Harvest Festival Parking Bureau Replaces Paper Passes With Color-Coded Dashboard Squash Stickers

SQUASHVILLE — The Harvest Festival Parking Bureau announced Thursday that paper parking passes are out and color-coded dashboard squash stickers are in, ending a decade of what bureau chief Rita Sandoval called “counterfeit pass chaos” at the annual festival.

Under the new system, each vehicle class gets a squash: vendors get butternut (orange, elongated), VIPs get acorn (dark green, ridged), general admission gets spaghetti squash (pale yellow, oval), and staff get a small decorative gourd “because the staff insisted.” Stickers are adhesive vinyl printed with a holographic stem and a serial number. “Try photocopying a holographic stem,” Sandoval said. “We tried. You can’t. It just looks like a smudge.”

The switch follows last year’s scandal, in which an estimated 300 counterfeit paper passes — printed, investigators believe, “by someone with a very good printer and no respect for the harvest” — flooded the VIP lot. “The VIP lot had more cars than the VIP list had people,” Sandoval said. “At one point there were four cars with the same pass number, and all four drivers claimed to be the assistant cider coordinator.”

Festivalgoers must affix the squash sticker to the lower driver’s-side windshield before entering the grounds; attendants are trained to verify squash authenticity by “stem check, color check, and vibe check,” in that order. Misplaced stickers — on the dashboard, the bumper, or, in one preseason test, a forehead — will not be honored.

Early feedback is positive. “I put the spaghetti squash on my windshield and honestly it’s the most festive my car has ever looked,” said attendee Greg Tolliver. “I might leave it up through Thanksgiving. It’s basically a decoration now.”

Attendant training for the squash system — a 90-minute session Sandoval leads personally — covers the three checks in order: stem (holographic, intact), color (butternut orange, acorn green, spaghetti pale yellow), and vibe (“you know it when you see it”). Trainees practice on a board of 40 sample stickers, including 6 counterfeits Sandoval printed herself “with a very good printer and no respect for the harvest, to keep everyone sharp.” The current trainee record for spotting all six fakes: 4 minutes, held by a 19-year-old named Jess.

Tolliver’s windshield spaghetti squash has survived two car washes and, he reported, “a seagull incident,” and he has no plans to remove it. “It’s earned its place,” he said. Sandoval confirmed the stickers are designed to last the season — “UV-resistant, rain-resistant, seagull-adjacent” — and the bureau is already designing next year’s series: “We’re thinking heirloom tomatoes for the spring festival, but the stem hologram was so popular we might just do squash again. The people love the squash.”