"My hope is that years from now, some of these children will remember participating in the very first Stampede and eventually return with children of their own." That's how the Pleasant Hill Chamber of Commerce's executive director, named only as Jeremy in the Chamber's release, described the parade that opens the first Pleasant Hill Harvest Festival on Saturday, Oct. 10. The plan is long-term. The Chamber says it intends both the festival and the Stampede to become annual traditions, with local children ceremonially opening the festival each year.
The festival doesn't stand alone. It falls in a stretch of the calendar where the City's Night Market on Golf Club Road, the Recreation & Park District, and the Downtown Merchants all have dates on the books. Put together, they make Pleasant Hill's fall a two-site season, Crescent Drive on the weekends and Chilpancingo Park on Friday nights, running from early October to the tree lighting on Nov. 21.
Saturday starts with kids carrying canned food
The Stampede is the official opening of the Harvest Festival. Children from around Pleasant Hill are invited to dress in western attire, gather with classmates and youth groups, and walk in a short community parade. There's no entry fee. Each child brings nonperishable food instead. The donations go to the Food Pantry at Hillcrest Congregational Church. Local schools are being encouraged to collect food in the weeks before the event and bring it as a group, which turns the parade into a citywide food drive. Families can sign up through participating schools or directly with the Chamber.
Here's how Oct. 10 is set to run, based on the Chamber's materials:
- 10:45 a.m. Stampede participants line up near Jack's Restaurant.
- 11:15 a.m. The procession heads to the Community Stage.
- Noon The festival officially opens along Crescent Drive. Admission is free and activities run until 9 p.m.
- Afternoon and evening Spinout, FirePeach and Zebop! headline the stage.
The Chamber's event page lists the day as 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. That window includes the Stampede, so families coming for the parade should plan on arriving before the official noon opening. A Contra Costa News listing puts the DVC Viking Pep Band at 1:45 p.m., Spinout at 3:30, Firepeach at 5:30 and Zebop at 7:30. The Chamber says Back Forty is presenting the stage, and its lineup includes Diablo Valley College's Music Program. The Chamber's own release says some performers were still being confirmed, so check the stage page the week of the event.
The rest of the day includes a pumpkin patch, a pumpkin decorating competition, a petting zoo, face painting, balloon artists, midway games, rock climbing, artisan vendors, seasonal displays, and beer and wine. Admission is free, but some activities and drinks need tickets bought separately, so bring a card for the kids' line. No street closure schedule for Crescent Drive had been published as of this writing.
Built to send people into the storefronts
The way the festival is laid out matters more than the pumpkin patch. The Chamber says it designed the event so people eat, shop and explore across Downtown Pleasant Hill instead of keeping the festival separate from the businesses around it. For this first year, everything is concentrated on Crescent Drive as one walkable stretch linking the Community Stage, family activities, artisan vendors, restaurants and shops.
Chamber board chair Alex Khodadad described the aim plainly to Contra Costa Herald. "The Harvest Festival gives us an opportunity to bring the community together while putting local businesses at the center of the experience," he said. "We want to create something that feels distinctly Pleasant Hill and that families will look forward to year after year."
The theme reaches back to the city's agricultural roots, when orchards, farms and harvest seasons were part of the local scenery. The Chamber calls the event a modern celebration of that history, brought into today's downtown through food, music and giving.
The Harvest Festival is an addition and doesn't replace anything. The Chamber's Art, Wine & Music Festival still ran on May 16 and 17, 2026. That gives the Chamber a spring event and a fall event on the same downtown streets. Residents who used to think of downtown festivals as a once-a-year thing now have one in May and one in October.
Golf Club Road has Friday nights
Across town from Crescent Drive, the City of Pleasant Hill runs its own fall series. The Pleasant Hill Night Market sets up at Chilpancingo Park, 200 Golf Club Road, on the first and third Fridays of each month from 5 to 9 p.m. through Nov. 20. It brings in more than 50 local vendors, food and drinks, a beer truck, and live music, plus cornhole, face painting, balloon animals, a kids zone, a wellness zone and a pet zone. According to Hoodline's August coverage, the 2026 season started in May and admission is free.
Counting from today, three market nights are left: Oct. 16, Nov. 6 and Nov. 20.
The Golf Club Road side is getting a new year-round draw. Anthony Johnson, Parham Mirshahpanah and Terrence Heaps, who bought the Walnut Creek deli Morucci's from longtime owner Robert Fambrini, are planning a Pleasant Hill location across Golf Club Road from DVC. Diablo Magazine identifies the site as 236 Golf Club Road for Morucci's Si Mangia Bene and describes an independently operated Lever Coffee pop-out window. The Mercury News reported on Aug. 3 that the shop was targeted for next spring, and The Orinda News said on Aug. 26 that it was slated to open next year. It won't be open for this fall's market nights. If that timeline holds, it could be open in time for the next Night Market season.
Between the two big weekends
The Recreation & Park District and the Downtown Merchants fill in the gaps, and most of what they've scheduled is either free or cheap:
| Date | Event | Where | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat., Oct. 10 | Harvest Festival and Stampede | Crescent Drive | Parade lineup 10:45 a.m., festival noon to 9 p.m., free admission |
| Sun., Oct. 11 | Pumpkin Splash | Pleasant Hill Aquatic Park, 147 Gregory Lane | 1:30 to 3 p.m., floating pumpkin patch, $18 resident or $22.50 nonresident, register by Oct. 9 at noon |
| Fri., Oct. 16 | Night Market | Chilpancingo Park, 200 Golf Club Road | 5 to 9 p.m. |
| Fri., Oct. 23 | Haunted Trail | Pleasant Hill Park, 147 Gregory Lane | 5 to 7 p.m., free |
| Sat., Oct. 31 | Halloween Spooktacular | Downtown, near Crescent Bistro | Noon to 2 p.m., chalk art, face painting, treat bags |
| Fri., Nov. 6 | Night Market | Chilpancingo Park | 5 to 9 p.m. |
| Fri., Nov. 20 | Night Market, last of 2026 | Chilpancingo Park | 5 to 9 p.m. |
| Sat., Nov. 21 | Light Up The Night | Downtown, near Chipotle | 6 to 8 p.m., tree lighting |
The Pumpkin Splash is the one that needs planning ahead. Registration closes at noon on Friday, Oct. 9, the day before the Harvest Festival, so a family planning both days has to sign up first. The Haunted Trail falls on the fourth Friday in October, so it doesn't overlap with a Night Market.
How the season closes
The fall wraps up the same way it opens, with one evening on each side of town. The last Night Market of the year is Friday, Nov. 20, at Chilpancingo Park. The next evening, the City and the Downtown Merchants hold Light Up The Night near Chipotle, with performances, crafts, caroling and the lighting of the Christmas tree from 6 to 8 p.m. Between Oct. 10 and Nov. 21, the only weekends with nothing on these calendars are Oct. 24 and 25 and Nov. 14 and 15. Every other weekend has a downtown Saturday event, a park district outing or a Golf Club Road Friday.
Downtown activity like the new Harvest Festival is the sort of local detail buyers ask about once a home near Crescent Drive or Golf Club Road hits the market. If you own in Pleasant Hill and want to know where your home stands this fall, Lauren Kraus can walk you through it. Request your complimentary home valuation.
