Day of the Dead family fun this Halloween

Published Monday, 14th October 2019

Little monsters and their grown-ups are invited to don their most frightening fancy dress and celebrate Halloween on the most ghoulish day of the year.

The first ‘Hartlepool Halloween’ event, which is being run by Hartlepool Borough Council, will feature a whole host of free family fun including a SPOOK-tacular Day of the Dead themed parade, witchy workshops and music that goes bump in the night!

Hartlepool Halloween 2019

Families can take part in FREE ooky, spooky make-and-take workshops on Thursday 31 October from 3pm until 5.30pm alongside creatives at the BIS – the new centre for business start-ups in the creative industries, on Whitby Street.

Youngsters are encouraged to ‘dress to impress’ or ‘wear to scare’ and take part in the Day of the Dead street parade from the BIS to Church Street at 5.45pm where they will be joined by festival favourites, Back Chat Brass who will be belting out their brassy twists on classic tunes to get everyone in that party 'spirit'.

Organisers will be crowning the Best Dressed in Hartlepool! The winners of which will be awarded King and Queen of the Dead and win two tickets to Hartlepool’s professional Pantomime - Beauty and the Beast at Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre this December.

Councillor Christopher Akers-Belcher, Chair of Hartlepool Borough Council's Regeneration Services Committee, says: “We are really excited for the first ever ‘Hartlepool Halloween’ event, it’s going to be fantastic fun for all the family and we are really looking forward to seeing some truly terrifying costumes in the parade and have some fantastic prizes to give away for best dressed.

“We think children will absolutely love rolling up their sleeves and getting creative in the free workshops to create ‘Day of the Dead’ themed parade items with Hartlepool artists, including the talented duo at Bloomin Art, who earlier this year successfully engaged with over 3,000 children at craft workshops at Hartlepool Waterfront Festival.”

The Halloween event will also feature fair ground-rides not for the faint hearted, plus a petrifying Pumpkin Patch and little creatives are asked to bring along their carved masterpieces to showcase in the garden, with prizes awarded to the PumpKing and PumpQueen of Hartlepool.

A spine-chilling closing ceremony will be held by a ghostly gaggle of girls, when Puppets with Guts bring ‘The Lips’ to Church Street, bringing the Hartlepool Halloween celebrations to a close with their big-puppet sing-a-long!