How to run a pumpkin carving contest at work, with 40 design ideas
Rules to paste into the invite, a scoring sheet, 40 design ideas made for an office and a plan for remote teammates. Everything you need from the announcement to the compost bin.
A pumpkin carving contest is the easiest Halloween event to run at work: one afternoon, a stack of pumpkins and a clear set of rules. People who never sign up for anything will carve a pumpkin, and the gallery walk afterwards does the team building for you. This guide covers the rules, judging, 40 pumpkin carving ideas for work, a timeline and a version for remote teammates. Halloween 2026 falls on a Saturday, so the last workday before it is Friday, October 30.
Pumpkin carving contest rules to copy
Paste these into the announcement and change the dates. Check with facilities first: some buildings have rules about tools and food waste.
- Enter solo or as a team of up to four. One pumpkin per entry.
- Everyone carves a pumpkin from the same batch, so nobody wins on size.
- Carving time is 45 minutes on contest day. Sketch your design beforehand, but no cutting before the clock starts.
- Use the carving kits provided. No power tools, and no knives brought from home.
- No-carve entries (paint, markers, pins, stickers) compete in every category.
- Battery tea lights only. No candles or open flames indoors.
- Office jokes are welcome. Nothing gory and nothing that pokes fun at a real person.
- Every entry gets a name on a folded title card. Judges love a pun.
- Clean your station before judging starts. Pulp goes in the compost bags, not the sink.
Carving with care
Five habits to share before anyone picks up a saw. They lower the risk, they don’t remove it, so keep an eye on the room.
- Carve at a table, never with the pumpkin in your lap.
- Use the small serrated saws from a carving kit instead of big kitchen knives, and saw in short strokes.
- Keep the hand that steadies the pumpkin out of the path of the blade.
- Wipe the pumpkin and your hands dry before you cut. Wet pulp makes everything slippery.
- Keep a first-aid kit on the side table, and let anyone who would rather not handle tools go no-carve.
Pumpkin carving competition judging: categories and a scoring sheet
Ask three judges from outside the competing teams to score every entry from 1 to 5 on six rows. The highest total wins best in show.
| Score each entry on | Points |
|---|---|
| IdeaOriginal, and you get it in two seconds. | 1 to 5 |
| Office spiritIt could only come from your team or your workplace. | 1 to 5 |
| Carving or craftClean cuts, crisp paint, real detail up close. | 1 to 5 |
| GlowIt looks even better lit in a dim room. | 1 to 5 |
| Title cardA name that lands, ideally a pun. | 1 to 5 |
| Wow factorThe gallery walk stopped at this one. | 1 to 5 |
| Total | out of 30 |
Paste it into Google Sheets or Excel: one row per entry, totals add up on their own.
Then give category awards. One winner leaves every other team empty-handed. These eight spread the applause:
- Best in show
- Best office joke
- Best department pride
- Best no-carve pumpkin
- Best glow
- Best team build
- Best title card
- Spookiest pumpkin
40 pumpkin carving ideas for work
Office jokes, one design per department, team in-jokes and no-carve designs. Hand the list out with the sign-up form so teams arrive with a plan.
Office joke pumpkins
Everyone at work gets these on sight, which is half the battle in a gallery walk.
- You're on mute: A face mid-sentence with a crossed-out microphone carved on one cheek.
- Per my last email: Narrowed eyes and one very tight, very polite smile.
- Inbox zero: One huge carved zero with a tiny relieved face peeking through the middle.
- This meeting could have been an email: A face fast asleep, with Zzz carved above the eyes.
- Coffee first: A carved steaming mug where the mouth should be.
- Out of office: No face at all, just a carved palm tree and the letters OOO.
- Buffering: A frozen face inside a ring of carved loading dots.
- Screen share: A carved monitor with a small face leaning in far too close.
- Paper jam: A grumpy printer face with a strip of real paper hanging from its mouth.
- Quarterly results: A carved bar chart with the last bar shooting off the top of the pumpkin.
Department pumpkins
Give each team one of these and the contest turns into friendly department pride.
- Sales: closing time: A grinning face and an upward arrow, with a small bell tied to the stem.
- Finance: balanced books: Two carved stacks of coins of exactly the same height.
- IT: off and on again: The power symbol carved as the whole face.
- Engineering: works on my machine: Curly braces for eyes and a semicolon for a nose.
- Data: the pie chart: A carved pie chart with each slice cut to a different depth, so it glows in steps.
- Marketing: on brand: Painted in your brand colors, with the logo carved through the front.
- Design: color swatches: A column of carved squares, each one painted a different shade of orange.
- Customer support: headset hero: A friendly carved smile wearing a pipe-cleaner headset.
- Legal: the fine print: Tiny carved letters around the rim that only read when it's lit.
- Facilities: the toolbox: A wrench and a screwdriver carved crossed, like a pirate flag.
Team in-joke pumpkins
The ones outsiders won't get and your team will talk about for a year.
- The team mascot: Your team's mascot or unofficial nickname, carved big.
- The office plant's twin: A pumpkin face with a real leafy cutting planted on top as hair.
- Project codename: Carve the codename of this year's big project in its logo style.
- The team emoji: The reaction your team uses most in chat, carved big enough to read from the door.
- Mini-me lineup: One mini pumpkin per teammate, each one designed by its owner.
