Insiders Peek: The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze!

  We have a special treat for all you Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze fans, a special Q/A, and also some awesome carving tricks from the head carver! For all of you that do not know what The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze is please go read our preview of that and all the other awesome Halloween fun that goes on in Historic Hudson Valley, one of my favorite places to go to.  So without further ado....

MG: How Many pumpkins are used throughout the season?

 Blaze:  Because not all the pumpkins survive for the full run of Blaze, we order approximately 6,000 live pumpkins, which weigh between five and fifty pounds each. They are delivered in 96-cubic-foot containers on three flatbed trucks (24 bins per truck). All told that’s more than 100,000 pounds o’ pumpkin!

MG: How many pumpkins are used at one time

There are more than 5,000 pumpkins and funkins on display at any given time.

MG:How long do the pumpkins last before they need to be replaced

Blaze: It depends on the weather (heat is not good) but usually a week or so.

MG: what is your favorite sculpture?

Blaze:I am very excited about a new addition this year, which are three "jack-o'lantern-in-the-box." These will be right-foot tall, actual working jack-in-the-boxes only made up of jack o'lanterns!

 MG:who thought of the Pumpkin blaze and how long has it been running?

Blaze:Sleepy Hollow Country is the Halloween capital of the United States, and given that Historic Hudson Valley owns, preserves, and interprets Sunnyside, the home of Washington Irving who gave us "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" among other tales, we are constantly developing programming with a Halloween theme. Blaze grew out of conversations we were having about creating aHalloween event that was family friendly, appealing to all ages, and not overly scary.

MG:When does the preperation begin for this amazing event?

Blaze:We work on this all year.

To read more please click here