Turning A Small Celebration Into One Of The South Bay’s Top Events
It has all the elements of a great, fun event: A perfect location, a silly premise and a local population base that loves fun, silly events.
But it needs more and here’s what I would do to really make the pre-Halloween pumpkin race in Manhattan Beach one of the top annual events in the Los Angeles South Bay Beach Cities.
The first thing I would do would be to change the name to The Great Pumpkin Race rather than the World Famous Pumpkin Race because, well, it’s not world famous. It’s not even locally famous. When I mentioned that I was going to check it out, just about everyone commented, “what pumpkin race?”
The biggest change, however, would be in the actual event. What it is now is small pumpkins attached to rollerblade wheels and “raced” down a hill for about a block. All the entrants are children of Manhattan Beach parents. There’s a tiny expo of sorts in the parking lot across from Shellback.
It takes place the Sunday afternoon before Halloween, attracts a couple hundred people and well, that’s about it.
What I think they should do is have the kids go early – after all, it’s a good thing for families in the area – and in the afternoon add in an adult element.
And what came to mind as I was watching it was having adults – and by that I mean the many single people in the South Bay – race home-built sleds or some other “vehicle” with a pumpkin theme down Manhattan Beach Blvd. At the bottom, you would have a splash pool and the person with the fastest time wins.
It would be like those events like they have at ski resorts where people create all kinds of crazy contraptions to go down the hill and wind up in a pool of water.
And while that would be fun enough and bring in a couple of thousand people to downtown – providing a big boost to the bars and restaurants – I would also add in another element that would take it over the top.
I take that parking lot in front of Shellback and turn it into a beer and wine garden!
NOW we’re talking an event!
Coming right on the heels of Hometown Fair and before the Holiday Open House and Fireworks, it would be the perfect way to boost downtown business and community involvement on an otherwise slow Sunday.
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