CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — Becca Griffin loves Halloween.
The Charlottetown-based children’s entertainer, performer and beginner-puppeteer even goes by Becca the Witch.
So, when she was offered the chance to make a horde of scarecrows to decorate the city for the first Scarecrows in the City Festival, she didn't hesitate.
“It’s been so difficult for people to keep up morale and spirit during this COVID time, and I think anything that can produce a little bit of magic in our community is so worth it.”
Autumn spirit
The festival will run Oct. 9-18 and was put together in the last two weeks, said Heidi Zinn, executive director of Discover Charlottetown.
“The idea, to be very honest, was kind of a last-minute brainwave and, at the risk of overusing the word pivot in the year 2020, it was a COVID pivot.”
Usually, Farm Day in the City, which was cancelled in August, would be happening around now and fall decorations would cover parts of downtown Charlottetown.
To keep that spirit and entice more people — including those within the Atlantic bubble — to spend time downtown, the Scarecrow in the City Festival was born, she said.
“In a year that’s been so crazy, to bring that extra little bit of life to the downtown and get people downtown, eating in restaurants, popping into stores, that was really the reasoning for it.”
Zinn and her team reached out to a number of existing events, along with downtown restaurants, to see who would want to participate and they got an excellent response.
Some of those restaurants are offering deals, tarot card readings and sommeliers, and the Downtown Charlottetown Farmers’ Market is extending its operations an additional two weeks until the end of the festival.
Beaconsfield is also getting in on the action with its own Erie Evening at Beaconsfield tours, as well as hosting a psychic fair by Health Within Holistic Centre.
The scarecrows
A small team of four artists — Griffin, Julie Doneff, Becka Viau and Patrick Brunet — and about 10 volunteers put together 300 scarecrows in around two weeks.
“A lot us have put in some 12-hour days in the past two weeks to make them,” said Griffin with a good-natured laugh.
While Griffin thinks the project will be a great boon to the downtown core of the city, she also has been having lots of fun of her own.
“Halloween, fall, it’s my favourite time, and oftentimes it’s a pretty bittersweet season for a lot of folks because summer’s ending, so they get sad and low,” she said. “So, to have a project like this to lift me up and keep me going through these months is really special.”
Supplies for the scarecrows were mostly donated from Kent Building Supplies, and Sterns Laundry had a clothing drive to wash donated clothes for the artists to use.
The festival will also feature self-guided scarecrow tours, haunted ghost walks, live music, scarecrow making workshops, wine tastings, costumed stiltwalkers, harvest dinners, tarot readings and more.
For the schedule of events, visit the Facebook page.
