5 Halloween Festivals Around the World Everyone Who Loves Spooky Season Should Experience
Halloween isn’t just a modern celebration of costumes and candy—it’s a global phenomenon rooted in ancient rituals, folklore, and seasonal transitions. Across the world, cultures have preserved and evolved Halloween into epic festivals that honor the supernatural, the ancestral, and the downright bizarre. This list dives into five of the most extraordinary Halloween festivals on the planet, each one a pure expression of the season’s eerie essence.
Derry Halloween – Northern Ireland
Derry Londonderry hosts one of the largest Halloween festivals in Europe, deeply rooted in the Celtic tradition of Samhain. The historic Walled City transforms into a haunted wonderland with fire-lit parades, ghost tours, and immersive storytelling. This festival blends ancient beliefs with modern theatrics, celebrating the thinning veil between the living and the dead.
Salem Haunted Happenings – Massachusetts, USA
Salem’s dark history of witch trials has evolved into a month-long Halloween celebration that draws thousands. Haunted houses, psychic fairs, costume balls, and historical reenactments fill the city with a sense of eerie reverence. Salem Haunted Happenings is a powerful reminder of Halloween’s connection to justice, memory, and transformation.
Kawasaki Halloween Parade – Japan
Japan’s Kawasaki Halloween Parade is a surreal spectacle of cosplay and creativity. Thousands of participants flood the streets in elaborate costumes that range from terrifying to fantastical. Though Halloween is a relatively new tradition in Japan, this festival has become a cornerstone of urban expression, turning the city into a living gallery of the weird and wonderful.
Púca Festival – Ireland
Named after a mischievous spirit from Celtic mythology, the Púca Festival revives the ancient Samhain traditions in Ireland’s Ancient East. Bonfires, mythic storytelling, and immersive art installations reconnect attendees with the land and its lore. This festival is a raw, elemental celebration of Halloween’s spiritual origins.
Village Halloween Parade – New York City, USA
The Village Halloween Parade in Manhattan is a chaotic, creative explosion of costumes, puppetry, and performance art. Anyone in costume can join the procession, creating a river of surreal characters that winds through Greenwich Village. It’s one of the largest public Halloween festivals in the world, celebrating transformation, imagination, and collective celebration.
Final Thoughts
These five Halloween festivals represent the most authentic, wild, and rooted celebrations of the season. From ancient Celtic fire rituals to modern urban parades, each event channels the spirit of Halloween in its purest form. For those seeking more than commercialized frights, these festivals offer a deeper connection to the supernatural and the ancestral.
