Burnaby gets spooky: Halloween festivities begin

On Wednesday, Oct. 2, the Burnaby Halloween Festival kicked off with a special media event hosted by Tourism Burnaby for reporters and content creators. The event started with a cookie-decorating class run by Hollie Fraser, owner of Punk Rock Pastries in Burnaby, followed by a tour of Pumpkins After Dark. 

After the event, the Beacon spoke with Chris Peters, the executive director of Tourism Burnaby, who provided more information and insight into this year’s Halloween festivities in Burnaby. 

According to Peters, this is the third year that Burnaby has hosted a Halloween festival, and it has grown significantly over the past three years. This year, Peters said, there are more than 25 events, ranging from free, family-friendly events to adult-only burlesque events. 

There is also a neighbourhood decorating contest, in which Burnaby residents can decide which home has the best Halloween decorations for 2024. The festival website includes a map of all participating residences. The first prize is $1,000.

“We did focus on family-friendly events for the first few years, and we wanted to make sure that we’re including those die-hard Halloweeners, the ones that want to come out and be really scared or show off their costumes,” Peters said. 

Peters said the idea for Burnaby’s Halloween Festival came from Mayor Mike Hurley, who told Peters about a large festival that takes place every year in the city of Derry in Ireland and attracts more than 500,000 people. Tourism Burnaby was in the process of planning the first festival when COVID-19 hit and put everything on hold.

“Tourism Burnaby and myself, personally, really had to build a dream of what it could be through two years of COVID to get enough buy-in and partners and sponsorship and funding,” Peters said. “Just to see that grow from that simple seven or eight events all the way up to 25 or 30 for this year’s, it’s very gratifying.” 

The first event was finally launched in 2022 and has since taken place every year throughout October. While most of the events are concentrated in the latter half of the month, many have already started, such as Pumpkins After Dark. This year, Peters said that there are 13 free events, including Central Spark, the fireworks event organized by the City of Burnaby, which will take place on Oct. 25.  

“Some of the free ones that are really big are like Central Spark, which is the fireworks display, and there are activations for that on the Saturday right before Halloween,” Peters said. “Last year, they had 25,000 people come out. We’re expecting, depending on weather, 25-30,000 this year.” 

Pumpkins After Dark also draws a large crowd, with some nights seeing around 8,000 visitors pass through the dimly lit path with pumpkin-based sculptures and carvings in Central Park. Regarding security in the park for the event, Peters said security guards and staff are stationed throughout the path. Peters said Burnaby artists created 50% of the sculptures in Pumpkins After Dark. 

He cautioned that the dim lighting may cause some accessibility issues, especially for wheelchair users and people with visual impairments. Peters recommended that people with mobility or visual issues bring a friend or family member to help them navigate the path. He also recommended that visitors take transit to the various events and wear reflectors on their costumes at night to make themselves more visible to drivers.  

The Burnaby Halloween Festival is not just about the fun events; it is also big business for the city, generating millions of dollars in revenue annually from ticket sales and taxes. Peters said that it also supports local businesses and creates seasonal jobs. 

“Aside from creating a fun community event, the main purpose for doing this is to create an economic driver for the city,” Peters said. “The festival will generate somewhere in the realm of $4.1 to $4.5 million in economic activity for the city this year. That’s one of the things we’re most proud of because, you know, as much as we all like to find and encourage people to have a really great time and build community at Halloween, it needs to pay for itself, and it needs to generate some revenue.”

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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