5 Epic Halloween Events to Take Inspiration From this Year

Manchester Scare Factory 2024

Halloween is all about tasting the fear. That thrill in the stomach that leaves you equal parts scared and exhilarated.

It’s what Manchester Scare Factory, the city’s newest Halloween event, is looking to do this spooky season.

Held at Diecast and organised by the team at Liverpool’s Newsham Scream Park, you can take plenty of inspiration from this particular scare fest.

Take Scare Factory’s Instagram page, for example, which is full of ominous imagery. Whether it’s the foreboding picture of The Toymaker or the creepy tour of the venue, the team has successfully built an atmosphere around their event.

They also haven’t shown too much, keeping a sense of intrigue to ticket holders and potential attendees. For a Halloween event, this is key. After all, showing off everything about your event before it takes place would kill the suspense, which is a huge part of driving ticket sales to your event.

Take a look at Manchester Scare Factory’s Instagram below.

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Ghost Ship – The Ultimate Halloween Boat Party

Our second event, Ghost Ship, brings the fright to London’s Temple Pier. 

With supernatural creatures, terrifying monsters and banging beats, attendees are sure to be equal amounts excited and afraid this Halloween. 

This event is all about the setting. The idea of scary figures roaming around a boat, which already has a limited amount of space, is a blood-curdling prospect. 

And that’s where you can take inspiration. While you might not have access to a boat and river, your area may have abandoned warehouses and old buildings teeming with a sinister energy that you can use to make your Halloween event the most frightening around. 

Ghost Ship isn’t solely on the river, either. They have an after-party planned, making this event a great example of combining different things into one event. It gives your attendees more for their money. With a unique location and lots on offer, you’ll have people flocking to your event listing looking for that shiver up their spine this Halloween. 

Club Lego: Halloween Special

We’re moving from the scary to the skilful with this next event.

Club Lego, an event run by Middlesborough’s Play Brew Tap Room, is hosting a Halloween special this October.

Attendees can eat great food and choose from several Halloween-themed Lego sets, which they can then build in a relaxed and sociable environment.

So, why not take inspiration and offer a more low-key affair this Halloween? Instead of Lego, it could be board games, and instead of Pizza, it could be Mexican food.

This gives your attendees the chance to explore a passion, try something new, meet new or existing friends and eat great food. We think that’s a win-win for everyone involved.

Learn more about Play Brew Tap Room’s Club Lego Halloween Special.

Festival of the Dead – Salem, Massachusetts

We’re moving from England to the USA with our next couple of events, the first one being Salem’s Festival of The Dead.

Now, this event feels massive. We won’t win any awards for saying that, mind, as our American counterparts tend to do everything that little bit bigger than us.

Festival of The Dead kicks off with The Witches Ball. Then, customers can attend a ‘Dinner With The Dead’, grab tickets for live magic performed in a graveyard and much more. Some events, like The Salem Psychic Fair and Witches’ Market’ run throughout October, while others run only on Halloween itself.

So, where’s the inspiration here? Pack up, move to America and hang out with the witches?

Chance would be a fine thing. No, we reckon it’s scope. You could run a mix of family-oriented and over 18s events, with markets, film screenings and scavenger hunts taking place across the month.

Market them under the same banner, and hey presto, you’ve got yourself a spooktacular festival that appeals to all.

The Village Halloween Parade – Manhattan, New York

Join us as we make the 200-mile trip from Salem to New York for the Village Halloween Parade, which takes place on 31st October.

Like the event in Salem, the Village Halloween Parade goes big. You’ve got zombies, ghosts, skeletons and just about every scary figure you can think of marching through the streets of New York.

Not content with that, the march has a theme every year. 2024’s theme? Cat Ladies. That’s right, the black cat-loving figures will step out into the parade, with puppet creations from Official Parade Puppeteers Processional Arts.

A themed parade is something that you can adapt to your area. Contact the council, get some local businesses involved in sponsorship and think of a suitably spooky dress-up idea.

Encourage attendees to come dressed up in their favourite Halloween garb and make the occasion memorable for adults and children alike.

You never know, it could be the first parade of many. The Village Halloween Parade has been running for nearly 51 years!

With the ideas flowing freely now, why not head over to the Skiddle Promotion Centre and begin listing your event?

Our Event Series feature lets you add and manage repeating events – known as ‘dates’ – across the calendar year. So, if you want to list an event which runs across multiple dates, like Manchester Scare Factory, you can use Event Series to sell tickets for each date.

Our Session-Based Ticketing feature also works hand-in-hand with Event Series, allowing you to create and sell tickets for events that require customers to arrive at specific times. Combine Event Series and Session Based Ticketing to create time slots across multiple dates.

These features can help you organise your event effectively, eliminating the need to decide time slots manually and spend time listing multiple events, one after another. With Event Series, your customers will be able to browse a sleek calendar view and if a date is sold out, the feature will cross-promote any dates with tickets remaining, which means you’ve got a higher chance of getting those all-important sales.

Watch our dedicated how-to video guides or check out FAQ articles on Event Series and Session-Based Ticketing and let these powerful tools transform your listing experience.

Find all this and more in the Promotion Centre.