WHAT’S ON
Roll up, roll up, the dark circus is coming
Paisley Halloween Festival After an immensely successful 2018, Renfrewshire’s lauded fright-fest returns and promises to be bigger and, somehow, even better this October.
L
aden with gothic architecture, folkloric tales of ghostly apparitions and other supernatural entities, it only makes sense that Halloween is properly celebrated on the streets of Paisley. The site of the last mass witch execution in Western Europe back in 1697, the modern-day descendants of those who bore witness to such condemnable sights thankfully keep their relationship with the macabre in much more jovial and family friendly territory. Among the crown jewels of the UK’s festivals of fright, the award-winning Paisley Halloween Festival is returning in all its beguiling splendour on Friday 25th and Saturday 26th October. Designed to captivate not only the 16 MILL
community of Renfrewshire but incentivise people from around Scotland to visit Paisley town centre, last year’s edition saw over 34,000 congregate in order to immerse themselves and their families in all things otherworldly. Charged with bringing the festive atmosphere of a Rio De Janeiro or New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration to the west central lowlands, helming this event is none other than Bristol’s Cirque Bijou. Heralded as one of the nation’s leading outdoor theatre specialists, these creative masterminds have helped instil shock and awe for everyone from Welsh alt-rock icons Muse to Take That and the British Paraorchestra. Devised within his mind and those of his trusted collaborators, Artistic Director Julian Bracey told us of how this partnership with Renfrewshire Council came about: “Several companies were asked to pitch for the role of creative directors for this year’s Paisley Halloween festival, and after a formal application and a number of
