From Wicked Faire 2011 - by Hugh Casey Photography

Here are a few of the highlights of Wicked Faire’s Halloween festivities!  These are all, of course, on top of our enormous list of entertainment, shows, and general fun, of course…but’s a story told elsewhere on this site.

THE GREAT TRICK-OR-TREAT WEEKEND!

‘Halloween was confusing. All my life my parents said, “Never take candy from strangers.” And then they dressed me up and said, “Go beg for it.”‘

 -Rita Rudner

Remember when you got too old for the idea of dressing up and asking people to give you delicious things and fantastic surprises?

…yeah, neither do we.

Come and trick-or-treat your hearts out!  Many of our vendors will have candy and other treats for you.  Many room parties will be treat-positive.  Many of your fellow attendees will have treats for you, as well!  And you can feel free to get in on the action – bring treats and pleasant surprises of your own!

Some ground rules to help make this fun:

1.  Every vendor, performer, or staff person who participates will have an indicator that they’re offering treats.  So do look for those.  If you’ve got treats, we suggest you bring something to let people know – otherwise, people will probably assume you don’t.

2.  Treats do NOT have to be edible/food!  If you’ve got cool things to give away, feel free!  (Obviously, it goes without saying, you should give away things that are safe, legal, and such; if you’ve got, say, plutonium, please keep it to yourself.)

3.  Do observe basic Halloween safety; be careful about what treats you accept, and from whom, and suchlike.

4.  Courtesy to vendors and other people working the show:  Our vendors are, of course, some of the prime purveyors of good things at Wicked, and lots of them will be getting into the holiday spirit!  But for the love of Jack Skellington - if someone is clearly busy, ESPECIALLY if they’re a vendor, don’t try to trick-or-treat them until they’re free.  Our vendors make their living on shows like this, and if they have trouble paying their rent because you couldn’t wait five minutes to ask them for a candy bar, they will be Sad.  We realize that none of you would actually be that jerkish, but seriously, if someone actually uses Trick or Treating to annoy people, that person’s likely to be one of the rare few who get kicked out and banned without refund.   Don’t spoil people’s fun, because that’s just mean.

5.  And speaking of fun, HAVE FUN, DAMMIT!

6.  It is rumoured that there will be secret Faire agents who will go around and, if they catch someone giving out particularly great treats, reward those people.   Just sayin’…

COSTUME/GARB/GEAR/GENERAL APPEARANCE CONTEST

‘If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character, would you slow down? Or speed up?

-Chuck Palahniuk

Wicked Faire is, and always will be, a wear-whatever-the-hell-you-want (as long as it’s street-legal and we can see your face) event.  You do not need a costume, or any kind of special clothing – there is no dress code, and you will be greeted warmly however you’re dressed.

But for those of you who enjoy costumes, garb, assorted habiliment, gear, guises, and suchlike, we are proud to provide The Enormous Wicked Faire Weekend-Long Costume Contest!

Judges will walk amongst you in secret (because we don’t want our judges to get mobbed) and hand out invites to the staged costume contest.  Get enough of them, and you get to be onstage and have your attire checked out by the whole faire!  And if you get just a few, you will be entered into a drawing for some grand prizes.

Our full list of categories will be posted fairly soon, but in general, we love creativity, we love interesting ideas, we love a sense of humor (but don’t require it!), we love interesting costumes, we love both really elaborate costumes and really simple and ingenious costumes… really, if you put thought into what you wear, and have something cool and interesting, we’re going to give you a second look or two.  (And yes, there’ll be a particular category just for Shamelessly Showing More Skin Than Cher In The 70s – because that really needs to be a separate category.  I mean, we love skin, it’s true, but who out there isn’t a bit tired of seeing a super-creative costume get beaten by someone who’d make Ke$ha blush?  So that’s all in a category of its own.)

PARTIES AND PRIVATE CELEBRATIONS

“An ounce of mirth is worth a pound of sorrow.”

-Richard Baxter

Now, by law, a person’s hotel room is that person’s (temporary) castle.  As long as your activities are Kosher with the laws of the Great State of New Jersey, what you do in your hotel room is up to you.  Therefore, room parties are not, strictly speaking, an official part of our event.

However…

Wicked Faire is known for its incredible room parties, famed in legend, story, song, and pictures.  (Well, okay.  With any luck, nobody’s actually taken any pictures.)  This year, we do most heartily encourage Halloween festivities amongst those who wish to be festive!

Have you ever been to a hundred Halloween parties in a single night?  No?  Verily, we suspect that this just might be your chance…

Wish to have Trick Or Treating from your hotel room?  We’d advise you to have a little sign you can post to your door – perhaps on your doorknob? – letting people know that trick-or-treating is fine.  We also suggest putting your room number on the sign, just so people don’t get confused if, say, your sign falls off the door or what-have-you.

AND, OF COURSE, SURPRISES

We do have some lovely surprises planned, as well.  We’d tell you what they are but, you know, that would make them lousy surprises and such…