The DeKalb County Courthouse lawn will once again be filled with hundreds of decorated pumpkins during the 56th Sycamore Pumpkin Festival next month.

The Grand Marshal for next month’s 56th Sycamore Pumpkin Festival is no stranger to throwing a party.

The annual fall festival salutes Windy City Amusements, the well-known carnival vendor of rides and game, and has declared the Oct. 24-28 event to be a “pumpkin carnival.”

As always, the theme was selected from submissions made by Sycamore students grades K-5. This year’s winner was Dempsey Webb—a kindergartener from North Grove Elementary School.

Jackie Hienbuecher, committee board member for the Sycamore Pumpkin Festival, said new this year there will be carnival-themed entertainment acts going on all around the festival.

“This year what we’ve decided to do is to try some roaming entertainment so instead of trying to get people to come over to the stage area, we’re sending the entertainment to the people,” she said.

Hienbuecher said the main act will be a group called the Conscious Circus.

“From eleven to noon they’re going to do what they call a ‘play-tainment’ kids hoop workshop where they’ll work with kids with hula hoops to teach them some of the tricks that they do,” she said. “And later on they will be providing some roaming entertainment where they will be working with different props and mingling throughout the crowds.”

“There will also be a stilt walker and from two to four we will have a strolling magician who will do some close-up magic with individuals as he moves through the crowd,” Hienbuecher said.

Fellow board member, Terri Goodman, said this year’s parade will feature12 different bands and approx. 125 total parade participants.

One of the things Goodman said she’s most excited about is a group called the Finglas Concert and Marching Band that will be traveling all the way from Dublin, Ireland to play in the parade.

According to Goodman, DeKalb High School students recently went on an academic exchange trip to Ireland and invited the group to come out for the festival.

Also in this year’s parade are the Flat 43 BMX Team and Tunes of Glory Pipes and Drums – a bagpipe band. The parade will take place on Sunday, Oct. 28 at 1 p.m. after the Sycamore Pumpkin Festival 10K Run is over.

With a few board members ending their terms of service last year, there will be a fresh face on the committee board this year. Recent NIU grad Michael DeVito said he is very excited to serve his first year on the committee.

“I plan to just continue to preserve the history and the value that Pumpkin Fest adds to the Sycamore community, so that’s my goal for this year,” he said.

DeVito is currently working to secure the vendors for this year’s fest. Some vendors who are new this year include Conexion Comunidad – a cultural center selling churros and tamales – and L.E.A.P. – an arts education organization who will be designing festival t-shirts.

DeVito said that, as always, all of the festival’s vendors are not-for-profit organizations and proceeds help support the needs of Sycamore residents and surrounding communities.

DeVito said he has lived in Sycamore since the third grade and grew up going to Sycamore’s Pumpkin Festival every year. He said he feels honored to help preserve the festival tradition for future generations.

“My first pumpkin festival, my class did a pumpkin festival submission and we decorated a class set of pumpkins for the court house lawn,” DeVito said. “My fiancé is now a teacher over at North Grove Elementary School and she’s excited this year to do her first pumpkin submission with her class so it’s really come full circle.”

Also new this year, the Sycamore Pumpkin Festival has gone viral with their first official Facebook page. For more information on all of the wonderful events going on at this year’s festival, visit: https://www.facebook.com/SycamorePumpkinFestival/.