(Halloween how-to) Halloween in Montreal is fun for everyone, with parties, ghoulish events and family-friendly activities from Friday night to Wednesday night. Start off slow with pumpkin carving and games at the Montreal Botanical Garden’s Great Pumpkin Ball, to October 31, head to amusement park La Ronde for roller coasters of fun for kids big and small, Tour Montreal’s ghoulish history with Montreal Ghosts, or head up Mont Royal on a Haunted Mountain walking tour. Of course, Halloween wouldn’t be complete without the Rocky Horror Picture Show Halloween Ball, an interactive dress-up experience with a live cast on stage following along as the film screens, hosted by Plastik Patrik at the Cinéma Impérial, October 26, 27 and 31, And then there are the parties – check out the Montreal Buzz Halloween Guide for more opportunities for mayhem.

(fantastic food) Montreal’s TASTE MTL Restaurant Week begins Nov 1 and runs for 11 food-filled days. Peruse prix-fixe menus – from $19 to $39 – online, make reservations and experience some of the best meals Montreal can offer, all at unusually affordable prices for gourmet food. But how to choose where to eat among so many restaurants? If you’re into discovering new parts of the city, choose by neighbourhood: spend an evening in Old Montreal, the next one at a restaurant downtown, in the Plateau or Mile End, Outremont, the Village or Griffintown.

(film & animation) Yes, it’s still film festival season in Montreal! The French-language (often with subtitles!) Cinémania begins November 1 and runs for the next 11 days, with features, shorts, retrospectives (including an extensive one on Sandrine Bonnaire’s films), presentations and more. Cinémania opens with official Cannes competitor, Jacques Audiard’s De Rouille Et D’os, starring Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts in a story of a former boxer, his son and a woman coming to terms with a life-altering disability. On Saturday, October 27, check out The National Film Board’s Get Animated! workshops and screenings for all ages – even create your own Halloween-inspired animated film using professional equipment and post it to YouTube.

(circus & dance) One of the most talked-about choreographers in the world these days, Hofesh Shechter, returns to Montreal with his powerful show Political Mother, featuring 10 dancers and 7 musicians – and plenty of rock n’ roll energy – at Théâtre Maisonneuve at Place des Arts, November 1-3. And Montreal-based international circus troupe 7 Doigts de la Main returns to La Tohu circus centre with acclaimed show Séquence 8, 90 minutes of breathtaking  acrobatics, physical feats and style all wrapped up in a tale of relationships with the “other” – running October 30 to November 17.

(east & west) Enjoy all kinds of entertainment at the 13th Arab World Festival of Montreal, October 26-November 10, linking Arabic and Western cultures through music, performance, film, art and talks. Place des Arts is the place to be to catch free performances all weekend, with evening dance performances, demonstrations of Arab calligraphy, film screenings of highlights of the festival, and plenty of amazing live music. The fest’s opening night performance mixes Arab folklore with world beats, flamenco and jazz via string-instrument vituosi Sultans of String to Le National, with openers Nicolas Pellerin et les Grands Hurleurs playing Arab-influenced Quebecois traditional music, while on October 27 at L’Olympia, hear the pioneering Algerian hip hop of Lotfi Double Kanon.

(sound & performance) Fans of experimental music and performance take note of the following. The Akousma Festival of sound art continues at Usine C (near the Village, super close to Atmosphère B&B: take in fully surround-sound performances (42 speakers!) by Francisco López and Daniel Menche on October 27 and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Monty Adkins and Paulina Sundin on October 28. Friday night marks the final night of the Phénomena Festival of performance art with Claude Poissant and (many) friends’ Cabaret Désir Dada at La Sala Rossa, preceded by a mysterious outdoor performance next door. And downtown at the SAT, catch the last screening of DJ Food’s graphic-novel-inspired The Search Engine, a psychedelic 360-degree audio-visual experience in the SAT’s dome – the same place they’re throwing an electro-dance Halloween party on Saturday night.

