•   The “West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval” in West Hollywood began in 1987; three years after the City of West Hollywood officially became a City within the County of Los Angeles.
  •  The West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval takes place from 6 pm to 11pm on Monday, October 31, 2011 between La Cienega Boulevard and Doheny Drive on Santa Monica Boulevard, “Route 66” in West Hollywood, California.
  •   Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic (Irish) festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in); which was celebrated on the night of October 31st.
  •   The free West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval celebrates its 23rd anniversary in 2011 and expects record-crowds of visitors and locals alike, approximating 1⁄2 million people.
  •   The West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval progressed throughout most of the 90′s with large numbers, but the event experienced extreme growth in 2001, reaching 350,000 people in size.
  •   The City of West Hollywood and its 35,000 person population is catapulted to become California’s 7th largest city for one night, as it welcomes approximately 500,000 people on Halloween night.
  •   The Celts believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth in addition to causing trouble and damaging crops; so they wore costumes made of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes to disguise themselves from the ghosts.
  •   The West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval is the Los Angeles area’s second largest annual event, second only to the Tournament of Roses New Year’s Day Parade. To give some perspective on the size of the event, the Los Angeles Coliseum Holds 120,000 people, only 24% of the Carnaval’s expected turn-out.
  •   Feralia & Pomona were two festivals of Roman origin that were combined with the Celtic celebration of Samhain. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and explains the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
  •   In Europe, the first celebrations of Halloween included “play parties,” public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance, and sing.
  •   When Irish immigrants came to America, they brought their varied Halloween customs with them.
  •   In the late 1800s, America molded Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft.
  •   At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season, and festive costumes.
  •   Taking from Irish and English traditions, trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. Families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats.
  •   Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country’s second largest commercial holiday.
  •   The idea that we avoid crossing paths with black cats, afraid that they might bring us bad luck has its roots in the Middle Ages, when many people believed that witches avoided detection by turning themselves into cats.
  •   Pumpkin carving is a popular part of modern America’s Halloween celebration. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed “Stingy Jack.”
  •   Growing big pumpkins is a big-time and serious hobby. Top prize money for the biggest giant pumpkin is as much as $25,000 dollars at fall festivals. The current world record for giant pumpkins is 1,446 pounds.
  •   “Witch” comes from the Saxon word wicca which means ‘wise one’. Witches were thought to be wise enough to tell the future.
  •   Orange and black became Halloween colors because orange is associated with harvests and black is associated with death.
  •   Halloween is the 8th largest card-sending occasion. There are over 28 million Halloween cards sent each year.
  •   Of all canned fruits and vegetables, pumpkin is the best source of vitamin A. Just a half-cup of the orange stuff has more than three times the recommended daily requirement.
  •   With an estimated $1.93 billion in candy sales, Halloween is the sweetest holiday of the year (beating out Easter, Valentine’s Day, and Christmas). In fact, one quarter of all the candy sold each year is purchased between September 15 and November 10.
  •   The world’s fastest time to carve a face into a pumpkin is 20.1 seconds, by David Finkle (UK), on October 7, 2010 (source: Guinness World Records)