Hatters have a rare opportunity to venture through an abandoned war bunker located on the grounds of the Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede during Safety City's Spooky City annual Halloween festival taking place Oct. 28-30.--NEWS PHOTO KENDALL KING
kking@medicinehatnews.com
Safety City is transforming into ‘Spooky City’ from Oct. 28-30, and is inviting community members of all ages to join in the festive fun.
First introduced pre-pandemic, Spooky City is a three-day Halloween-themed fundraising festival Safety City hosts each year. The goal of the festival is both to celebrate the spirit (or spirits) of the spooky season, as well as raise funding necessary to continue the organization’s community safety programs.
“We do eight programs within each school year,” Safety City co-ordinator and festival organizer Dawn Rigetti said. “And then we also do car-seat clinics (for families). The money raised (from Spooky City) allows us to offer that program and go into the schools and give presentation safety lessons to the children at no charge.”
As well as visiting schools, Safety City staff also host classes at the organization’s headquarters (located behind the Stampede’s Cypress Centre) to provide education on safety, health and injury prevention in a specially designed setting.
The Spooky City festival will take place at Safety City’s headquarters, with a haunted maze occupying a large portion of the grounds and a Halloween carnival filling the remaining space.
“The maze has got a whole bunch of rooms, and each room will be decorated a little bit differently,” said Rigetti.
“And there are people (dressed up to scare) in the maze,” festival organizer Raven Penner said. “It’s definitely going to be scary (but) people who have little kids will get some fair warning because we don’t want little kids getting completely terrified.”
As well as navigating the spooky scenes and potential jump-scares, maze-goers have also the option of descending underground and venturing through an abandoned war bunker in their search to find the exit.
Once the end is reached, participants can celebrate by enjoying a hot dog or hamburger meal, then enjoy the many carnival activities.
“We have a ton of games and a tarot card reader,” Rigetti said. “(Carnival) tickets will be $2 apiece. Every game costs one ticket and you get prizes and candy for playing them. And the tickets include the tarot card readings and popcorn as well.”
Attendees will have an opportunity to win additional prizes with further details provided at the festival.
Spooky City runs from 5-10 p.m. Oct. 28 and 29. And from 5-9 p.m. on Oct. 30. Tickets available at the door.
