BY KRISTIE WORTHEY for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 10/16/2026
Anthony Dluzak wanted to give Tacoma a Halloween parade. For nearly two years, he’d been trying to get one off the ground, without much luck. Then Christmas came along.
“On Facebook I noticed the Tacoma Santa Parade was looking for volunteers, and I thought, well, what a perfect opportunity for me to not only volunteer to help out a great thing, but to maybe get involved and learn how to run a parade,” he said.
Dluzak signed up and met Jennifer Day, who was coordinating the Santa Parade. He told her about his Halloween ambitions: “I was full disclosure with her. I was like, hey, I’ve got a dream to run the Tacoma Halloween Parade, so I’m going to be using this as a learning experience as well.”
Day loved Halloween, too. By the time Christmas was over, the two were ready to tackle a different holiday.
“Without her, this would never be a thing that happened,” Dluzak said. “She’s completely a fantastic person who gets things done.”
Three years later, the Tacoma Halloween Parade & Spooky Street Fair is preparing for its third annual appearance Saturday, Oct. 17, in Tacoma’s Proctor District.
Day has a name for the nine-month undertaking. “My Halloween baby.”
Like most babies, this one has grown considerably since its arrival.
“It is a monster. It is a nightmare,” Day said. She means that affectionately. Her Halloween baby has developed an appetite for permits, sponsors, volunteers and just about every waking hour she can spare.
A nightmare before Christmas, perhaps. Only this one started with Christmas.
The first Halloween parade rolled through Tacoma’s McKinley Business District in 2024. Construction and logistical complications reduced Day’s planned five-block route to two.
Proctor offered straight sight lines, room for floats and performers, and businesses accustomed to hosting community events. The parade moved there in 2025, with the historic Blue Mouse Theatre helping welcome the celebration.
The move gave the event room to grow beyond a parade. The Spooky Street Fair brought vendors, entertainment and family activities into the festivities, turning an evening procession into a neighborhood Halloween celebration.
Day appreciates Proctor’s support and hopes the event will continue growing, with opportunities to bring Halloween festivities to other Tacoma neighborhoods. She calls it a “frightening feast,” one that can move around the city.
In the meantime, the monster has developed an impressive appetite. This year’s Spooky Street Fair will feature more than 70 vendors, food, live entertainment, a children’s activity area and a market where young entrepreneurs can sell their creations.
Monica McKinley, Tacoma coordinator for the nonprofit Kids Markets, helps children turn creative ideas into small businesses.
“We hope that the kids are going to learn business skills, like how to create a product, price it, market it,” McKinley said. Kids Markets takes a “hands-off” approach, according to McKinley, allowing children “to make it their own and figure things out as they go along.”
The young vendors make everything from crocheted creations and paintings to 3D-printed merchandise. McKinley’s daughters are participating, one selling coloring books and the other bracelet kits.
Next door, Our Pod Family is sponsoring the Kids Zone, with games and hands-on activities. Both children’s areas will be on North 27th Street between Proctor and Adams.
With vendors to organize, performers to wrangle and an entire parade of costumed creatures to corral, Day has become something of a Halloween ringmaster.
Her husband has another title for her. “My husband just tagged me as the goddess of ghoul, which I think is so funny, and I love it, and it’s truly a labor of love.”
Even a goddess of ghoul has to deal with city permits.
Day owns Stellar Soirées Event Creation, an event-production business. The Halloween celebration is her biggest event.
“The hardest part is funding,” Day said. “I’m a private citizen. I have a business license. My event creation and logistics production is what I do, and I’ve created a lot of my events not to have work, but to make sure there are spaces for people to come and be together and have a good time. It’s really basic fun.”
Because Day produces the event through her private business rather than a nonprofit, finding sponsors is a year-round challenge.
“Those sponsorship dollars truly do go to the event. Paying for our safety, which is street barricades, anti-vehicle barriers, and the Tacoma Police Department, those are my biggest pause. Am I going to be able to afford to do this again?”
Washington State Horror Con signed on as this year’s presenting sponsor.
“They’re really assisting us with being able to pay for the safety of this parade, which is a $15,000 bill. Every penny counts.”
And what festivities.
“We’ve got families that want to drive their cars, kids that want to hand candy out, and marching bands from the schools,” Day said. “It’s exactly what you think: small-town parade, super fun. Spooky but sweet.”
The Pacific Northwest Ghostbusters and their Ecto-Mobile are expected to join a procession of spooky floats from around Washington state, marching bands, dance teams, and other creatures of the night.
Krampus Bremerton and Krampus Seattle are expected to join the festivities. Day hopes a contingent of Krampuses will bring up the rear of the parade, borrowing a tradition from a rather different holiday. “It’s kind of like having Santa at the end, but cooler,” she said.
Frighthouse Station is sponsoring the entertainment stage, with scare actors adding to the Halloween atmosphere. The afternoon includes live entertainment, CHEER Tacoma, performers from the Seattle Catrinas Festival and the “Creep It Real” costume contest, including a category for dogs. The parade steps off at 7 p.m.
Meanwhile, Dluzak has arranged another Spooky Street Fair attraction at the Blue Mouse Theatre. The host of the theater’s monthly Friday Night Frights is presenting a five-film Creepy Classics marathon. Five dollars buys admission to all five screenings, with moviegoers free to come and go throughout the day.
“So if you just need a break and you need to sit down, if it’s cold outside or you just want to catch one of the movies, we’re screening some really good ones there,” Dluzak said.
The lineup includes “House on Haunted Hill,” “White Zombie,” “The Last Man on Earth,” “Carnival of Souls,” and “Night of the Living Dead.”
One selection comes with a particularly ghoulish piece of Tacoma history. On Nov. 3, 1932, the original Blue Mouse Theatre in downtown Tacoma offered $10 to any woman brave enough to sit through a midnight screening of “White Zombie,” starring Bela Lugosi, alone and without screaming.
Eighteen-year-old Marjorie Yonk accepted the challenge.
According to a Nov. 4, 1932, account in The Tacoma News Tribune, police whisked her through the streets, sirens blaring, to Dr. F.J. Hansen’s office for an examination to determine whether her heart could withstand the fright.
Then officers escorted her into the darkened theater, seated her by flashlight, and left her alone with Bela Lugosi. She survived the screening and collected her $10.
Nearly a century later, Dluzak is bringing “White Zombie” back to the Blue Mouse. “We’ve got to bring back ‘White Zombie’ in honor of that,” he said.
For Day, the parade is a celebration of Tacoma’s peculiar character. “We are a city made up of a bunch of fun, gritty people, and we like to have a good time,” she said.
“I’m creating a safe space for weirdos and misfits to just come be yourself.”
