Europe's Largest Pumpkin Festival Welcomes Record Visitors Following Major Expansion

Europe's largest pumpkin festival has opened to a record number of visitors after growing from a traditional farm pumpkin patch into one of the UK's biggest autumn days out.

Tulleys Pumpkin Festival, near Crawley in West Sussex, welcomed its largest opening-day attendance when gates opened for the 2026 season on Saturday, 19 September.

The event has grown rapidly in recent years, fuelled in part by social media, where photographs and videos from its vast pumpkin displays have reached millions of people and helped turn the West Sussex farm into a destination for visitors from across Britain and overseas.

It has also become a popular autumn day out for celebrities and well-known faces, who have visited the farm with their families as the annual trip to the pumpkin fields has increasingly become a fixture of the UK's autumn calendar. More than 1.5 million pumpkins and gourds now fill the site, with more than 100 different varieties spread across the festival and Pick Your Own fields.

For 2026, Tulleys has made its biggest single addition to the Pumpkin Festival since it began. Pumpkin Valley is a newly landscaped area featuring streams, ponds, wooden bridges, giant pumpkin sculptures, a Pumpkin Farm House and Hobbit House, surrounded by pumpkins and autumn planting.

From Family Pumpkin Patch to Major Attraction

The new area took months to build and forms part of the continued expansion of an event which began with the simple tradition of families visiting the farm to choose a pumpkin.

Stuart Beare, owner of Tulleys Farm, said:

"Seeing the Pumpkin Valley full of visitors for the first time on opening day was a really proud moment for everyone here, particularly with a record number of people coming through the gates. When we first started growing pumpkins, we could never have imagined what the festival would eventually become. Pumpkin picking is still right at the heart of it, but it has grown into something families travel from all over the country to experience.

"Social media has played a huge part in that. Every autumn we see photographs and videos from Tulleys being shared around the world and it is quite extraordinary to think that all of that starts here on our family farm in West Sussex. Pumpkin Valley is the biggest addition we have ever made to the festival. We wanted to create an entirely new part of the event rather than simply adding another display.

"A huge amount of work has gone into the landscaping, buildings, bridges, water and planting. It has been months in the making and seeing families finally exploring it has made all that work worthwhile."

Tulleys Farm is a fourth-generation family farm run by the Beare family in the West Sussex countryside. Its Pumpkin Festival now covers more than 100 acres, with around 600,000 pumpkin seeds planted to produce the enormous crop required for the autumn season.

Visitors can head into the Pick Your Own fields before exploring the Pumpkin Village, where more than 100 different varieties of pumpkins and gourds are displayed. More than 30 photo opportunities have been created throughout the festival, alongside giant pumpkin displays, roaming musicians, street theatre, seasonal food and drink and a 33-metre Observation Wheel overlooking the fields and surrounding countryside.

The increasingly elaborate displays have helped make the farm particularly popular on Instagram and TikTok, with visitors sharing images and videos from the pumpkin fields throughout the autumn. Despite its growth, Tulleys remains owned and operated by the Beare family, with the Pumpkin Festival forming part of the diversification of the original family farm.

Stuart added:

"There is something very simple at the heart of it. Families come here, choose their pumpkins and spend time together. What has changed is everything we have built around that tradition. For a lot of our visitors, coming to Tulleys has become something they do every autumn, and we never take that for granted. We have an incredible team who work for months to get the farm ready. Opening weekend is the moment everyone finally gets to see what they have created."

Tulleys Pumpkin Festival runs until 31 October 2026, with tickets available at PumpkinFarm.co.uk.

Pumpkin Nights and After-Dark Woodland Walks

The farm will also open Pumpkin Nights on selected evenings from 26 September to 31 October.

The separately ticketed evening event sees the site transformed after dark, with illuminated woodland walks, pumpkin picking, two undercover live music stages, seasonal street food and drinks and more than 30 photo opportunities. For the first time, the new Pumpkin Valley will also form part of the evening event.

Pumpkin Nights runs from 5.30pm to 10pm on selected dates, with tickets available at PumpkinNights.co.uk.

Featured Photo by Kelsey Todd on Unsplash.