The American Cities That Put on the Sexiest, Wildest Halloween

' Tis the season to don your most deranged / flirty costume , stick some glitter to your palpebra , and lose yourself in the moonlight . Do your hometown haunted high school gymnasium again … or head to a city where you could duck into a depraved alter ego , where you wo n’t just see out - of - the - software program witches and isolated kid panhandling for M&M ’s .

The best Halloween cities incline to be those that keep a scurvy , steady Halloween spirit year - round . This time of year , though ? Now ’s when you could recognise strangers on the street like you ’ve been share secrets since puerility , cavort with fire - eaters and aerial silk dancers dressed like Harley Quinn , and drink absinthe with a mankind in a Pikachu costume who will turn out to be a tattooed heavyweight fighter . That dark is just one among many – you should make yours memorable .

Los Angeles, California

What makes it unique : Everyone who survive here came from somewhere else to become someone else . That did n’t exercise out , so Halloween is their good second chance .

Nowhere else in America has so many people whose literal job it is to produce repugnance event , and the city goes inhardwith the stalk household . Theme parks likeKnott ’s Berry Farm and Magic Mountainturn to the coloured side , as do take to the woods room , and other more staid attractions : The Queen Mary , for example , is pack with mazes and themed bars . But there ’s also no full metropolis in America to flip your identity operator altogether . Go on aPretty Woman - trend shopping spree at one of the urban center ’s unnumerable costume shops , machinate an alter self-importance , and link up the half - million reveller romping around theWest Hollywood Carnaval . You ’ll be parading down the boulevard with the bawdy and gallant . After all , this is a urban center full of well-defined aim celebrity ( complete with extensive wardrobes and immaculate makeup acquisition ) . Just as trippy is the prescribed Dia de los Muertos celebration : Paint your face as acalaveraskull and festoon your heading with feathers and florals to honor the dead while march with mariachi bands and Aztec dancers in full regalia .

Salem, Massachusetts

What makes it unique : The creepiest historical town in America is nervous on any given Tuesday in July . Halloween turns it up to an 11 .

The hometown of the really horrific Salem Witch trial run of the 1690s ( in which char and tiddler were charge of witchcraft and then execute ) today celebrates seances , trick , and witchcraft duringFestival of the Dead , which run for the whole calendar month of October . Dress up in your finest Victorian mourning clothes to meet psychics , speak to the start at seances , complot the idle at graveyard , and then sweat off the bad spirits at the official Salem Witches ’ costumed ball .

Miami, Florida

What makes it unequalled : In a city where fair sex wear Halloween - worthy lean outfits to buy grocery , and guys fall apart costume every day like “ undercover drug informant ” or “ legitimate business proprietor , ” one might think Halloween would n’t be that particular . But one would underestimate Miami ’s power to throw party .

Pretty much every day here is a celebration : alive street DJs , barren - flow booze , stranger shedding inhibitions . But October 31st takes it to a rightfully special level . Ground zero is Lincoln Rd , an out-of-door pedestrian mall that 364 nights of the year is where one goes to get Lululemon and Starbucks . But on Halloween it packs people in articulatio cubiti to elbow , wear out shockingly little even by Miami criterion . The parade of harebrained costumes can be enjoyed from any of Lincoln Rd ’s sidewalk , cafes , or bars , but the side streets off the mall have slight pop - up club set up in the street , where DJs stand onstage and blare EDM out to the mineral pitch dance floors below . The full weekend before , South Beach clubs are take with people in costume , and the guts at Lummus Park is nursing home to the annualNightmare on the Beach party , a combination ghost house / beachfront bacchanal that gain the Little Lighthouse Foundation . -Matt Meltzer , Thrillist stave writer

New Orleans, Louisiana

What makes it unique : The big population of actual vampires outdoors of Paris meets free open - container jurisprudence .

This urban center ’s a magnet for the pent - up outcasts in every conservative Bible Belt burg between Alabama and Texas : the goths , the LGBTQ lodge , theater nerd , the drinkers , the dancers , the painters , the singers , the sinners . That only intensifies on Halloween , course , when this townsfolk of above - priming burial vaults and a worldwide sense of impend doom goes full - on juvenile delinquent . Get intertwine up into a effete costume and hit theEndless Night Vampire Ball , where a theater of pallid , gorgeous puppet keep you entranced in the underworld . drumhead to avoodoo witchery festivalto spend two days on a riverboat memorize curse and spells . Or you may go a nuance more basic and pack into theVoodoo music and arts festivalto get costume - sweaty with enceinte names like Arcade Fire or The Chainsmokers . It ’s less Halloween - centrical , but you get laid it ’s going to be obturate with thousands of people who are down to get as dark as you need to make it .

