Sweater Weather! Prattville And Chamber Host Successful Music On Main And Parade Of Pumpkins
Malia Riggs
Elmore Autauga News
Grab your sweater and head to downtown Prattville! The Prattville Area Chamber of Commerce and the City of Prattville partnered for a night of fall fun that will be on display through the end of the month.
The 6th annual Parade of Pumpkins, typically hosted by the City of Prattville, has partnered with the Chamber for their first ever Music on Main event.
It was perfect weather for the coupled events. The pumpkin festivities kicked off at 5 p.m. with a DJ and with over 3,000 pumpkins on display, Parade of Pumpkins organizer and Executive assistant Lisa Byrd confirmed. Music on Main kicked off at 6 pm. With performances from The 2nd Coming in the closed downtown main street.
The pumpkins on display were from local schools, local businesses, local YMCA’s, local non-profits and other groups who painted and decorated the orange canvas.
“Some of the pumpkins are painted, some of them carved and it just gets the whole community together but it takes not only a dedicated staff, and a staff that has that passion,” Prattville Mayor Bill Gillespie said.
The events downtown such as the Parade of Pumpkins, the annual Christmas parade and tree lighting as well as their Mardi Gras parade easily bring over 100,000 people to the historic downtown, Gillespie confirmed.
“So behind the scenes, we have an awesome team that works really hard to bring this to life. So the Urban Management Department, the Facility Maintenance Department, Engineering, and the Executive Office team up to pull all this together,” Byrd said.
Byrd stated that the event could not happen without their sponsors James Hardie, Civil Southeast, LLC, McKee & Associates Architects, Inc., Alabama Power, and Randy Jones & Associates.
A new aspect to this year’s 6th annual activities include a 580 pound pumpkin that has a stand and an entrance specifically that was carefully curated by the Prattville engineering department, Byrd confirmed.
“Seeing the community get involved and everybody come out is what it’s all about, and creating an environment for tourism, for the community, for children to be involved, for the school classes to be involved, and for it to be a family fun night that’s free. That’s available for anybody to come and enjoy it,” Byrd said.
Another aspect that was new this year was the Chamber’s Music on Main event, a creative addition to get the community out for great music and to support and shop local.
“Main was sort of born out of Main Street Christmas, and what we were trying to do is really give the community an opportunity to come downtown, shop at all of these wonderful merchants that we have down here, but also we thought this would be great to do it in conjunction with Parade of Pumpkins so that people could also come down here and also enjoy some music,” President of the Prattville Area Chamber of Commerce Patty VanderWal said.
The stage was set up in front of Prattville City Hall, where the community set up lawn chairs after they paraded to see the Parade of Pumpkins.
