Pumpkin & Chili Party: The 6 Must-Dos, Ranked

Schnepf Farms has been throwing its Pumpkin & Chili Party for more than 25 years, and it shows — in the good way. This is not a pumpkin patch with a bounce house. It’s a full fairground folded into a working Queen Creek farm: 35-plus rides and attractions, two corn mazes, a petting zoo, live shows, chili by the bowlful and, after dark, a haunted train and a giant slide lit up like a landing strip. We arrived in the late-afternoon light, when everything is gold and the photo lines are short, and stayed until the fireworks. Here’s what we’d tell any family heading out for the final days: the six things to make sure you do, in order.

2026 essentials

One quirk to know: October is the only month Schnepf charges admission at all, and during the party the regular farm park closes — but the café, bakery and Farmer’s Daughter Coffee stay open to anyone, ticket or not.

The lay of the land

The farm is big and the layout is not obvious — here is the shape of it, with a star on each must-do from the list below. Walk in at the bottom, and work roughly counterclockwise.

1 · Ride the trains — both of them

The farm runs on rails. By day, the train is a hop-on, hop-off shuttle with four stops — main depot, bakery, ride area, mini golf — and riding it first is the smartest way to learn the layout of a place this big. Our crew treated it like a parade float: string lights overhead, everyone grinning like it was their job.

After dark, the same tracks turn into the Spooky Train ($10, running from 6:30 p.m.), and it was the surprise highlight of our night. The little train rolls out into the black fields past scenes lit in red and blue — a ruined stone arch, skeletons posed on the signal gantries like they’re working the night shift, one waving from a tree. It’s spooky the way a campfire story is spooky: the little kids clutched, the big kids narrated, nobody cried. If you do one paid extra all night, it’s this one.

2 · Hit the Giant Slide after dark

By day, the Giant Slide — new this year — is a big rainbow hill you ride down on an inner tube. By night, it’s the farm’s lighthouse: a towering, full-spectrum light show you can see from everywhere, with riders spilling onto the turf at the bottom laughing too hard to stand up straight. The line moves fast, the tubes are forgiving, and grown-ups are absolutely allowed — ours raced. Go once in the daylight if you like, but the run that counts is the one under the lights.

3 · Get in the pen with the animals

The petting zoo here is not a look-through-the-fence situation. You walk into the pen and the goats come to you — dozens of them, every size, weaving between legs and checking pockets with total confidence. It’s joyful chaos, and it was the single hardest attraction to extract our crew from. Around the pens you’ll find the farm’s other residents holding court, including one very photogenic goat who has clearly done this before, and a donkey who accepted ear scratches and a close-up with the patience of a saint.

4 · Eat the chili. Then the churros.

It’s half the name of the party, so yes, the food matters. The headline act is the chili dinner — meat, veggie and even pumpkin chili — served up under the big tent, but the farm runs seven grills across the grounds: grilled pizza, a mac-and-cheese bar, burgers, hot dogs, pulled pork and the sleeper hit, succotash. Dinner under the string lights with the whole fair humming around you is its own attraction. And then, dessert with no debate: the churros, eaten standing up, still warm, sugar on everyone’s shirts. Our table’s official review, delivered with churros raised like trophies: no notes.

5 · Split up for the rides

The ride lineup splits cleanly by bravery, which makes family logistics easy. The big kids’ trophy is the Kamikaze, the towering pendulum that swings its cage of riders up toward vertical against the evening sky — you can hear the screaming from the corn maze. The wheel riders get the Ferris wheel, all lit up after dark, slow and high and perfect for seeing the whole glowing farm at once. And for the smallest crew members, the Honeybee Adventure — giant smiling bees on a gentle circuit — produced the biggest grin of our entire night, which is saying something on a farm full of goats. In between: the Miler coaster, Tilt-a-Whirl, spinning tea cups, two genuine vintage carousels (1912 and 1925), jumping pillows and a ropes course. All of it is in the admission — the only ride money you’ll spend is on the trains.

6 · Stay for the fireworks

Here’s the thing nobody tells you: the party has a second act. As the night deepens, the bonfires come out, the music keeps going, and on the big nights the farm closes with fireworks over the fields. Families drift out to the open ground, the midway lights blur behind the trees, and the whole place goes quiet in that way crowds do when something beautiful happens overhead. One of our crew watched the entire show without moving, from the best seat in Queen Creek: standing in the dirt, front row to the sky. Don’t be the car leaving during the finale.

Worth knowing: what the regulars swear by

• Two antique carousels. The midway runs a 1912 Parker and a 1925 Herschell — century-old machines, among the oldest operating carousels in Arizona, and both are included in admission.
• Hillbilly Bob’s Pig Races. Twenty-nine years running — the pigs (Brad Pig, Kevin Bacon) race on the hour-ish, and it is exactly as serious as it should be. Check the show board when you arrive.
• The Stunt Dog Show. Three shows a day — racing, hoop jumps, frisbee catches. The farm calls it a must-see; families who’ve been coming for years agree.
• The pumpkin chili is the point. This whole party started in 1998 as a two-night backyard-BBQ chili dinner. The pumpkin chili is still the bowl to order.
• Hot cider donuts — and new cider slushies. At the bakery all day and night; cold slushie, warm donut, no wrong order.
• Bonfires by the main stage. Roast marshmallows once the sun drops — the original reason this party exists.
• Grab a pie on the way out. The bakery’s famous pies are stocked at the exit for a reason.

Know before you go

• Arrive at golden hour. Late afternoon is when the farm photographs best, the welcome-sign line is shortest and the daytime attractions are still open — then you get the whole after-dark second act (slide, spooky train, fireworks) on the same ticket.
• Buy the day, then the train. The farm caps daily attendance and warns some days sell out — so lock in general admission online for the day you want, especially this final week. The Spooky Train isn’t sold ahead: its $10 tickets are bought on-site, so grab them when you arrive rather than at 6:25 with everyone else.
• It’s the final week — expect a crowd. Halloween week is the party’s peak, and Saturday Oct 31 is the last night of the season. Buy tickets online ahead, and hit the Spooky Train and Giant Slide early in the evening before their lines peak.
• Budget past the gate price. Admission covers the rides, but the night’s extras add up the way fair extras do: train rides, the Spooky Train ($10), food and chili, a pumpkin to take home. Decide the extras budget before the kids see the mining sluice.
• The grounds are big and unpaved. Dirt paths, farm smells, dust on everything — wear shoes you don’t care about and bring a stroller or wagon for little legs. Desert night rules apply: it cools off fast after sunset, so pack a layer.
• Skip nothing with a showtime. Hillbilly Bob’s pig races and the stunt dog show are pure farm-fair joy, and the 10-acre corn maze is the real thing — go before dark if your sense of direction is, like ours, optimistic.

What’s next on this farm

The pumpkins barely get hauled away before the farm changes costumes again: Christmas at Schnepf Farms runs November 27 – December 27, with the Illumination Express train, ice skating and Santa’s reindeer hayride — and we’ve already ranked it in our Best Christmas Lights in Phoenix guide as the East Valley’s own big night. If the Pumpkin & Chili Party converts you — it converted us — that’s your return trip. More fall weekends worth the drive are in our Things to Do in Phoenix hub.

About & Disclosure

TRVL Guide is a travel resource site. Some links on this site may be affiliate links — if you book through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It helps keep the guides free. Photos on this page are our own, taken at the farm in October 2026.