‘Halloween Should Be Our Holiday’: Little Five Points Gears Up For Annual Festival
Thousands are expected to come out to this year’s Little 5 Points Festival and Parade.
Wes Carter
This weekend, the 19th annual Little 5 Points Halloween Parade & Festival is returning to bring sights and frights to the quirky downtown neighborhood.
Around 9,000 people are expected to come out to take part in this macabre, multifaceted, free festival happening Saturday, Oct. 19, from noon to 10 p.m., said Karen Heim, the festival’s organizer.
“The costumes are colorful, and it’s a family-oriented day. We’ve got face painters and food trucks and music, and there’s really something for everybody to be there,” Heim said.
Unlike previous years, a Mystic Art Market will showcase goods, such as Rainy Day Revival’s oddities, by the Red Dawn Main Music Stage behind Abbadabba’s. Night Terrors and Casket Creatures are a few of the performers taking the stage.
Also, expect a parade of costumed revelers to course through the heart of the community on Euclid and Moreland avenues at 4 p.m.
The festival has expanded and gained national recognition since it started back in 2001 as the brainchild of David Simpson, founder of Coyote Trading on Moreland Avenue.
“Halloween should be our holiday; it really fits us more than anywhere else. We are the wacky, unusual community where people dress in odd ways on a daily basis, so it’s a perfect fit for our little neighborhood,” he said in an L5P press release.
Simpson helped start the festival back in 2001, weeks after 9/11.
“We considered not having it because everyone was so traumatized by it, but we decided to go forward in resistance to that event. In honor of the first responders who died, we chose members of Atlanta Fire Dept. as Grand Marshals,” he said in a statement.
Last year, Simpson was honored as the parade’s grand marshal. He decided to share the honor with festival co-founder and Inman Park resident Holly Mull, who died days before the return of the event in 2010.
Heim started organizing the festival in 2012 after being a frequent volunteer. She calls herself the “parade wrangler” for the event, which draws attendees to the area from surrounding neighborhoods and cities.
“People come to a Little Five Points to let down their hair and to let their freak flag fly … [and to] be welcomed for all their uniqueness and their eccentricities. It’s such a colorful diverse neighborhood,” Heim said.
If you plan to come out to this year’s Little Five Points festival and parade, remember that the parking is limited. Organizers recommend that attendees take a ridesharing service, walk or bike to the area. Pets also aren’t allowed.
More In Store
Want to keep the Halloween fun going? Here are a few other events happening around metro Atlanta.
Sit in on Frankenstein’s funeral during a suspenseful, immersive journey at St. John’s Lutheran Church through Nov. 3
Travel up to Buford, to a family-friendly corn maze and frightening haunted forest attraction happening until Nov. 3.
Take the kids trick-or-treating among the dinosaurs at the Fernbank Museum on Oct. 26, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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