Portland, Oregon

What makes it unique : Portland ’s fairly much Halloween year - round ( vampire - theme vegan strip order , anyone ? ) , so when one of America ’s good drinking urban center does Halloween , it does it good .

Portland ’s a eldritch post , especially when it gets sick . This is , after all , a metropolis that has a haunted underground web called the Shanghai Tunnels where all manner of creepy snatch took place ( take the preoccupied tour ) . There are also cemetery that do tours of untimely departures and movie theaters prove old - school horror flick with live Hammond organ scores .

But back to that drinking . Venues here absolutely explode for All Hallows , and not just because there ’s a zombie spirit - theme take on SantaCon . The Crystal Ballroom – Downtown ’s biggest venue – that hosts thePDX Erotic Ball , a compounding grownup costume party / burlesque extravaganza , plus fetish demo , and more . Concert halls meet legion to full - costume covering bands , haunted houses like the enormousFrightTown– the shivery thing to bechance to the Rose Garden since Rasheed Wallace ! – offer up labyrinthine scare , theme bars like the horror - themed Lovecraft draw standing - room - only crowds of ghoulish dancers . Oh , and about those strip club ( Portland ’s the nation ’s capital ) . They get spooky too , none more than Downtown ’s Spyce , which host a fully naked take on the haunted house where graverobber pop out and say Bronx cheer … atomic number 5 . -Andy Kryza , Thrillist senior eat / drink editor

Las Vegas Halloween

Las Vegas, Nevada|Kobby Dagan/Shutterstock

Athens, Ohio

What make it unique : Thebiggest party of the yearat one of the most ill-famed political party schools in the country , all crammed into four small , yet densely hard drink - licence city blocks .

Halloween is dead the scariest , greatest night of the year in this small college town in southeastern Ohio . What began as an illegal street coup d’etat by student activists at Ohio University in the 1970s has since evolve into an one-year city - sanctioned Block Party ( yes , capitalized ) that draw tens of thousands of outrageously costumed reveler . The jubilation gets so unruly that police force call in reinforcements from surrounding jurisdictions to better control the bunch , and the university impose tight restrictions on out - of - town visitors staying in the dorms . Inevitably , the the local jail occupy up speedy , and the catch count makes national news . But you could easily escape the concourse and have a more authentically creepy experience by avoiding Uptown Athens altogether and instead strolling around the Ridges , a long - abandon insane asylum nearby , which is obsess as hell . -Chris Shott , Thrillist elderly New York editor

Key West, Florida

What make it unique : The least - subdue box of Florida is always looking for an excuse to dress up ( and way , way down ) .

If you ’re less concerned in fear and more concerned in an all out bacchanal in a city where your aphrodisiacal Ken Bone costume wo n’t make you catch cold , head toFantasy Festin Key West . ( This class ’s radical : Political Voodoo & Ballot Box Barbarians . ) Key West ’s Carnival meets Halloween fete flow for a full 10 years . There you may anticipate body - painted nude breasts , absurd spoof and parade float , naughty ( or not ) theme party , and an anything - give way company vibration . The official parade is a romp down Duval St , but even if you do n’t join in , there are plenty of indulgences in bars and clubs and themed balls scatter around the city .

Estes Park, Colorado

What makes it unique : The very best place in America to imagine a crazed Jack Nicholson swing an axe into your thorax .

This small town ’s Stanley Hotel at the pes of the Rockies inspire Stephen King ’s iconic history of the Overlook Hotel inThe Shining . live over the novel / film ’s most eldritch bit by book a stay in one of the hotel ’s 420 room . Get prepped by ghost traditional knowledge on a frequent walk and drop some time in the creepy hedge maze outside the hotel , then join other guest in a mask ball , or simply essay supernatural encounters by wandering about the empty halls alone after iniquity .

Las Vegas, Nevada

What makes it unique : You’re in one of the performance capitals of the reality , in a town where clubs will give out $ 10,000 for the good costume . The streets , they get freaky .

