,” Rockwell said. “There’s a lot of classes that get together and have reunions during the festival because it’s a great time to get together and go downtown, have something to eat, maybe listen to a band, and just meet up with old friends.”

Rataiczak added that he believes the festival has been going strong for such a long time because it’s run so efficiently. He said that the committee has chosen people to be in charge of certain aspects of the event who are passionate about the event they organize.

“The person in charge of the queens contest is totally passionate about that. The person in charge of making the announcements (referencing himself) is totally passionate about that,” Rataiczak said. “These people are all so passionate about what they do. That, in turn, makes the festival so successful.”

He added that due to how well the festival is run each year, it created a community tradition of having fun at the event.

“All the people love coming back for this. Everything, it seems like, in Barnesville is geared around making sure we’re ready for the Pumpkin Festival,” he said. “People love coming back to the festival year after year.”

Rockwell said that his favorite part of the festival each year is seeing children having fun.

“They walk up and touch the pumpkins and run around. They have a good time riding rides and playing games,” Rockwell said.

He added that if residents want to see a comprehensive list of all of the events happening at this year’s festival, they can visit BarnesvillePumpkinFestival.com or the Barnesville Pumpkin Festival’s Facebook page.