(music rocks) Friday night is busy with Aussie pop star Kimbra at the Corona, Rufus Wainwright at Église St-Jean Baptiste (309 Rachel E.), former Fleet Foxes member Father John Misty playing songs from his new album Fear Fun at Cabaret Mile End, while Swans and A Hawk and a Handsaw fill La Tulipe with wall-to-wall sound. On the other end of the musical spectrum on Friday night, Video Games Live at the Bell Centre, turns video game tunes into a symphonic stadium concert experience. Then, on October 27, go back in time with The Hit Men, featuring members of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, as they play a dinner show at the Rialto. Meanwhile, Montreal’s Wintersleep co-headlines with Elliott Brood for a night of rock at the Corona. On Sunday, The Smashing Pumpkins return in full form at the Bell Centre and Milo Green is at Sala. Monday night is ear-bending with Sam Shalabi and his Land of Kush orchestra at Sala, while Chris Isaak croons on October 30 at Theatre St-Denis, andThe Weeknd  takes over Metropolis for two nights: October 29 and 31.

The post THINGS TO DO IN MONTREAL: OCTOBER 26-NOVEMBER 1 appeared first on Tourisme Montréal Blog.

Montrealers love Halloween. So no matter where you go out this weekend you can expect to find lots of glamorous costumes and things to do. However few of them will compare to the grand daddy of gay Halloween parties than the one at Club Unity. Cover is only $2 for those dressed up, and there is a $1000 first place prize for best costume and $500 for the runner up. Just so you get an idea of the level of intensity required to win, the last time I went to Unity for Halloween the winner had working pyrotechnics on his Transformers inspired robot costume. Yet somehow, it was still kinda sexy. The theme this year at Unity is Mars vs. Earth, so may I suggest either Scantily Clad Alien, or a Sexy Curiosity Rover.

Cirque De Boudoir will be hosting their hugely popular Halloween bash at the Darling Foundry this year on Saturday Oct 27th. The theme is “Iconic Villains & Victims from Modern Horror Movie Classics” and aptly titled “A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER.” Tickets are $20 in advance or $30 at the door, with the VIP option going at $40 and $50 and are available online here. There will be performances, DJ’s, prizes, blood, gore, and glitter.

Montreal’s Queer scene has a staple event getting in on the Halloween frights: Faggity Ass Saturday at Royal Phoenix. The name and details of the event are too scary (and naughty) to be posted here, so check out all the dirty details on the Facebook event page.

Montreal Club Kids Sally & Tyler will be hosting a special edition of GayBash on Saturday with the theme of “Blood Bath & Beyond.” Cover is only $10 and the DJ’s at Gaybash are pretty much some of the best in the business. Let this be a warning: The people who go to Gaybash take the themes VERY seriously. So whatever your outfit, toss it in red and you’re good to go.

The SAT (Societé des arts technologique) will be having a Voodoo Party in the Satosphere! One of the coolest venues in Montreal, this party is probably going to be pretty insane with not only DJ’s – but VJ’s as well that will be projecting on the Dome all evening. Tickets are $15 at the door and is expected to fill up fast so get there closer to 10 PM.

The post A VERY SCARY LGBT HALLOWEEN appeared first on Tourisme Montréal Blog.

(film fest fun) The final weekend of the Festival du Nouveau Cinema has arrived, but there are still plenty of all-new feature films, shorts and documentaries to see, from closing film Camille Redouble by Noémie Lvovsky to an autobiography of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman to concert films about Peaches and The Chemical Brothers, plus a multimedia, multi-DJ “Suicide Hotel” party on Friday night and closing party on Saturday night with DJ Thomas von PARTY, at Quartier Général. Meanwhile, the 4th edition of the Montreal Stop Motion Film Festival, October 19-21, screens over 70 new stop-motion animation films from Montreal and around the world.

(intrigue on stage) Explore the Plateau and Mile End neighbourhoods via a true Montreal creation: The Phénomena Festival, to October 26. The festival of music, performance and art, is a reinvention of the 10-year-old Festival Voix d’Amériques, dedicated to showcasing the beautiful, strange and poetic artistic voices in this city and further afield. see artist and musician Genisis P-Orridge on stage with spoken-word group Thee Majesty on October 20 at Cabaret du Mile End, in film The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye at Excentris, and with art showing at La Centrale; as well, see Kobol’s marionette show Voodoo at Usine C, Kabin tells 15 stories via 15 small booths on October 20, duo 2boys.tv span the history of their performance career in Generation on October 21, plus free music and performances every evening at 5 p.m. at Divan Orange, featuring Teen Sleuth, Free Opera Ensemble, Jef Barbara and many more, as well as free open mic nights at 11 p.m. at Casa del Popolo.

