Celebrating Halloween in Stockholm
Bill Schacht takes us behind the latest celebration adopted by Stockholmers.
All photos courtesy of Shockholm
EDITOR’S NOTE – This is a special guest post in collaboration with Shockholm. If you’re looking for ways to experience Halloween in Stockholm, this is the most comprehensive event for you!
October 31 —a day known in many parts of the world as Halloween. Normally, a day when things stand out a bit from the normal routines of life.
Eight years ago, I decided to bring this holiday and parade to my second home town, Stockholm, after celebrating Halloween my whole life in my first home, New York.
And my, how Shockholm has grown into a land where everything and anything is possible as long as it is (mostly) safe and legal. It is now the largest Halloween parade with associated events in Scandinavia. And dare I say, in Europe.
Taking cues from what makes New York the best city in the world, Shockholm is designed to be all welcoming—all ages, all creeds—something I believe is sorely needed these days.
It is also built as a co-creative platform. Aside from growing to 6,000 attendees last year, this year, we added new creative elements including the Hounted Doge Dog Costume contest category and the entries are wonderful.
We relaunched our holiday themed food and drink offerings, Shockholm Bites!, with incredible food and drinks, like Frankenbirgurs, Brains or Claws available for the two Halloweeks leading up to the parade.
Bites is a key component of Shockholm – Art you can eat! We challenged Stockholm’s best chefs to produce ‘extreme creative’ themed holiday food (and/or drinks) between October 19th and November 5th leading up to the main event. And this year’s competition is hot! Limited edition devilishly delicious dishes created to help celebrate in Shockholm.
In years past, we have featured food which smokes, another which licks blood… seven exquisite tastes and fearfully fanciful presentations, from chicken claws to fingers, pumpkin sauce, cheeks and monster claws.
And, for the first time, we expanded our reach with a travel offering to Dracula’s Castle in Transylvania and look to attract more to Stockholm, I mean Shockholm, in the coming years.
Shockholm draws some amazing artists and stage performances such as the wonderful Ida Gratte, the lush Adee, the amazing Mithra Hoop, and, our own ‘Changeling’ theme act extravaganza.
There are over forty planned talents on stage including ballerinas, flaming buzzsaw jugglers, dancing trees, choirs, violinists and much more. The part where our audience is also invited on stage to display their own creations is usually the high point. Equally as important as the event itself are the roughly 50 passionate volunteers and staff who live and breathe Shockholm.
Welcome to Halloween in Stockholm at Shockholm!
