Halloween 2022 in Barcelona
What to do at Halloween in Barcelona
Halloween in Barcelona is a beehive of activity. It features a full menu of traditional celebrations, parties, ghost tours, scavenger hunts, and lots of other fun & spooky events. We’ve put together an exciting bag of things to experience, plus everything you need to know about celebrating Halloween in Barcelona.
Halloween Parties in Barcelona
What to Expect from Halloween in Barcelona
Halloween is celebrated worldwide, particularly in North America, in late October to pay homage to the dead. The same is true in Barcelona and the rest of Catalan, except that the day coincides with All Saint’s Day.
Note that Halloween is not a bank or traditional holiday here in Barcelona. But traditional American-style Halloween has been gaining more and more traction among Catalans, especially in the past five years.
Visitors and locals can expect to experience an array of Halloween-themed dress & costume parties, ghost tours, and kids’ events. The buildings, façades, front doors, gardens, windows, and other public-facing structures are dressed in ghastly, spooky, or otherwise scary yet fun-looking decorations. We’re talking tons of zombies, witches, ghosts, spiderwebs, ghouls, and other Halloween clichés.
Nonetheless, Halloween in Barcelona has a nice vibe that sits somewhere between modern and traditional. Electric-themed parties are held in bars, clubs, and restaurants throughout the city, along with traditional festivities like La Castanyada.
As mentioned, Catalans run their own Halloween-esque celebration deservedly dubbed the “Day of the Dead” (All Saints Day). Barcelona residents honour their dead on this special occasion by visiting cemeteries, lighting candles, laying wreaths/flowers, and attending mass. It’s a whole basketful of fanfare.
Shedding the Spotlight on All Saint’s Day
All Saints Day is celebrated every first day of November in Barcelona and throughout Spain. It’s a public/bank holiday that people traditionally celebrate in remembrance of the dead loved ones in the country. They pay tribute to their dead relatives, visit their resting places, and lay flowers.
All Saint’s Day is a massive affair in Barcelona, but Halloween has been slowly taking over. Although the two celebrations are geared toward the remembrance of those who’re no more, they have subtle differences. During the Day of the Dead, people not only pay tribute to their lost relatives but also show respect to the cycles of death and life.
If you’re in Halloween spirit, celebrate All Saints Day by taking a stroll through some of the most prominent cemeteries in Barcelona. Even better, you can head over to the Museum of Funeral Carriages. You’ll learn fascinating facts about how Catalans have made their journeys over the years to their final resting places.
Celebrating La Castanyada during Halloween in Barcelona
If you’ve been to Barcelona in late October, your nose probably registered a waft of distinct aromas roasting chestnuts. That’s no coincidence. The All Saint’s Day celebrations spill over to La Castanyada.
The traditional La Castanyada celebrations feature a savoury feast of sweet bread rolls (aka panellets), roasted chestnuts, and marzipan cakes. You can also treat your taste buds to the sweet-hit and citrusy hints of Moscatel wine. This year, most Castanyada celebrations run in the build-up to Halloween, between 29th October and 1st November.
Don’t worry if you don’t have your own stash of chestnuts or Muscat wine. These items are sold all over the city by street vendors and shops. Rumour has it that during the early days of celebration, people would munch on roasted chestnuts for warmth and energy to stay awake on the eve of All Saint’s Day.
Of course, the La Castanyada celebration has incorporated a few elements and traditions of Halloween. It has evolved a bit thematically, as well. Today, bars, restaurants, and cafés throughout Barcelona hold raffles and contests that offer small marzipan cakes as prizes. There’s also music and lots of mouth-watering food to enjoy.
Halloween Parties in Barcelona
Themed parties are the order of the day when it comes to celebrating Halloween in Barcelona. This is particularly the case for the younger folk. In the last few years, Barcelona residents have really grown accustomed to themed costumes and fancy dresses they wear during Halloween.
If you’re planning to attend a Halloween party in Barcelona, you’d be better off sticking to scary and creepy costumes. Here think ghouls, zombies, skeletons, ghosts, and other terrifying contraptions. Trick-and-treat events do happen in a few areas of the city, but it’s decidedly reserved for kids.
Trick-and-treating isn’t as common during Halloween in Barcelona as in the UK and the United States. Instead, people who want to enjoy the Halloween vibe usually head to house parties, bars, and clubs. In the city’s heart, the area around MACBA (aka bars and clubs on Carrer Joaquim Costa) is an excellent spot for bar hopping and laid-back Halloween partying.
Halloween truly comes alive in Barcelona on the night of 31st October. It’s the liveliest night, and you should definitely get in on the action. Thankfully, nearly all major nightclubs in town, including Monasterio, Sala Apolo, Shoko, and Opium Mar, organise decently impressive Halloween parties.
However, to experience the mega Halloween parties, you should point your GPS to prominent clubs like Apolo and Razzmatazz. The nightclubs and bars on the strip by the Port Olimpic are also worth writing home about, especially the Ice Bar and Pacha Barcelona.
Other worthwhile spots include Disco Inferno at La Terrazza, INPUT High Fidelity Dance Club, and Xceed HQ.
Halloween Scavenger and Ghost Hunts
Scavenger and ghost hunts are some of the most exciting activities during Halloween in Barcelona. So put on your creepiest costume and explore the dark secrets the city has to offer. These events are a great way to enjoy Halloween while exploring the colourful history of the city in Catalan.
Halloween Pub Crawl & club entrance!
The team over at Pub Crawl Barcelona do an amazing job at bringing people out on an amazing Halloween themed pub crawl so head over to there website to find out more and get your tickets for that! They have limited space so get your tickets as soon as possible!
That’s just an idea of what goes down in Barcelona during Halloween! and we cannot recommend visitng Barcelona at this time enough!
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