(frightful & delightful) Halloween starts early this year in Montreal. If you’re downtown at Place des Arts in the Quartier des Spectacles on Saturday around noon, don’t panic: the zombie apocalypse is not upon us, it’s just people dressed up for the Montreal Zombie Walk – join in if you’re zombie-inclined. Freaks of a different sort sing and dance for our pleasure in The Rocky Horror Show, garnering some great  reviews at Mainline Theatre, to October 20. And there’s also something a little freaky – in the most awesome sense – about DJ Food’s The Search Engine, an all-encompassing audio-visual experience like no other, screening in the dome of the surround-sound Satosphere at the SAT, to October 26.

(sports fans) A pro first for Montreal this week: the NBA Canada series pits the New York Knicks against the Toronto Raptors, October 19 at the Bell Centre. And while the NHL season is sadly on hold due to labour talks among hockey players and the league, the spirit of hockey is still strong in Montreal with national women’s hockey champions The Stars, featuring Olympic national team players Kim St-Pierre, Meghan Agosta, Caroline Ouellette and more. The Stars play Boston on October 20 at 5 p.m. and October 21 at 1 p.m. at Étienne Desmarteau Arena.
(tragedy & comedy) An epic 10th-century Japanese folk tale comes to life in choreographer Jiří Kylián’s Kaguyahime, The Moon, produced beautifully by Les Grands Ballet Canadiens, October 11-27. Quebecois playwright Suzie Bastien probes the human psyche in the dramatic The Medea Effect, at Theatre La Chapelle, to October 20. Old Montreal’s Centaur Theatre features Scapegoat Theatre’s take on Euripedes’ tragedy The Bacchae, to October 20, as well as Quebecois playwright Jean Marc Dalpé’s family drama August, An Afternoon in the Country. Meanwhile, the Segal Centre lightens the mood with Broadway musical Guys and Dolls to October 31, and well-known and even well-loved Montreal comedian and Just For Laughs festival veteran Joey Elias brings his One Man Show at Club Soda on October 21.

(urban art) The Montréal/Brooklyn collaborative contemporary art project makes its mark on the city’s gallery scene this weekend, highlighting the artistic similarities and differences between the two urban centres. On Friday and Saturday, new shows open at Centre Clark and artist-run centre articule, as well at galleries in the Belgo building – Galerie SAS, Optica, Galerie Division and Les Territoires – and down the street at Galerie de l’UQAM, featuring multi-artist Vidéozones exhibition (above), and the Musée d’art contemporain, featuring work by Janet Biggs and Aude Moreau.

(live music) Friday night is indie-rock alright with Cat Power playing tunes from her new album Sun at Metropolis, The Sea & Cake at Il Motore, Dragonette at the Corona Theatre, and Brooklyn electro duo Blondes at Le Belmont. Pittsburg rapper Wiz Khalifa, rolls into town with Juicy J, Chevy Woods and many others at Uniprix Stadium on October 20. Monday night goes punk with Off!, The Spits and Double Negative at Foufounes Electriques. On October 23, Dan Mangan brings his folk-rock sensibility to Theatre Corona, San Francisco’s Sic Alps play Divan Orange. The Jezabels rock Cabaret Mile End and Social Distortion shake up Metropolis. Montreal’s Papagroove release their newest album on October 24 at Theatre Plaza – free! Akousma 9, a festival of digital music, brings its immersive audio-visual wonders to Usine C, October 24-27. And the ‘80s are back with Air Supply in an “intimate evening” on October 25 at Metropolis.

The post THINGS TO DO IN MONTREAL: OCTOBER 19-25 appeared first on Tourisme Montréal Blog.

The family that scares together, um, swears together? Cornball adages notwithstanding, the good folks at La Ronde will have your whole clan clinging to each other as they promise to turn the world-class theme park into a world-class “scream park” at this year’s edition of Fright Fest. On Saturdays and Sundays until October 28, starting at 5 pm, La Ronde will throw open the doors on no less than three haunted houses – District 510, Death Row and the brand new Massacre Museum – and other shows while letting loose a whole range of freaky costumed creatures that promise to be frightening with a smile when it comes to the kids. Speaking of which, step into the park’s Zombithèque and have the wee ones done up undead-style from 6-9 pm.

