The 54th Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival runs for 16 hours. It is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, October 17, and again on Sunday, October 18. The street it takes over is unavailable for much longer. Southbound Main Street access from Highway 92 ends at about 7 a.m. Saturday, and Main Street doesn't reopen until about 10 p.m. Sunday. That's about 39 hours of closed road for two eight-hour days of booths.
For anyone with errands downtown, that gap is the weekend. Main Street is closed to cars from Mill Street south to Monte Vista Lane, there's one way onto eastbound 92, and the street stays car-free for hours after the booths close at 5 p.m. This year a group of storefronts that opened or moved in 2026 sits along that stretch.
The Street the Festival Was Built to Fix
The festival began as a Main Street project. The newly formed Main Street Beautification Committee started it in 1971 to help restore historic downtown Half Moon Bay. That first year, volunteers painted buildings and planted trees. The festival has since raised several million dollars for civic projects and Coastside service organizations.
Fifty-five years on, the corridor it was built to revive has added new tenants. Here are the 2026 arrivals and moves, as Visit Half Moon Bay lists them:
- Dead Wax Records, 330 Main Street. A new-and-used vinyl shop that opened June 24, 2026.
- SeaBreeze Art Collective, 519 Main Street. A gallery that opened in April 2026, with plans for rotating shows and community arts programs.
- Saviz Boutique, now at 545 Main Street. It moved to this address in April 2026.
- HMB Brewing on Main, 730 Main Street. A pub and taproom with a patio that opened in June 2026 in the former Sacrilege space.
- Art by Jul, 707 Mill Street. The working studio and gallery of muralist Julie Engelmann, listed as a January 2026 opening.
Just off Main, Cobani Mediterranean Restaurant opened in March 2026 at 99 San Mateo Road. It offers dine-in, takeout, delivery and catering.
None of these businesses has announced festival-weekend plans, and the festival's 2026 artist roster says it's still being filled in. Their location is the confirmed part. They sit on the stretch the festival was founded to restore, and they're about to see the largest crowd that stretch gets all year.
Thirty-Nine Hours, in Order
The week started before the weekend. The 53rd Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off was set for 7 a.m. Monday, October 12, at the IDES Grounds, 735 Main Street. The Growers Awards Luncheon followed at IDES Hall. Before the weigh-off, festival spokesperson Ronan Fowler told KQED that one grower was bringing a very large pumpkin:
"We have been talking to some of the growers, and we know we have a very, very large pumpkin coming this year."
As of this writing, the official weigh-off results page still shows 2025 results, so this year's winner isn't posted there yet.
Here is how the weekend itself runs, from the festival schedule and the organizer's closure notice:
- Saturday, about 7 a.m. Southbound Main Street closes to traffic coming from Highway 92. The Pancake Breakfast opens at the same hour in the City Hall lot at Main Street and Kelly Avenue.
- Saturday, 9 a.m. The festival opens. At 10 a.m., the Costume Contest starts at the Half Moon Bay Library, at Church and Correas Streets.
- Saturday, noon. The Great Pumpkin Parade moves along Main Street from Miramontes Street to Mill Street. Former San Francisco Giants pitcher Sergio Romo is the 2026 honorary grand marshal.
- Saturday, 2 p.m. and 2:15 p.m. Pie Eating Contests take place in the Bank of America lot, first for ages 11 and under, then for ages 12 and over.
- Saturday, 5 p.m. The festival closes for the day. Main Street stays closed to cars.
- Sunday, 7:15 to 8:20 a.m. The 48th Annual Pumpkin Run by Senior Coastsiders begins, with staggered starts for a Kid's Fun Run, 5K, 10K and half marathon. Start and finish are at Hatch Elementary School, 490 Miramontes Avenue.
- Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The festival's second day. Pumpkin carving for fun, not a contest, starts at 10 a.m. in the Bank of America lot.
- Sunday, about 10 p.m. Main Street reopens.
Admission is free, and the festival asks that guests leave pets at home.
Getting Around a Town With Its Main Street Closed
Eastbound Highway 92 can't be reached from Main Street, whether you come from the north or the south. The only way onto eastbound 92 is from Highway 1. The organizer's published parking and closure information doesn't describe a resident pass, permit or local-access exception.
The organizer lists these parking and access points:
- Parking lots: Metzgar at the south end of Main Street, Half Moon Bay High School just north of Highway 92, Our Lady of the Pillar Church, and the Community Center and Shoreline Station complex on Kelly Avenue just east of Highway 1. Local nonprofits run many of these lots and charge a small fee. Free parking on side streets is very limited.
- Rideshare and paratransit: pickup and drop-off are in the Shoreline Station lot at Highway 1 and Kelly Avenue.
- Accessible parking: marked spaces on Purissima Street between Correas Street and Kelly Avenue.
- Bikes and strollers: parking in the Straight Wheel Cycling lot at Kelly and Purissima, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, run with Coastside on Bikes. The suggested donation is $5.
SamTrans serves the festival and drops riders off steps from the event. KQED's guide points out that buses can get caught in the same traffic, though transit may use alternate event routes. The research turned up no separate 2026 City, Caltrans or SamTrans detour notice, so the festival organizer is the published source for these times.
If friends are driving over for the weekend, KQED's October 8 traffic guide has suggestions worth passing along. Sunday may have lighter traffic than Saturday. Arriving very early helps. Staying for dinner beats leaving around 5 p.m., and Highway 84 through La Honda is an alternative to joining the Highway 92 line for anyone heading south.
After 5 p.m., the New Storefronts Take Over
KQED's advice to stay for dinner fits the posted hours of the new businesses. The booths close at 5 p.m. both days, but Main Street stays car-free until late Sunday. Several of the 2026 storefronts list regular weekend hours that run past the festival:
- Dead Wax Records lists Saturday hours of 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday hours of 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- HMB Brewing on Main lists 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday.
- SeaBreeze Art Collective lists 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.
These are each shop's normal posted hours, not festival-specific schedules, so check with the shop before planning around them. On a normal schedule, Saturday evening along Main Street still has a record shop open for two hours after the booths close and a taproom open for four.
The brewery has a festival connection of its own. The festival site lists Half Moon Bay Brewing Company with its Pumpkin Harvest Ale. The same brewery runs the 730 Main taproom, a few street numbers from the IDES Grounds at 735 Main.
When the Barricades Come Down
The pumpkin season keeps going after Sunday night. Lemos Farm's 2026 pumpkin patch runs September 5 through November 15. It's open daily in October and on weekends in November.
Some of the festival's art stays up all year. Art by Jul's listing says Engelmann's mural at Cunha's Country Store is a Pumpkin Festival favorite, and her studio is on Mill Street, the northern edge of the festival closure.
At Real Smart Group, we follow what opens, moves and reopens along Half Moon Bay's Main Street. If you're curious how Main Street's newest businesses factor into what your Coastside home is worth, get your free home valuation and we'll walk you through the local numbers.