- The office pet: A teammate's dog or cat, carved from a photo they picked.
- Offsite flashback: A carved scene from the last team offsite or retreat.
- The whiteboard nobody erased: Copy the famous diagram from the meeting room whiteboard in marker.
- Hybrid team: Half a face carved, the other half drawn as faces on a video call grid.
- Company values: One value carved on each side, so it reads as you walk around it.
No-carve pumpkin ideas
Paint, markers and supplies from the stationery cupboard. No tools, no mess, full entries.
- Googly-eye monster: Dozens of googly eyes in every size, glued all over.
- Push-pin pattern: Colored push pins pressed in to spell the team name or a logo.
- Sticky-note pixel art: Squares cut from sticky notes laid out as a pixel-art face.
- Washi tape stripes: Bands of washi tape in your team colors, top to bottom.
- Chalkboard pumpkin: Chalkboard paint all over, so people can leave messages on it all week.
- Paint-pen doodle: A dark painted pumpkin covered edge to edge in white paint-pen doodles.
- Gauze mummy: A white pumpkin wrapped in gauze, with a gap left for two googly eyes.
- Hello, my name is: A name-tag sticker on the front with a pun name for the pumpkin.
- Starry night: Black paint with tiny dotted stars, planets and one crescent moon.
- Stacked monster: Three painted pumpkins stacked into one tall, friendly monster.
A timeline that counts back from Friday, October 30
Three weeks is enough for sign-ups, supplies and a room. Starting later? Announce, open sign-ups and order supplies on the same day, and two weeks still works.
Announce it. Send the rules, the date and a sign-up form. Ask for team names and who wants a no-carve entry.
Close sign-ups and order supplies. Count entries, order carving kits, paint pens and battery tea lights, and ask three judges to score.
Book the room and send a reminder. Reserve a room with long tables. Remind everyone of the time limit and the remote photo deadline.
Get the pumpkins and set up. Whole pumpkins keep well, carved ones don't, so cutting waits for contest day. Cover the tables before you go home.
Contest day. Carve, light, judge and hand out the awards. The 90-minute run of show is below.
Clean up and post the photos. Compost the pumpkins, return the tools and share the winners in the team channel.
Contest day: a 90‑minute run of show
- Pick pumpkins and sketch (10 min). Teams choose from the pile, draw their design on with a washable marker and read the rules once more.
- Carve (45 min). Start the clock and the playlist. Call out the time left at 20, 10 and 2 minutes.
- Clean up and light up (10 min). Pulp into the bags, tables wiped, tea lights in, title cards out. Number each entry.
- Gallery walk and judging (15 min). Dim the lights. Judges score with the sheet while everyone else walks the row and votes for a people's choice.
- Awards and photo (10 min). Category winners first, best in show last, then one group photo with every pumpkin lit.
How to run a virtual pumpkin carving contest
Remote teammates should compete on equal terms, not watch photos of the office. Run the same contest with photos and a vote in chat.
- Give everyone the same budget. Pumpkins don't travel well, so people buy their own locally and expense a set amount. Paint pens and tea lights can ship.
- Carve together on camera. Hold a 45-minute call with music and the timer on screen. Anyone who can't make it carves on their own time before the deadline.
- Set the photo rules. Two photos per entry: one lit in a dark room, one in daylight, same angle, no filters, title card in the shot.
- Collect entries in one thread. Post every photo in a single chat thread by the deadline and number them in order.
- Vote in chat. Use a poll with the entry numbers, or one emoji reaction per category. Nobody votes for their own.
- Reveal on the party call. Show the top three in each category as a slideshow, then ask everyone to hold their pumpkin up to the camera, lights off.
Hybrid team? Put the office pumpkins and the remote photos in the same numbered list, and judge them all from photos so nobody gets a home advantage.
Prizes people will actually want
- The Golden Gourd: a craft pumpkin painted gold that sits on the winner's desk until next October.
- First pick of the leftover Halloween candy.
- The winning pumpkin becomes the team channel's icon for November.
- A coffee and pastry run for the winning team, on the company.
- The winners choose the next team event.
- A photo of the winners on the office screens or intranet homepage for a week.
Clean-up in ten minutes
- Cover every table with plastic tablecloths or kraft paper before anyone carves, then roll it all up at the end.
- Bag the pulp and seeds for compost or the trash. Pulp can clog drains, so keep it out of the office sinks.
- Offer the seeds to anyone who wants to roast them at home.
- Carved pumpkins go soft within a few days. Display them through Halloween, then compost them the next workday.
- Wipe the tools and count the saws back into the kit box.
Want someone to run the rest of Halloween?
Crown the pumpkin winners, then hand the party to a host. Halloween Trivia Time is a live, hosted hour of spooky trivia and challenges on Zoom (Teams, Google Meet or Webex on request), booked about 2 weeks ahead. Mask Decorating ships a craft kit to every home or desk, so it needs about 3 weeks: dates close to October 31 are tight, so ask us before you rule them out. See every option on our virtual Halloween party page.
A hosted game and a kit workshop, with today’s prices.
Building a whole Halloween week? Pair the contest with 35 Halloween games for work, a free Halloween escape room and our Halloween costume ideas for work. Running contests all year? Our office Christmas decorating contest guide uses the same judging approach in December. Or get a free quote with your date and headcount.