While Charlie Brown may have found waiting for The Great Pumpkin fruitless, there is no such disappointment in the Montreal Botanical Garden’s yearly presentation of the already-underway Great Pumpkin Ball. The Great Pumpkin Ball is a big orange bounty of family friendly activities, from the riotous variety of decorated pumpkins in the Main Exhibition Greenhouse, to the Little Monsters Courtyard (promising “pumpkin-aroos, battling monsters, Insect Soup, a hungry frog toss and a squash hunt” as well as other Halloween-themed activities), to the home of “friendly witch Esmeralda and her funny magic formulas,” to Halloween origami and much more. Open every day during operating hours until October 31.

Not all of the colourful characters who inhabit Montreal are of the flesh and blood variety, and the good folks at Montreal Ghosts (“In Strange Company Since 1999”) have dedicated themselves to sharing the stories of some of the city’s more fleeting and ephemeral denizens. Montreal Ghosts, which offer both ghost tours and ghost hunts in Old Montreal – the centuries-old home of many of la belle ville’s most illustrious historical spectres – promises its guests a one-of-a-kind evening street theatre experience courtesy of the many professional actors they employ. This year participants can take advantage of a special ghost hunt on Oct. 26 & 27 as well as Oct. 30 & 31. The 90-minute, interactive, all-ages tours depart at 6:30 pm (and also 8:30 pm on Oct. 27).

Montreal’s fascinating Pointe-à-Callière historical museum – which kind of has a permanent, built-in Halloween feel… complete with a real, exposed graveyard on one of its subterranean levels – reprises its Jack O’Lantern tour for kids again this year. Kids of all ages are invited to accompany Jack (“a young Irishman wandering in the world of the dead, looking for a lantern to light his way”) as he wends his way through the museum telling stories and teaching his companions how to talk to ghosts. These tours take place during the afternoon on Oct. 20 & 21 as well as Oct. 27 & 28.

Zombie walks are a recent phenomenon that’s enjoying increased popularity the around the world and which involves little more than putting on some ratty clothing, ruffling the hair, applying ghastly-looking facial makeup and walking around like you’ve been up partying for three days. Like just about anything that involves a large grouping of people these days, even the undead are being drawn into the ever-livelier Place des Festivals in the Quartier des Spectacles. The bigger, better, deader annual Montreal Zombie Walk kicks off there on October 20, and this year boasts an expanded itinerary.

The Zombie Walk starts at noon and a tent will be provided where participants can get their zombie on with a makeup artist for only ten bones. The St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival has organized a zombie dance crew that will perform Time Warp and Thriller before the walk departs at 3 pm for a two-hour stumble through downtown and Old Montreal. The zombie apocalypse concludes at Katacombes where there will be an after-walk party featuring a costume contest and live band performances by Chahut d’ruelle, Jimmy Target & the Triggers and Misfits tribute band Bloodfeast. The Zombie Walk itself is open to corpses of all ages.

And now that the kids have wandered off to bed, Halloween nightmares dancing in their heads, the adults can get down to the business of having some frightful fun themselves at the following +18 events…

Bolder and brasher with each subsequent edition, the Spasm film festival is the hub for all things horror and hilarious for nine days in October (namely 11-13, 18-20 and 25-27), with several special events and screenings at various locations throughout Montreal. It all culminates with an Old School Halloween Party at the Plaza Theatre featuring music from the 60s (starting at 10 pm), 70s (11 pm), 80s (midnight), 90s (1 am) and 2000s (2 am). Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door, and note that costumes are mandatory.

It’s Christmas at Halloween for Rocky Horror fans (and for reasons best explained by someone who knows more about campy, glammy, gender-scrambly rock musicals than yours truly, there never ever seems to be any shortage of Rocky Horror fans) this year. Mainline Theatre – famous for its always edgy and entertaining brand of resident theatrical evil – presents Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, based on the original 1973 British stage production from which the movie was adapted. Mainline’s version features an expansive cast, a live six-piece band and original choreography, but no projection of the film (Oct. 17-20, and tix are $23). If you want to see the original 1975 film on the big screen with a live cast acting it out onstage below, then this perennially popular phenomenon is yours to be had at The Rocky Horror Picture Show Halloween Ball 2012, held again this at the gorgeously renovated Imperial Cinema in downtown Montreal. There are two shows a night– hosted by incomparable tranny master of ceremonies Plastik Patrik – on Oct. 26, 27 and 31 ($17.95 in advance, and $19.95 at the door).

