Chicago’s Halloween Night Parade Has Amazing Creativity, $4K in Prizes & Live Music
Cover image credit: Tom Tian / Northalsted
CHICAGO – The 26th annual Haunted Halsted Halloween Parade will be held October 31st, 2023 in the landmark Northalsted neighborhood. The free-to-watch parade, ranked one of the top ten in the US by Fodor’s Travel, has a spectacular Costume Contest (Sign Up Free) featuring $4,000 in cash prizes and concludes with an awards presentation, live performance by musical duo Molly & Alex and dance party.
Sign up to participate free, all ages at hauntedhalsted.com.
The costume competition covers 5 categories: Character, Creative, Scary, Youth (<13) and Group. Each category will have a $500/$200/$100 prize winner for 1st place/2nd place/3rd place, respectively.
Photo credit: Del Nakamura / Northalsted
The Halloween Parade starts from Halsted/Melrose and heads north to Halsted/Cornelia; hundreds of Chicago’s most creative costumes filling the street are an amazing sight to behold. Also participating in the Halloween Parade are fire performers Chicago Full Moon Jam, Windy City Jeep Club, Lakeside Pride Marching Band, Chicago Spirit Brigade, The Good Bus and more.
This year’s Grand Marshal is 44th Ward Alderman Bennett Lawson. IL Senator Sara Feigenholtz will head up the judging panel, with hosts Batty Davis and emmy nominated NBC5’s Matthew Rodrigues presenting the awards. Howard Brown Health volunteers are staffing the contest on-site registration at Halsted & Belmont (10/31, 6:30-7:30pm).
The Awards show will feature Chicago powerhouse musical duo Molly & Alex (Molly Callinan and Alex Newkirk)
Northalsted has a ton of Halloween events throughout October: Final Cut Drag Competition at Splash Chicago, Parade After Parties, the Lakeview Halloween Pup Crawl, Trick or Treat, and more.
For Halloween event information see: northalsted.com/events
EVENT SCHEDULE:
- 6:30PM Costume Contest Registration (sign up online now) – Halsted & Belmont
- 7:30PM Parade Kickoff at Halsted & Belmont
- 8:00PM Parade Ends at Halsted & Cornelia
- 8:30PM Awards Show: Halsted & Brompton (3514 N. Halsted; parking lot)
- 10:00PM End of Event
Event home page: HAUNTEDHALSTED.COM
