Returning to the Glow
The first season of Jack O’Lantern Glow proved that thousands of pumpkins, talented artists, and the nighttime beauty of the Cincinnati Zoo could create something truly memorable.
The second season presented a different challenge:
How could we make it even better?
When Jack O’Lantern Glow returned in October 2025, our team was no longer starting with a blank page. We had an entire season of experience behind us—along with guest reactions, production notes, favorite moments, difficult lessons, and a growing list of ideas we could not wait to try.
Year two was about building on what worked while continuing to discover what Jack O’Lantern Glow could become.
Learning From the First Trail
During the inaugural 2024 season, our crew watched the event as carefully as our guests did.
We saw where families naturally gathered. We learned which displays invited guests to stop and look closer. We discovered how lighting, spacing, sound, and sightlines could turn an attractive piece of pumpkin art into a memorable reveal.
We also learned practical lessons that guests might never notice: how artwork responds to weeks outdoors, which materials make maintenance easier, how installations can be improved, and what our team needs to keep a large nighttime event glowing consistently.
Those observations followed us into the workshop as planning began for 2025.
Returning displays could be refreshed or presented in a new way. New concepts could be designed with a better understanding of the trail. Small operational changes could make the experience stronger for both guests and crew members.
Jack O’Lantern Glow was growing—not simply by adding more, but by becoming more thoughtful.
New Ideas Begin in the Workshop 
Long before the zoo pathways illuminated again, the 2025 season existed in pieces throughout our workshop.
There were concept sketches waiting to become full displays, unfinished faces lined up for carving, materials being tested, lighting ideas being discussed, and half-built characters offering the first glimpse of what guests would eventually see.
This is the part of Jack O’Lantern Glow that most visitors never witness.
Creating pumpkin art on this scale is a highly collaborative process. An idea may begin with a quick drawing, but bringing it to the trail can involve painters, sculptors, builders, electricians, installers, and production designers. Each person solves a different part of the puzzle.
Colors must remain readable after dark. Faces need enough character to stand out from a distance. Larger arrangements must feel balanced from the guest pathway. Every display needs a plan for transportation, installation, power, weather, and maintenance.
The art is playful. The process behind it is serious.
Giving Every Pumpkin a Personality
One of our favorite parts of Jack O’Lantern Glow is seeing how much personality can be created from a familiar Halloween shape.
A slight change to the eyes can make a pumpkin look mischievous instead of frightened. A crooked smile can transform it into an entirely new character. Paint, texture, accessories, lighting, and placement can take that personality even further.
During the 2025 season, our artists continued exploring how individual pumpkins could become characters—and how groups of them could create complete environments. We added more shapes and faces to accommodated each theme on the trail.
Some scenes rewarded guests who paused to notice small details. Others were designed to make an immediate impression. Together, they helped the trail feel less like an exhibition and more like a world populated by hundreds of glowing personalities.
For the crew, that meant treating even the smallest pumpkin as part of the larger experience.
Installation: When the Pieces Become a Show 
No matter how much work takes place in advance, Jack O’Lantern Glow does not truly become a show until installation begins at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Workshop pieces have to be carefully packed and transported. Larger displays are assembled on location. Pumpkins are positioned, adjusted, and sometimes repositioned again. Power and lighting are installed. Scenes are viewed during daylight and then checked again after sunset, when color and shadow can completely change their appearance.
Installation is both exciting and demanding. It is the point when months of creative work meet real pathways, real landscaping, changing weather, and a fast-approaching opening night.
It is also when the team begins to see the full experience for the first time.
One display appears around a familiar turn. Another begins glowing beneath the trees and gradens. Separate ideas suddenly connect, and the trail starts to develop its rhythm—big moments, quiet details, photo opportunities, characters, colors, and surprises.
The glow returns piece by piece.
The Work Continues After Opening Night
Opening the gates does not mean the work is finished.
Each event night begins with inspections and preparations. Displays have to be checked, lighting tested, and artwork reset. Throughout the run, the team makes repairs, responds to weather, replaces components, and solves the unexpected problems that come with presenting detailed artwork outdoors during an Ohio autumn.
Most of this happens quietly, before guests arrive or after the trail closes.
The goal is for the next family walking through Jack O’Lantern Glow to experience the same sense of discovery as the family that visited on opening weekend. Maintaining that consistency requires patience and a crew willing to care about details that may only be noticed when something is missing.
Every glowing evening is supported by work that begins hours earlier—and often continues after the final guest has gone home.
A Tradition Begins to Take Shape
The most meaningful signs of growth were often found along the trail: returning families recognizing a favorite display, children choosing a new favorite pumpkin, guests studying the craftsmanship, and photographs being taken in the same places where our crew had stood weeks earlier making final adjustments.
By its second year, Jack O’Lantern Glow was beginning to develop traditions of its own.
Certain sights felt familiar. New scenes created fresh discoveries. Guests who had attended the first year could see how the experience was evolving, while first-time visitors were introduced to the trail as an already-growing Cincinnati Halloween event.
That mixture of familiarity and surprise became an important part of the event’s identity.
Looking Beyond 2025
The 2025 season represented another important step for Jack O’Lantern Glow.
Our artists pushed their ideas further. Our production team applied the lessons of the first year. The trail became more refined, and the event’s creative identity continued to emerge. At the same time, every completed display inspired another possibility.
That may be the best thing about working with pumpkins: there is always another face to imagine.
Jack O’Lantern Glow continues to be shaped by the people who create it and the guests who experience it. Each season adds another chapter—new artwork, new challenges, new memories, and new reasons to look forward to October in Cincinnati.
The lights eventually go dark at the end of every season, but behind the scenes, the next glow is already beginning.