In other anticipatory pre-Halloween activities, Theatre Ste-Catherine once again plays host to their annual, and very popular, shock’n’awesome Haunted House party tour, this year titled “No!”. As in “No! promises to pluck you from your happy place and set you in a darkness you never wanted to imagine. Sound fun? No!” Billed as the only haunted theatrical experience in the city, No! runs from Oct. 25- 31, from 8 pm until late, and as usual it’s only “$20 to get out!”

Utterly unique, multidimensional and multidisciplinary arts space The Darling Foundry – housed in a former ironworks, built in the 1800s, and located just a few short blocks from Old Montreal – lends its industrial expanse again this year to the Cirque de Boudoir Halloween extravaganza “A Night to Dismember” on Oct. 27 (and which last year sold out with more than 650 petrifying partygoers). This year’s theme is iconic villains and victims from classic horror flicks – think Friday the 13^th’s Jason Voorhees (yup, he has a last name), Damien Thorn (the Omen series), Marion Crane and/or Norman Bates from Hitchcock’s Psycho, Chucky, The Crypt-Keeper, Honey Boo Boo, all of The Golden Girls, whatever strikes your Hollywood horror fancy. (Non-theme costumes are perfectly hunky dory as well.) Terrifically terrifying décor will be provided by Remy Couture, providing a backdrop for performance pieces and a host of DJs. It’s $20 in advance, $30 at the door.

Montreal’s dance clubs never fail to get creepy on Halloween, and this year is no exception as Circus celebrates its “Dark Knights” event with U.K. breaks/house DJ James Zabiela, Tallahasee’s DJ Camo, and Montreal-based progressive house DJ Scott James on Oct. 27 from 2 am to 10 am… St-Laurent Blvd.’s exclusive BLVD44 is throwing a “High School of the Dead” mashup party on Oct. 27, the principle theme being, it would appear, survival… Downtown’s Club 1234 kicks it with their “Mad House” monster mash event featuring MC Mario and DJ Ludo in the main room, a high-paying costume contest, and “Vampire,” “Devil” and “Insane Frankenstein” bottle service packages… And Arena, located in the former Montreal Forum (the old home of the Habs, and which has a few hockey ghosts of its own) rolls out its Vampire’s Ball on Oct. 27 starting at 8 pm. R&B, hip-hop and house music by DJ Payce and VJ Hypnotica, and lofty cash prizes for best costume. Tricks and treats, indeed!

The post WHAT TO DO IN MONTREAL FOR HALLOWEEN appeared first on Tourisme Montréal Blog.

(night terrors) Oh, we do love Halloween in Montreal. With parties – especially Saturday night – at every place under the moon. Halloween stalwart The Rocky Horror Picture Show goes down – in a live theatrical production! – at the Rialto Theatre, October, 29–31, and the results of the 48-Hour Horror film festival screen on October 29 at Blue Sunshine. Plus burlesque-like Blood Ballet Cabaret on October 30 at Belmont, Live Band Karaoke at La Sala Rossa on October 31, and a ghostly Haunted Tour up Mount Royal, beginning at 8 p.m. at Barfly, also on October 31. If you don’t have a costume yet, try a costume store like Malabar (5121 Parc) or Image In (34 Mont Royal East), any dollar store, or just buy some cheap black eyeliner and get all evil on yo’ face.

(danse macabre) Dancer and movement artist Stéphane Gladyszewski immerses us in intensely emotional corporeality in his Corps noir ou l’inconscient convié, a multi-media dance creation, part of Festival ArtDanthé at Theatre LaChapelle, November 2–4. The choreography and amazing dance talent in Sylvain Émard’s newest creation Fragments: Volume I captivates at Cinquième Salle at Place des Arts, to October 29. And if you’re looking for high drama and ballet bombast, Les Grands Ballets has just the ticket: choreographer Peter Quanz’s full-length, two-act ballet, Rodin/Claudel, at Place des Arts, also to October 29.

