Spooks, ghouls and creatures of the night in all shapes and sizes will descend upon the Rankin Inlet community hall for the first annual Halloween Spookfest on Saturday, Nov. 2.
The Halloween Spookfest replaces the annual Oktoberfest fundraiser for the Rankin Inlet fire department. Tickets for the event will be in the neighbourhood of $100.
Rankin Inlet Fire Chief Mark Wyatt said the department had hosted the Oktoberfest fundraiser for the past three years.
He said while Oktoberfest worked out pretty well each year, Halloween is a pretty big deal in Rankin and it was time to change the theme of the annual fundraiser.
“We do our annual haunted fire station for the kids at the fire hall on Halloween night and, with the renovations just being completed at the community hall, we thought it was a good time to change it up and host a big costume party,” said Wyatt.
“It’s still going to be a gala event, with a good meal included, but we’ll also have prizes for the top costumes, a ‘spooktacular’ band (Midnight News) playing that always rocks the house, as well as both a live auction and a silent auction to make it a fun right.
“A lot of people really get into Halloween, and we’ll have some good incentives for some really great costumes, so I think it’s really going to be a lot of fun.”
Wyatt said he’d been thinking of a Halloween event for a couple of years.
He said he talked about it with fellow department members and everyone agreed it would be a new event that would end-up being well received by the community, as well as a good fundraiser for the department.
“We keep fundraising and doing these things so we can be involved with projects like our new training ground, which is the big one right now, and we’re also looking at taking ownership of a number of other projects a little bit down the road,” he said.
“We need a lot of support to do something like the Halloween Spookfest – everything is staffed by firefighters from setting everything up to the coat check, the bar, security, getting people a ride home at the end of the night, and tearing everything down when it’s all done.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into it, but it always feels good when we put on a really fun event, which I’m sure the Halloween Spookfest will definitely be.”