The Snowflake/Taylor Chamber of Commerce is holding its 26th Annual Harvest Festival on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Pioneer Park. Admission is free. The listing also includes a line that changes how the morning works: "Park at the Willis Farm and take a hay ride to the park." So for anyone following the directions, the festival starts at a working pumpkin farm on the other side of town. That farm has spent this October so far working around the weather.
One Hay Wagon, Two Addresses
The Chamber's event page lists Pioneer Park at 507 N 1st W St. The Willis Family Farm is at 381 S. 1st E. Street. One address is north and west on the town grid and the other is south and east. The hay wagon makes that trip so festival traffic doesn't all try to park on the streets around Pioneer Park.
This has been part of the festival for a while. The Chamber's annual events page describes Harvest Fest as arts and crafts, food vendors, entertainment, a kids' Game Zone, and wagon rides to the Willis Family Farm pumpkin patch and corn maze. The 2026 listing frames it the other way around. You start at the farm and ride to the park, so the farm is the first stop of the day.
Two things the listings leave out. Neither the Chamber nor the regional events calendar posts a hay ride schedule or a separate fare for the wagon. If you want to catch a particular act, leave yourself some time to board.
What's on the Pioneer Park Stage
The park has Arizona arts and crafts, food trucks, a Game Zone and a scavenger hunt. The stage schedule is set:
| Time | On stage |
|---|---|
| 9:00 a.m. | Opening by Julie Turvey |
| 9:15 a.m. | SHS Band and Strings ensemble |
| 10:30 a.m. | America 250 Challenge awards |
| 11:00 a.m. | Pumpkin Pie Eating Contest |
| 11:30 a.m. | Makenli Grace |
| 12:00 p.m. | Fig Fam |
| 1:00 p.m. | Joel Cutri |
The schedule has a gap between the student ensemble at 9:15 and the awards at 10:30. If you'd rather spend the early part of the morning at the farm, that's the window, as long as the farm is open by then. Its own website gives two different Saturday opening times. The hours page says 10 a.m. The October festivities page says 9 a.m., and it lists the patch, the smaller maze, the train and the Game Zone as opening at 9 a.m. on Saturdays. Before you plan to pick a pumpkin first thing, check the farm's latest social media post.
The Farm Side of the Ride
Parking at the farm puts you next to everything it sells this month. The 2026 rates from the farm's October page:
- Pumpkins: $0.70 per pound
- Gourds: $1 to $5
- Indian corn: $3 per ear
- Cornstalk bundle: $10 for 10 stalks
- Agrifact Maze: $5
- Big Cornmaze: $10
- Train ride: $5 per ride
- Game Zone: $5 per person
The farm's pages list a price for each activity and don't mention a general entry fee.
The hours matter more than the prices on festival day. On Saturdays, the patch, the Agrifact Maze, the train and the Game Zone are listed from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Big Cornmaze stays open until 10 p.m. The festival closes at 2 p.m., which leaves four more hours of daylight activities at the farm and eight more for the big maze. A family that rides the hay wagon back after Joel Cutri's 1 p.m. set will find most of the farm still open where they parked.
The farm is also two different places depending on the day. On weekdays the patch opens at 1 p.m. and closes at 6. The Big Cornmaze runs until 6 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, and 10 p.m. Friday. Everything is closed Sundays. Festival Saturday is the only day this month when the farm opens its gates for a crowd that already has a Chamber event on its schedule.
One policy change applies to anyone parking there: the farm no longer allows dogs on the property and says the rule is for customer safety. If your dog usually comes along to Pioneer Park events, keep in mind that the farm lot is where the wagon picks people up.
Rain Has Already Changed This October Once
The farm's season is listed as Sept. 26 to Oct. 31, 2026. Rain cut into the first week. The farm's own notice:
"We will be closed September 28th-October 1st due to Rain! We Hope to open Friday at 1pm! The Haunted Cornmaze for Saturday October 3rd is cancelled, all tickets will be refunded!"
That cost four weekday openings and the first Saturday haunt in the season's opening week. The haunt ticket page says refunds take five to seven business days to process. Both the October page and the ticket page ask visitors to check the weather before coming, and the ticket page adds "all social media outlets."
This affects festival day in a specific way. The Chamber put parking for its own event at an outdoor farm that has already closed for rain once this season. The listings don't say what happens to parking or the hay ride if the farm has to close on the 10th. That makes the farm's posts the quickest way to find out whether the start of the morning has changed.
After Pioneer Park Wraps at 2
The farm keeps going after the festival packs up, mostly after dark.
The haunted cornmaze is scheduled for October Saturdays, though rain already cancelled the Oct. 3 night. Tickets are $25 per person and are sold online only. Groups are 6 to 10 people, and smaller parties get combined with another group in line. With Oct. 3 cancelled, the Saturdays left are Oct. 10, 17, 24 and 31, and the 31st is the last day of the farm's season.
The Kid Haunt is Monday, Oct. 19, at $15 per person. Every child 3 and older needs a ticket, parents going along need tickets too, and the farm says supply is limited.
For food away from the farm, two Main Street spots are close by. The Perkatory, at 60 S. Main St., is locally owned and serves coffee, specialty drinks, cinnamon rolls and fresh-baked cookies. Snowflake Smokehouse Bar & Grill, at 680 S. Main St., is family-owned, serves BBQ, burgers and wings, and takes online orders. The Perkatory suits the morning before you board the wagon. The Smokehouse works for the stretch between the farm's 6 p.m. patch closing and an evening at the haunt.
Later in the season, the Chamber's Monster Bash Awards Dinner & Auction is a costume-friendly evening where business-of-the-year winners are announced. Its date is listed as "To be determined." The next event on the Chamber calendar with a firm date is the Snowflake Town Lighting on Dec. 1, with Santa, entertainment and free cocoa.
Paulina and Justin Schubel grew up in the White Mountains and know how much of the year here depends on weekends like this one. If you're curious what your place across town from Pioneer Park is worth these days, Arizona's Mountain Home Hunters can give you a number before you head out for the hay ride. Get Your Instant Home Valuation, then go pick your pumpkin.