(film fantasies) Montreal’s LGBT-focused Image+Nation film fest runs to November 6, featuring over 125 feature, shorts, documentaries and, yes, musicals! And, because apparently Montreal can’t get enough of film fests in the fall, our very own celebration of all things French and filmic, Cinemania, begins November 3 for 10 days of films from cinema greats and up-at-comers, at the Imperial Cinema (1430 Bleury). And, in celebration of International Animation Day, learn more about the history of animation at the National Film Board’s Get Animated mini-festival, with screenings, workshops and talks at the NFB’s Cinerobotheque, to October 30.

(surround screen sound) While Montreal has been host to a brilliant and eclectic arts community since its urban beginnings, the city’s technological leanings have been slower in their notoriety. But with Montreal’s success in the video game industry and high-tech start-ups, the truth is coming out: we’re secretly a bunch of techy nerds, but, you know, the cool kind. And cool stuff like the Satosphere, a 360-degree immersive sound-and-video theatre at the Society for Art and Technology is proof. Now operational, the Satosphere is host this week to Six mil Antennas, an experimental film and audio creation that integrates coding, design and photography, October 27–28. For that matter, there’s also J.E.U.X., a transdisciplinary event that blends video games with round-table discussions and art, at Eastern Bloc, November 3–5, 6:30 p.m. each night, free.

(freshly painted) Artists challenge concepts of gallery space as non-profit arts organization Cease brings together five great Montreal-based art entities – En Masse, DÉCOVER Magazine, MASSIVart, and Papirmasse – for Cease It 2, a site-specific, multi-media installation art project featuring the work of 17 artists, at the two-level Fresh Paint Gallery. Exhibition opening party is October 28, show runs to November 26. And The Musee d’art Contemporain’s Quebec Triennial 2011 weekly free performance features Karl Lemieux on November 2 (a Wednesday, also the museum’s weekly no-entrance-fee evening). Check out great work by contemporary Quebec-based artists and afterwards, step outside and watch the blue spotlights of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s art installation at Quartier des Spectacles.

(devilish drama) Plays within plays, dramas within dramas – it’s the stuff of life and TV sitcoms, and it’s hilarious as long as you’re not directly involved. Theatrics and comedy abound in Ferenc Molnar’s The Play’s The Thing, by Ferenc Molnár, the story of two playwrights, a young composer and love gone awry via communication breakdown, all set in an Italian castle – at the Segal Centre, October 30 to November 20. Enter the unconscious mind of a newspaper humour columnist in Pierre-Michel Tremblay’s dark comedy Coma Unplugged, produced in English by Talisman Theatre, to October 29 at Conservatoire d’art dramatique et de musique (4750 Henri-Julien).

(animal instincts) Most of us don’t hang around with horses regularly – we might pass them in the car as they graze in a field somewhere, being all majestic and stuff, but up-close-and-personal horse time isn’t an everyday occurrence. That’s okay though: feed your inner horse lover at Odysseo, the newest horse-fantasy live spectacular from the creators of Cavalia, to October 30, in Laval. And animal life and metaphor come alive in amazing performer Cat Kidd’s funny, emotional, brilliant show Hyena Subpoena, set in South Africa’s Kruger Park and in fact-meets-fiction memory, at Les Ateliers Jean Brillant (661 Rose De Lima), to October 29.

(night of the living music) Start your Halloween weekend with the psychedelia of The Australian Pink Floyd, a quadraphonic, 3D stereographic spectacle, October 28 at the Bell Centre. Or if all the Halloween-party hype is too much for you, turn to a soothing night of music instead. On October 29, Indie-folk duo The Civil Wars play sweet sounds at church-turned-cultural-venue Gesu (1200 Bleury), and Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls bring their style to the already stylish Corona Theatre (2190 Notre-Dame East). Meanwhile, The Slackers chill out at Cabaret Mile End (5240 Parc). On Sunday, October 30, Selena Gomez teen pops it up at the Bell Centre. On Halloween actual, October 31, gloom and doom descends on Casa del Popolo (4873 St-Laurent) with A Winged Victory For The Sullen, featuring members of Stars of the Lid. And fittingly named, sort of, Holy Ghost is resurrected at Le Belmont (4483 St-Laurent). November 1 sees psych-metal Danava at La Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent) and UK hip-hop producer Star Slinger at Il Motore (179 Jean Talon W.).

