Why doesn't Montreal have its own Halloween parade?

I don’t understand why Montreal doesn’t have a Halloween parade. Full stop.

Halloween has been celebrated in places like Scotland and Ireland for centuries, and major cities like Sydney and Hong Kong embrace it. In North America, Halloween parades are almost a staple in places like New York, Chicago, Salem, and Atlanta—not to mention all the small towns rallying for the season.

Montreal’s primed for this. For a city known for its festivals, nightlife, and an embrace of the offbeat, a Halloween parade seems like more than a natural fit.

Montrealers know how to host celebrations, filling the streets with costumes, music, and energy. Even now, as I write this sitting in a café in Old Montreal, people are already out in daylight with costumes on, hinting at a city-wide Halloween spirit with no central place to gather.

Montreal’s Halloween scene needs a home, a space to bring together the fragmented celebrations currently happening in apartments, clubs, bars, and borough-bound family events.

We've been here before

And, the desire is there—just look at past successes.

The Montreal Zombie Walk drew massive crowds until 2018, with hundreds taking to the streets in elaborate, self-styled costumes. It was free, fun, and community-led. And it ended not for lack of interest but for reasons beyond what we need to dissect here. What it proved, though, is that Montrealers want these spaces to celebrate together.

And then, during Montreal’s 375th anniversary, the city had free programming held over three days for Halloween. What started with a fabricated ‘legend’ about strange apparitions appearing near the Jacques-Cartier Bridge and Place des Festivals since Montreal's birthday on May 17 was built up into a creature called Trouble-Fête that would make an appearance at a spooktacular Place des Festivals. That culminated in a show animated by fire-eaters and zombies that was “worthy of the parties in New Orleans and Salem”.

This could be Montreal, every Halloween.

It’s something that’s stuck with me ever since seeing the feature-length film for Shinichirō Watanabe’s Cowboy Bebop (the cartoon, not the crappy Netflix show).

The plot of a bounty hunter gang chasing down an ex-military terrorist seeking to exterminate the human population of a colony on Mars doesn’t matter so much as one backdrop for the events that unfold in the movie: A massive Halloween parade taking place midday down the main thoroughfare of a major city.

Picture something on the scale of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, only with gigantic jack-o’-lanterns, witches, and ghouls floating through the sky. The streets are filled with marching costumed people with the lack of coordination and all of the good vibes only a Halloween party can have. People dancing. Music blasting.

It just looks like an amazing time.

Maybe we can’t do something on the grand scale of a fictional western sci-fi cartoon, but there’s a lot of reasons why this is something we could and should pull off.

Let me count (some of) the reasons

For one, it could create a new tradition – and all traditions start somewhere. This doesn’t need to be a late-night, adult-only affair; it could welcome kids, pets, and everyone who wants to join. Outremont Park’s Pawlloween Pawrade drew a huge crowd, and it’s proof that Montrealers are ready for more.

A full-scale Halloween parade, then, doesn't seem to outlandish.

We often talk about the value of our arts and culture scenes, and a Halloween parade is a perfect showcase. Montreal knows how to build floats, design costumes, and pull off spectacular events. This is a city that thrives on bringing people together, and a Halloween parade is a powerful way to unite communities from every neighbourhood.

Then there’s the economic opportunity. Halloween is an untapped niche that could benefit our festival scene, especially given the challenges with inflation and competition. Sponsors could help bring this to life, and local businesses along the parade route would see a big boost in foot traffic.

This could be crowd-funded and community-backed, making it a Montreal effort from start to finish. I’d be surprised if unexpected brands didn’t jump at the chance to support something as fresh as this.

Maybe I’m just naive, but it’s hard to imagine that Montreal – of all cities – can’t pull this off.