Pumpkin carving contest judging sheet and criteria
At an office, neighborhood or family Halloween contest the judges often know whose pumpkin is whose. Below is a 100-point sheet you can print, what each row means, and how to number the pumpkins so the vote stays blind.
Pumpkin carving judging sheet
Five criteria, 100 points. These weights are my suggestion, so change them to fit your contest. Design gets the most points because a simple idea carved well usually beats a complicated one carved badly. Judge the lit effect in a dim room, since that is how the pumpkin will be seen.
| Criterion | Max | Low scores | High scores | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Design and creativity | 30 | A stock face or stencil with no twist, an idea that is hard to read. | A fresh idea you recognize at once, a face or scene with personality. | |
| Carving skill | 25 | Ragged cuts, torn skin, pieces that fell out, uneven wall thickness. | Clean edges, fine detail, a mix of cut-through and shaved areas. | |
| Lit effect | 15 | Dark or washed out, the light shows no shape. | Contrast between bright and dim areas, the design reads well in the dark. | |
| Theme or story | 15 | Ignores the theme, or has no clear subject. | A clear nod to the theme, or a small scene that tells a story. | |
| Overall impact | 15 | Fine, but you would walk past it. | You stop and look, and you point it out to someone else. | |
| Total | 100 | Entry number: ______ Judge: ______ | ||
Rough guide for each row: under a third of the points means a clear fault, around half is fine but forgettable, and the top fifth is for pumpkins you would photograph. If there is no theme, spread its 15 points over design and carving.
Number the pumpkins
- Ask entrants to keep their name off the pumpkin and anything attached to it. A small tag on the bottom is fine for the organizer.
- One person who is not entering writes a number card for each pumpkin and keeps the key. Set the cards next to the pumpkins in random order, not in the order people arrived.
- Put the pumpkins somewhere you can dim the light, with a light inside each one. I suggest battery lights: a real flame next to a crowd and a row of tables is a fire risk.
- Give judges a pen, the sheet and a minute per pumpkin. Walk the row once with the lights on for carving and once in the dim room for the lit effect.
- Close the vote before the entrants come back into the room.
What to judge
- Design and creativity
- Is the idea original, and can you tell what it is at a glance? A well-known character done cleanly can still score high if the execution is good.
- Carving skill
- Look at the cut edges and the thin spots. Shaving away skin without cutting through is harder than cutting a hole, so reward it.
- Lit effect
- Judge it with the light on and the room dim. A great design that disappears in the dark loses points here.
- Theme or story
- Only if the contest has a theme. Keep the weight low so a good pumpkin without a theme does not lose.
- Overall impact
- The gut check. It catches pumpkins that score fine on every row but do not stand out.
Kids and adults rarely compete fairly in one group. I suggest separate classes, such as kids, adults and painted or decorated pumpkins with no carving, each with its own scorecard.
Running it with the scorecard
List the entries in the order of the number cards, up to 20 entries. Guests open one link on their phones, see Entry 1, Entry 2 and so on, and rate each from 1 to 5. Put a printed QR card next to the pumpkins. When you close voting, the ranking with the entrant names appears for anyone with the results link. Use the paper sheet for a small judging panel and the phone vote for a crowd-favorite prize, or run both and give two awards.
Start a pumpkin carving scorecard. The title is filled in; add the entries and share the link.
Create a scorecard