The post THINGS TO DO IN MONTREAL: OCTOBER 28 TO NOVEMBER 3 appeared first on Tourisme Montréal Blog.

Take regular Halloween things like spiders, vampires, ghosts, and werewolves. Now make them sexy. Add glitter, dance music, alcohol and fashion. And now you have the general premise of the majority of big gay Halloween parties in Montreal. Sounds fabulous right? Well consider this your official invite to join in the horror-glamor-scary-fabulous and the downright terrifying. Good luck…

GayBash presents: HALLOWEEN XTRAVAGANZA Gaybash always throws the wonkiest parties with the most complex themes. Each theme must be dissected carefully and fully embodied. Because if you don’t, you’ll be the loser not dressed up. Their Halloween theme this year is: Zombie Voguers Infect Montreal. Still not inspired? They provide a list of words to help spark your creative costume mind: Zombies, glitter, Santeria, occult, Bones, Sickliness, glamour, opulance, 28 Days Later, neon glowing eyes, Zombie Nuns, lipstick, warrior face paint, sequins, pearls, bloody dead girls, human flesh, voguing, Death drop, and expensive ripped clothing. I’m sure now you know exactly what you’ll wear. Time to zombie vogue for a good cause too because a portion of the proceeds go to  Saturday, October 29, 10PM, Cherry (417 Rue Saint Pierre), Presale tickets $10 at Moog Audio, Priape or Arithmetik stores. $20 at door.

Cirque de Boudoir presents: SILVER SCREEN HALLOWEEN Something wicked this way comes! A classic old horror movie themed Halloween party, hosted by the amazing Cirque de Boudoir! This is the one to be seen at. It is being held in the spookiest place in town: The underground dungeon speakeasy of Velvet in L’Auberge St-Gabriel in Old Montreal. Performances by Bella Obscura are sure to shock, and visuals by Bunnyguts are going to creep under your skin! This party is going to be the most horrifying thing in the most fabulous way. Saturday, October 29, 10PM, Velvet/Auberge St-Gabriel (426 St-Gabriel), Presale tickets $20 at Priape, Xtasy, Image In, Cruelle and Auberge St-Gabriel. $30 at door.

Club Unity presents: EPIDEMIE There is an international epidemic happening, a rogue mutating bacterial infection is spreading throughout the world, killing everything in sight. By complete chance, a bartender at Unity has created a cocktail that neutralizes the infection instantly! At midnight on Saturday, October 30, this antidote will be distributed to everyone at Unity. Will you be there? Will you survive if you don’t? Unity also has the most competitive costume competition. These gays really go all out. First place winner gets $1000, 2nd place takes $500. Free entry for anyone in a costume! Saturday, October 29, 10PM, Club Unity (1171 Ste-Catherine E.), Cover $7, Free in costume. Note: Huge line ups. People wait up to an hour to get in.

Royal Phoenix presents: FRIGHT NIGHT This is a royal Halloween bash! Hosted by Montreal Street Fashion, Hot Sauce, and the amazing Antonio Bavaro! There will be free candy, go-go dancers and all night drink specials. Royal Phoenix is a real hot bar right now, so this place is sure to be packed. Saturday, October 29, 10PM, Royal Phoenix (5799 St-Laurent), $5 before 11:30PM, $7 after.

Faggity Ass Fridays presents: NIGHT OF THE CLOSET MONSTERS This party is also known as the Night of the Giving Head. This is one of the more classic homo halloween bashes that delivers fun year after year. The costume contest is almost who can wear the least amount of clothing while still being something. I think Adam & Steve won last year, if you catch my drift. The theme is monsters, so you’re supposed to dress as your favourite monster! Here are some suggestions: Ann Coulter, Lady Gaga fan, Cookie Monster, or your ex. This is another chance to give to a good cause! All proceeds go to the Head & Hands project to help promote safe sex and sex education in Quebec. Friday, October 28, 10PM, The Playhouse (5656 Avenue du Parc), Suggested donation of $10. Pay what you can.

The post GAY HALLOWEEN IN MONTREAL appeared first on Tourisme Montréal Blog.