DEUTSCHTOWN — Northside Pumpkinfest — the annual children’s festival that has served as a staple of autumn on the Northside — will not be held this year for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Doug Kamper, vice president of the East Allegheny Community Council (EACC), told The Chronicle that the council was facing issues getting Pumpkinfest organized without founder Barbara Burns, and made the decision to hold off on the event for a year.
“It sucks, we wish we could have done it this year,” Kamper said. “But we didn’t want to do it wrong or poorly.”
The 2026 Pumpkinfest, before its cancellation, would have been the first one since the passing of Burns, who co-founded the event in 1991. Burns died on Nov. 5, 2025 following a battle with illness at the age of 76, only a few days after the 31st Northside Pumpkinfest.
Northside Pumpkinfest got its start in 1991. Burns, who was a school director with Pittsburgh Public Schools, partnered with fellow school director Carole Annis to create a pair of fall festivals for Northside kids.
Burns ran Deutschtown Pumpkinfest, while Annis organized the sister event Brightwood Pumpkinfest. The two festivals later merged into the joint Northside Pumpkinfest and, save for a hiatus from 2020 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ran every year.
The committee consisted of EACC, Northside | North Shore Chamber of Commerce, the Northside Leadership Conference, The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and Allegheny Center Alliance Church. The committee hired Ryan Dawson as a project manager during the 2025 festival in order to learn Burns’ process for organizing the event.
A major reason the 2026 Pumpkinfest was unable to come together, according to Kamper, was that the EACC was unable to rehire Dawson to lead the organization effort.
Kamper said Dawson had taken “a full-time position out in the middle of Pennsylvania,” and was unavailable to take part in the 2026 planning effort.
“He is who we were really hoping to carry the torch this year,” Kamper said. The EACC is hoping to hold the festival again in October 2027. “We wanted to honor her legacy by continuing to do Pumpkinfest,” he said. Northside Pumpkinfest was traditionally held on the second Saturday of October each year at Allegheny Commons Park. The festival included games, shows and rides for kids, with the highlight of the event being an offering of free pumpkins and a pumpkin decoration contest.
Pumpkinfest has traditionally been a “zero profit event,” Kamper said, meaning any money it generates goes back into setting up the festival for the next year. While attendees have been asked to donate to the festival in the past, Pumpkinfest has traditionally been free to attend.
