Trick-or-Treat our Vendors
Yes, really.
At the Catskills Halloween Festival, a great many of our vendors come prepared for more than just selling the curious, the handmade, and the delightfully odd. They also bring candy. Real candy. The kind you can walk up to a booth, say “Trick or Treat,” and receive with a smile (or a theatrical cackle, depending on the vendor’s mood that afternoon).
It is one of the quieter, sweeter traditions of the weekend. While the Giant Robot watches over the grounds and the music drifts between the trees, costumed guests of every age wander the market paths collecting treats from tables piled high with oddities, crystals, steampunk gadgets, gothic finery, and all the other splendid things our makers have brought. Some vendors set out full bowls. Others hand out individual pieces with a flourish. A few have been known to require a proper “Trick or Treat” before the candy appears. We encourage this. It is Halloween, after all.
The result is a gentle, roaming trick-or-treat that winds through the entire festival. No formal route. No scheduled start time. Just the natural movement of people in costume discovering that the booth they stopped at for a carved wooden raven or a vial of something mysterious also happens to be offering chocolate, gummies, or the occasional full-size bar.
As one longtime vendor put it:
“If you’re going to gather hundreds of people in costume under October leaves, the least you can do is make sure some of them go home with sugar in their pockets.”
So come in costume if you like. Bring the kids. Bring the adults who still get excited about free candy. The market is open, the vendors are ready, and the Catskills are, for one weekend, a very large and very friendly neighborhood for trick-or-treating.
Just remember to say the magic words.