Derry Halloween festival goers snap up 40th anniversary tickets

Tens of thousands of free tickets have been snapped up in three days by people keen to mark the 40th anniversary of Europe's biggest Halloween party.

Londonderry's Halloween festival has grown exponentially since official civic celebration launched in 1986 – more than 100,000 people flocked to Derry at Halloween last year.

For the first time this year, a ticketing system for part of the festival – the Awakening the Walled City Trail on the city's Walls – has been introduced.

More than 25,000 of the total 36,750 ticket allocation have been booked since the system went live at noon on Monday, organisers Derry City and Strabane District Council said.

Awakening the Walls has been a central aspect of the festival for years.

Aisling McCallion, the council's festival and events manager, said the section on the walls is only the part of the trail tickets are needed for.

"In the rest of the walled city everything will be free, non-ticketed, so people can travel around and see everything," she told BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme.

"This is only for the section on the walls and that's just to control the numbers to make it a safer experience, a more enjoyable experience," McCallion said.

Councillors agreed the introduction of a ticketing system earlier this year due to concerns over crowd control in previous years.

McCallion added: "The walls are over 400 years old so they weren't really built for large-scale events so we're just trying to make that as an enjoyable experience as possible."

Awakening the Walls runs for the first three days of the four day festival. The council said a number of tickets will be held back and can be booked on each day of the festival.

It promises an "unforgettable journey through the heart of Derry's historic city centre," organisers said.

Derry mayor Grace Uí Niallais added: "The Awakening the Walled City Trail perfectly captures the creativity and rich cultural heritage that have made our festival internationally renowned."

Festival tickets can be booked at the city's Millennium Forum, both at its box office and via its website.

Derry and Strabane Council say the city's Halloween celebrations are "rooted in more than 2,000 years of Samhain tradition and shaped by four decades of community celebration".

The ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced "Sow-in") marked the end of harvest time.

It was believed to be the time when the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest and spirits roamed the earth.

While Samhain may now inspire events in Derry, there's a more modern tale told of how Derry became a Halloween hotspot.

It all started in a city centre pub in the 1980s when a canny publican wanted punters to come ready to party in fancy dress on Halloween.

That night, the bar – and the street - inadvertently filled with cavemen, more than one incredible Hulk, a few Ronald Reagans and a Margaret Thatcher or two.

Official civic celebrations started in 1986.