24 Oct The First Ever Edgar Allan Poe Festival in Downtown Riverhead
Last week, we talked about the unveiling of A Spirited Getaway, our new East End tour with stops at Baiting Hollow Vineyards, Crooked Ladder Brewery, and Long Island Spirits. As it turns out, we weren’t the only ones dropping hints about an exciting announcement on the North Fork—many locals have reported spotting Edgar Allan Poe and the Headless Horseman gallivanting through downtown Riverhead. Of course, this has been met with a lot of chatter, and it’s all leading up to the Edgar Allan Poe Festival this Halloween weekend in Riverhead!
Long Island native Sal St. George has been a long-time contributor to the very successful Charles Dickens Festival in Port Jefferson around Christmastime, and has put together a festival of equally epic proportions for our East End community. “This is going to be the biggest Halloween party on Long Island,” St. George said. Participants are hopeful that this will become an annual event, in light of the tremendous success that Port Jefferson has seen with the Charles Dickens Festival.
St. George presented his proposal to the Riverhead Business Improvement District Management Association, at which time he explained, “The second biggest holiday of the year is acknowledged to be Halloween. And if Riverhead could be the Halloween capital of Long Island, where people say, ‘We’ve got to get to Riverhead to see these activities,’ then we’ll accomplish what we are seeking to do.”
As ever, our team at Hotel Indigo East End is all for anything that supports the growth and prosperity of our local community, and we can’t wait for Halloween weekend! We think St. George hit the nail on the head with regard to his sentiments about Riverhead:
“It is a town with spirit; there’s an energy here. There is an internal energy within the local government and the Business Improvement District to keep the community growing, and that’s what attracted me to this area.”
The event begins Friday, October 31 at 3PM with the Trick-or-Treating on Main Street. It continues through until 6PM with Tales of Terror and Ghosts & Giggles all along Main Street, telling spooky stories (some more family-friendly than others) at various shops and storefronts. The Poe Parade will kick off from Osborn Avenue at 7PM and end at Union Avenue. The Wicked Apple Ale Party will take place from 6-8PM at Joe’s Garage & Grill, followed by live music by NYX from 8:30-12 (costumes welcome!). At 10PM there’ll be a 21+ Halloween Party with drink specials at Vines & Hops.
The weekend continues at noon on Saturday, November 1, with the street fair (StreetmosFear) running until 6PM with various activities throughout the downtown area. There will be a Fireworks Show on Main Street at 8PM, followed by a Monster Mash Costume Party & Costume Contest at Joe’s Garage & Grill at 9PM.
On Sunday, the StreetmostFear gears back up again at noon with more Halloween fun all over downtown Riverhead, which will run until 5PM. For a full schedule of the weekend’s events, click here.
If you see Edgar Allan Poe around downtown Riverhead in the next week or so, be sure to post your pictures on social media with the hashtag #ISawPoe! Tag us in your picture so we can get in on the fun! (Remember: in order to tag us on Facebook, you have to LIKE our Facebook Page first!)