Renfrewshire Council

Paisley Halloween Festival 2024 was another great success this year with more than 40,000 visitors descending on the town to enjoy the return of the famous Halloween parade. 

The festival, which celebrated its 10^th anniversary this year, is one of Renfrewshire's largest major events, and with so much work involved, planning for next year's event is already underway.  

Events manager, Pauline Allan said: "For me, planning for next year started before this year's event was finished as I started considering budgets and staffing for the year ahead.  

"When it comes to designing what the event will actually look like, this kicks in around December when we hold a team planning day to look at feedback and consider ideas for creative themes for the year ahead."  

Evaluation and feedback are critical to enable the team to ensure any key lessons from current and previous years are factored into future event planning.  

Pauline explained: "We commission an external evaluation of all our major events, and we capture feedback from visitors. We also use team debrief notes from all our internal services and partners, from the creative team through to those that deliver the traffic management and security to ensure every area is reviewed." 

Collaboration with other council services is critical. Commissioning lead Suzi Maciver said: "We work closely with community development teams and youth services, as well as Renfrewshire Learning Disability Service, and the Disability Resource Centre to help improve the accessibility and inclusivity of the event." 

Pauline added: "In the lead up to the event itself our colleagues in health and safety become an extension of our own team helping to deliver and manage a safe and enjoyable event.  Our colleagues in the wardens' team are also a great help on the event nights."

"We also work closely with marketing, communications and design who help promote the event by designing a look and feel, supporting with media, capturing amazing content for our channels, and responding to customer queries on our behalf. It really is a full team effort from across the organisation." 

The scale and spectacle of the festival always attracts tens of thousands of visitors who come to experience the vibrancy of an event fuelled by community participation.

Suzi explained: "We work with creative partners that bring the highest quality of programming and community engagement to the event. We were delighted to have Cirque Bijou and Paisley based Grant Anderson in leading roles this year who both worked with a range of local artists to deliver workshops and engage with the community. 

"This year we had 18 local groups and around 300 community participants each night helping to form our biggest parade yet. 

"Volunteers also play a massive role. This year we had 40 volunteering opportunities, including make up design students from West College Scotland who took care of the spectacular face paint on the community groups in the parade." 

We want to thank our events team for giving us an insight into the work that goes in to pulling off this major annual event.

A final word from Suzi: "Paisley takes a great deal of pride in its Halloween event. The collaborative effort from Council teams, local community groups, artists, cultural partners, and businesses help to make it a standout fixture in Scotland's cultural calendar. 

"Generations of local young people will remember for years to come, the rite of passage that is taking part in Paisley Halloween Festival."

Published Friday 08 November 2024