A theme-park autumn festival with a drone show and fireworks rather than a pumpkin patch — confirmed for September 19 to November 1, 2026 on Fridays through Sundays, but with no published ticket price anywhere on the festival page.
Entry requires a Daily Attractions Ticket or a Mountain Membership; the festival page does not publish a rate. The Summit Skyride may be purchased separately. A park social post advertised a limited-time festival ticket at $24.99 against $39.99 regular, but that was a promotion, not a standing rate.
The most useful thing we can tell you about the Stone Mountain Pumpkin Festival is what it is not. It is not a pumpkin patch. Nothing in the published activity list involves picking a pumpkin, a field, a hayride or a farm. This is a large theme park running an autumn festival, with pumpkin-themed play areas, fairy tale scenes, character meet-and-greets and pie eating contests during the day, and a genuinely ambitious night programme — glow-in-the-dark activities, an enchanted parade, a drone and light show and fireworks.
Judged against a working farm it is the wrong comparison in both directions. No farm in Georgia is putting on a drone show. No park is going to hand your child a pumpkin off a vine.
The festival and its attractions run from 2pm until late evening. That single detail should drive your planning, because it means the event is fundamentally an evening one and the value sits in the back half. Arriving at 11am gets you the park, not the festival. Leaving at 6pm means you paid to skip the parade, the light show and the fireworks.
The exception is the Summit Skyride, which runs 10am to 5pm and can be bought separately. If riding to the top of the mountain is on the list, it has to happen before the festival really gets going — the two do not overlap comfortably.
We could not find a published festival price. The page states that entry requires a Daily Attractions Ticket or a Mountain Membership, and then stops. A social post from the park advertised a limited-time festival ticket at $24.99 against a $39.99 regular price, which tells you the rough order of magnitude and nothing more reliable than that.
For a family of four, the difference between the promotional figure and the regular one is $60. That is not a detail to resolve in the car park. Price it properly before you commit, and price the parking too — that was not verified by any source we could reach, and it is the classic hidden line item at a park of this kind.
Here is where Georgia’s real autumn cuts both ways. The good part is that late October at Stone Mountain actually looks and feels like fall, and a night event under genuinely crisp air is far better than the same thing staged in eighty-five degrees.
The bad part is that a festival that runs to a fireworks finish means you will be sitting still, outdoors, after dark, in the coldest part of a north Georgia evening. Families who dressed for a 2pm arrival are reliably miserable by the parade. Bring more than you think, bring something to sit on, and understand that the last two hours are the ones you came for — you want to be comfortable enough to stay for them.
One more practical note: peak festival season is also peak leaf season in north Georgia, and the roads carry that traffic on autumn weekends regardless of where you are headed. Give the drive more time than the map suggests, especially for a Friday when you are competing with the commute as well.
The festival and its attractions do not start until 2pm, so a morning arrival buys you the park rather than the event. The Summit Skyride runs 10am to 5pm, which means it is the one thing you cannot do late — if the ride up the mountain matters to you, come before 5pm and treat the festival as the second half of the day. The event runs Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only. Friday is the obvious choice for anyone who can take it: same programme, smallest crowd.
Five hours or more, and honestly the whole afternoon and evening. The structure of the event pushes you toward staying: a 2pm start, glow-in-the-dark activities, a parade, a drone and light show and fireworks at the end. Leaving at 5pm means paying full price for the daylight half of a night event.
Not documented. A weekends-only run at one of Georgia's most-visited parks over six weeks of the fall is a recipe for full Saturdays, and the 2pm start compresses everyone's arrival into the same couple of hours. Friday is the release valve.
This is the detail we most want you to check. Stone Mountain Park's parking arrangements were not verified by our sources, and the festival page does not address them. Budget for the possibility of a vehicle charge on top of admission rather than assuming it is included.
You want a pumpkin patch. There is no picking, no field and no farm here; the pumpkins are decor and theming for a park event. If your plan was to come home with a pumpkin from a vine, this is the wrong listing entirely.
The festival page does not publish a price. Entry requires a Daily Attractions Ticket or a Mountain Membership. A park social post advertised a limited-time festival ticket at $24.99 against a $39.99 regular price, but that was a promotion rather than the standing rate, so treat it as a floor you may not be offered.
Not in the farm sense. The listed activities are pumpkin-themed play areas, fairy tale scenes, character meet-and-greets, pie eating contests, glow activities, a parade, a drone and light show and fireworks. There is no pumpkin picking.
September 19 to November 1, 2026, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only, per the park's own festival page. Festival attractions run from 2pm until late evening; the Summit Skyride runs 10am to 5pm.
September 19 – November 1, 2026. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only.. Hours: Summit Skyride 10am-5pm; Pumpkin Festival and attractions 2pm until late evening..
Admission pricing was not published when we last checked. Entry requires a Daily Attractions Ticket or a Mountain Membership; the festival page does not publish a rate. The Summit Skyride may be purchased separately. A park social post advertised a limited-time festival ticket at $24.99 against $39.99 regular, but that was a promotion, not a standing rate.
1000 Robert E. Lee Blvd, Stone Mountain, GA 30083, in DeKalb County. It is one of 12 patches we track in Atlanta Metro.
We track 12 patches in Atlanta Metro, 3 of which are free to walk into. The farm has not published a gate price, so it cannot be compared on cost — call before you budget.
Its season runs about 44 days against a regional average of 44, so it is broadly in line with the rest of the region.
There are 3 other patches we track in DeKalb County. All Atlanta Metro patches →
stonemountainpark.com · exploregwinnett.org · atlantaonthecheap.com
Checked August 2026.