Halloween ’s the best night of the year to people - take in in a metropolis that revels in extravagance , greed , and desperation . Sample the dizzying offerings of the Strip in costume – sequins and false whiplash are de rigueur . Hotels bristle with horror - theme party , and you ’ll be able to drop off yourself in a ocean of sweaty , sparkly physical structure at themany EDM events around town , this year ( and , hell , probably every other year ) feature dj like Steve Aoki and Calvin Harris . The legendaryFetish and Fantasy Halloween Ballat the Hard Rock Hotel is a must - take care if your phantasy or fetish is to pack into a dark way with a thousand hot people cut back in flashy outfits to mash against one another and get spray in the face with laser .

Madison, Wisconsin

What makes it unique : State St is the eclectic hub of one of the good college towns in America . Adding a football sports stadium ’s worth of costume revelers and unrecorded music make it an inebriated Midwestern Disneyland .

In the 1980s and ’ 90s , Halloween on Madison ’s State St became a bucket list item for Midwest college kids and 20 - somethings , on the scale of Carnival in Rio – complete with the scantily clothe partygoer , minus the promise of affectionate weather . Somewhere along the way , someone envision out that 100,000 masked kid plus alcohol was a spoiled combination . In the early 2000s , the knucklehead quotient on State saw a substantial uptick , so the metropolis establishedFreakfest , and ( relative ) order was fix . The organized party tamed the free - for - all atmospheric state by blocking off a chunk of State , adding live medicine microscope stage , and charge entrance money . The crowds have diminish more or less from Madison ’s raucous heyday , but it ’s still one amazing company . Arrests , incidentally , are down significantly – a dependable affair , because otherwise you ’re overnighting in a concrete cell with a creepy-crawly clown . -Patrick Follett , Thrillist contributor

Savannah, Georgia

What makes it unequaled : It ’s where Southern meets Gothic , and where a famed art and plan schoolhouse ensure a steadfast supply of drear , creative vitality .

This is where morose Spanish Moss frames the walkway to haunted Antebellum plantations , and the wandering Confederate ghost make it a perennial pick for one of the state ’s most - haunted cities . appease up all night ghost hunting with paranormal investigators in theSorrel - Weed House . If you do n’t believe in the legend of an unfaithfulness that lead to suicide and murder that took spot inside the house , believe in its proximity to the Siege of Savannah , one of the bloody battles of the Civil War , which had more than a thousand casualties . pass your Halloween Nox feeling claustrophobic in the cellar – or just maneuver out to a fancy dress political party , enclothe as a spiteful Southern Belle .

Detroit, Michigan

What makes it unequalled : nipping crepuscule weather , longsighted nights , and sections of the city being a utter ghost town . bewilder on top of that iconic unrecorded music and you ’ve got yourself a company .

Detroit is fundamentally Gotham City . Corrupt individuals own the majority and cater to the robust , offence is more rampant that we ’d care to acknowledge , and the only thing keeping the place afloat are the efforts of mysterious , underappreciated reformer . Halloween used to bring an one-year disaster here : For 10 the local“Devil ’s Night”meant rampant arson , with hundreds of buildings a yr torched . That has abated , though , and now Halloween ’s not a in particular insecure time of class to be on the street . An bestow bonus : Detroit ’s astray - unfastened space , originative powerhouses , and complex societal situation have allowed it to become one of the res publica ’s prime cities for approachable esthetic grammatical construction . effect such asTheatre Bizarre , the DAMNED ShowandCreepy Cheapyrepresent the city ’s obsession with art , the macabre , and rock ' n ' roll . Metro Detroit also is family to an telling number of haunted houses , some of which are full - contact , 21 + , and which will discount your slate price if you make it out alive . Said locales happen to act your good chances of running into a existent - live juggalo , outside of any suburban Walmart . -Megan Frye , Thrillist contributor

New York, New York

What makes it unique : The sheer density of people cramming into the West Village cook it one of the highest concentration of creative , costumed weirdos on the planet .

If there ’s one affair New Yorkers know how to do , it ’s to dress extravagantly and put on a show . The time - honored tradition ( est . 1973 ) of the imposing Village Parade through the West Village kicks off in full gear ( this year ’s theme : reverie ) . Gawk in awe at jumbo creature created by illustrious creative person and perhaps connect in the parade yourself ( no one mind ) before heading off to a warehouse company in Brooklyn or Manhattan . This year , there are not one but THREEStranger Things - theme parties where you may playDungeons & Dragonsor dress up as the tulip - face fiend . Alternative : Wander the crypts beneath the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine , or celebrate the impending apocalypse in themed political party thrown by perverted imaginations and few demarcation .

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