Maryport is reclaiming its ‘Scaryport’ nickname and creating a brand new Halloween event for all ages.
Scaryport Festival will take place over the October half term week starting on Monday, October 24 and ending on Sunday, October 29.
Organised by Maryport Arts and Heritage Partnership with Historic England and the town’s council as its main funders, it aims to be a creative cultural event that brings more people to the town.
Over the course of the week, there will be activities including arts and crafts, mask making, ghost walks and talks, live music, costume making and puppetry.
The festival will end with a parade and over the weekend, adult suitable evenings will take place – which may take the form of evening Halloween shindigs, ghost talks and walks or horror film showings set up in local businesses.
Karen Thompson, who is part of the heritage partnership and working on the project said: “Maryport is not a scary place, it’s wonderful. We want to take that term scaryport and turn it into something really positive that the town can be proud of.
“It’s a term that’s aimed at the town in the same way Whitehaven and Workington have the term jameater, it’s all in good humour, but we want it to turn into something different.
“A Halloween inspired event is an idea that has been floating around for a while now and we have an activity gap in the autumn, so we thought it would be great to have a new festival for the town.
“We’re in the process of confirming everything at the moment and we will be announcing the full programme as soon as we’re ready to do so.”
The festival is part of the Made in Maryport Cultural programme – an annual series of events that aim to bring life and vitality to the town through government funding from the Heritage Action Zone project.
The UK-wide project aims to revitalise historic high streets and Maryport’s funding is specifically allocated to Senhouse Street and Crosby Street.
Karen added: “The funding is specifically allocated to the heritage action zone, but we would love to see everyone decorate for the festival.
“Across those streets we’re looking for businesses who are willing to let an artist come in and create a window display or host story tellers or live musicians.
“There’s so much we can do within the festival – we have a wealth of make up artists in the town who we’re hoping to get involved and we’d love to fund any cafes that close at three or four to open late for a ghost story or classic horror movie evening.
“We’d love to do things that change the character of the town and celebrate the darker side of Maryport’s past. The whole festival will focus on telling localised scary tales and urban legends.”
Karen also addressed the excited rumours that a zombie walk might be taking place as part of the festivities.
She said: “We could absolutely look into a zombie walk if people want to do it! I’m more than happy for someone to come forward who’d like to organise it and we’ll do a call out to have zombies march down Senhouse street to the harbour.
“Halloween is such a huge thing and we all celebrate it very differently. But we have legends of monsters, pirates, ghosts of roman soldiers, a ghostly white lady and even weresheep – people look at me in shock when I tell them about that, but for my generation it was a real horror tale!
“We just want to see lots of people getting involved, people getting dressed up and enjoying themselves in the heart of Maryport.
“We are also deeply grateful for the finance from our funders Historic England and Maryport Town Council. Scaryport is a pilot this year, but we’re hoping if it goes well to see it back again next year.”
Businesses interested in getting involved with Scaryport can get in touch with Karen via email at karen.thompson@yantantethera.co.uk
