A Socially Distanced Halloween
Entrance to Freeform’s Halloween Road. Masked employees welcomed guests to the Drive thru event in Pasadena Calif. on Oct. 4, 2020. In order to abide by COVID-19 guidelines participants remained in their vehicles at all times. (Octavia Anderson / The Corsair)
Celebrating Halloween in Los Angeles this month will be quite different from past years. Despite rolling back a previous ban on trick-or-treating, the L.A. County Department of Public Health will restrict how the holiday can be celebrated in the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Gatherings, events, and parties with non-household members are not permitted whatsoever, regardless if outside or in, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health. Door-to-door trick-or-treating is discouraged, as well as “trunk-or-treating,” where families gather in parking lots with their car trunks decorated and hand out candy.
Live entertainment, festivals, and haunted houses are also banned. This includes well-known annual Halloween traditions held at Southern California theme parks such as Universal Horror Nights, Six Flags Fright Fest, and Mickey's Halloween Party at Disneyland.
Freeform’s “31 Nights of Halloween” is a month-long event on the network’s channel, showcasing Halloween-themed movies during the entire month of October. This year the channel also hosted their first-ever drive-through event, “Halloween Road,” in Pasadena, which ran from Oct. 2-5. Due to a limited number of tickets being offered each night, the free event sold out almost immediately after the tickets went online. Those who reserved tickets were able to drive through scenes from movies being shown in the “31 Nights of Halloween” lineup including “Hocus Pocus,” “A Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Ghostbusters,” and “The Addams Family.”
Activities along the route consisted of photo ops while in your car, a live performance of "I Put a Spell on You" from the Sanderson Sisters of the film "Hocus Pocus," and modified trick-or-treating with bags of sweets distributed safely to drivers.
Freeform’s “Halloween Road” is not the only COVID-19 safe Southern California Halloween celebration to take place this fall. Drive-in theaters, both existing locations and various pop-ups, are deemed safe venues and will screen Halloween movies throughout the month of October.
The Los Angeles Haunted Hayride’s Live Drive-Up Experience is another event to consider. It takes place on select nights from Sept. 25 through Nov. 1 with tickets ranging from $49-$249 per car.
The Stranger Things: The Drive-Into Experience runs from October to February. This Downtown L.A. event brings Hawkins, Indiana to L.A. for a visit to the extraordinarily creepy, supernatural world of the upside down with tickets starting at $89.
The Bite LA is throwing a Halloween Food Crawl on select nights from Oct. 2 - Nov 1. Foodies can sample various themed snacks and dishes served in a socially-distanced, festive environment. The event price starts at $43 per person and caters to vampires of all persuasions, including those vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free.
