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Anaheim Fall Festival and Halloween Parade return for 100th celebration

October 19, 2023

Organizers of the annual Anaheim Fall Festival and Halloween Parade are celebrating the 100 years the community event has brought neighbors together to partake in a carnival, costume contests and to see original parade floats around downtown.

This year’s festival and parade will be Oct. 28, with the festival beginning at 11 a.m. along the Center Street Promenade downtown and the Halloween parade at 7 p.m. It will launch at Broadway and Anaheim Boulevard and end at Broadway and Manchester Avenue.

Missy Steele puts spider web touches on the Haunted House float in preparation for the 2023 Anaheim Fall Festival and Halloween Parade. Volunteers worked on several floats in Anaheim on Sunday, October 15, 2023. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Jonathan Maddron works under the Haunted House float in Anaheim on Sunday, October 15, 2023, installing strip lights for a little extra spookiness in preparation for the 2023 Anaheim Fall Festival and Halloween Parade. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Ken Daly and Melida Rodriguez take the Ghost Dissipator float for a test run as volunteers prepare for the 2023 Anaheim Fall Festival and Halloween Parade in Anaheim on Sunday, October 15, 2023. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Stov All’s Space Age Lodge float, a take off of a 1970s-era motel bus that would shuttle guest to Disneyland, is a new addition to the upcoming 2023 Anaheim Fall Festival and Halloween Parade. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Husband and wife team, Sherry and Matt Ford, work on a float for the Anaheim Halloween parade in Anaheim, CA on Sunday, October 13, 2019. They traveled from Arizona to volunteer. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Volunteers Samantha Graham, left, and Carmen Alvarez, work on lanterns for a float in the Anaheim Halloween parade in Anaheim, CA on Sunday, October 13, 2019. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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The fall festival is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, while the Halloween parade will have its 100th edition in 2024.

Organizers say the festival, which goes until 6 p.m., is about building community and getting out to meet neighbors. There’s a kiddie costume contest for children ages 12 and under and a costume contest for dogs, as well as games, entertainment and food.

After the festival, the crowds spread out to line the streets and watch the parade.

Volunteers have been putting the finishing touches on the parade’s collection of floats. One of the new floats for this year is an old shuttle bus inspired by a space-age-themed hotel once open in Anaheim with a cartoon martian face. Volunteers have also been recreating a rocket witch parade float that was in the 1951 edition of the parade and a big-wheel steamboat for the kiddie costume parade.

“The rocket witch is actually the second incarnation of that; it’s gotten bigger and better,” said Keith Olesen, an organizer for the event. “We have a downtown resident who rides on the float and sings.”

Through Nov. 5, the Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center is hosting the “Hallowe’en Greetings” and “Tricks, Treats, and Traditions” exhibitions in the Carnegie Building. The exhibition explores the story and iconography behind the popular holiday festivities in Anaheim.

The first Halloween parade was in 1924 with Babe Ruth serving as its grand marshal. The parade became a staple in Anaheim for decades, but began a decline in the 1980s. Olesen said he and others were watching the parade one year and were disappointed in it, which led to a revitalization of the event beginning in 2011.

Stacie Depner plays Spacegirl at The Anaheim Halloween Parade, a tradition since 1923, was changed so people could still participate despite Covid. Instead of floats and performers driving down the street filled with spectators, people dorve their cars by the floats and displays around the Center Street Promenade Saturday evening.
in Anaheim on Saturday, October 24, 2020. (Sam Gangwer, Contributing Photographer)

Kevin Kidney, as the Pumpkin Man waves to cars full of people as The Anaheim Halloween Parade, a tradition since 1923, was inverted and cars full of people drove by the floats and displays around the Center Street Promenade Saturday evening.
in Anaheim on Saturday, October 24, 2020. (Sam Gangwer, Contributing Photographer)

The rocket witch parade float from the 1951 Halloween Festival & Parade. (Courtesy of Anaheim Fall Festival)

Paraders at the 1947 Anaheim Halloween parade on West Center Street. (Courtesy of Anaheim Fall Festival)

A circa 1950s photo of the Anaheim Halloween Festival & Parade. (Courtesy of Anaheim Fall Festival)

This is a photo of Anaheim’s Halloween Kiddie Parade in 1950. This is a photo of Anaheim’s Halloween Kiddie Parade in 1950. (Courtesy of Anaheim Public Library)

The S.Q.R. Store float in the Anaheim Halloween Festival Parade of 1957. (Courtesy of Anaheim Public Library)

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“We realized that we could complain about it or we could try and make it better so we decided to volunteer and try and make it into what we thought it should be,” Olesen said.

This year, the event is honoring longtime Anaheim volunteer Sally Feldhaus as its hometown hero. When the city dropped funding for the event in the 1980s, Feldhaus and her husband, Frank, a former councilmember, stepped up to keep the tradition going, said Jody Daily, president of the nonprofit Anaheim Fall Festival.

The organizers try to make the event feel charming and whimsical each year, she said, and get inspiration for looking at old photos in the city archives.

“It was important when we got into this,” Daily said, “to make it feel like it was never forgotten.”

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