Halloween  City Events: Halloween City Events held usually by city municipality parks and recreation departments or community partners such as chamber of commerce and business improvement district organizations are included in a list of approx. 75 such events.

West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval attracts over 500,000 people some years to the single biggest street Halloween event in the world! the free event is open to the public and you are invited to attend on October 31, each year.

It's no secret among the scare crowd eager to hop in a car or on a flight to see some of the best Halloween events, that 2011 is looking good for California's top Halloween attractions.   Queen Mary's Dark Harbor in Long Beach attracts  scare fans who come from the Bay Area and elsewhere to Long Beach to see the new attraction. 

There are some sure bets in the scare biz and it's not hard to figure them out. The two vying for top honors and prizes are Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights and Knott's Berry Farm's  Scary Farm Halloween Haunt. Knott's has  the oldest of the California haunts and the biggest by far, employing and casting 1,000 actors for the event. It's fantasy never stops as the entire theme park is invaded by zombies and blook-sucking vampires. Traditional scare tactics work here, and the theme park offers thrills based on people's fears --such as bozo-style clowns that start out funny and begin to creep into your mind like a bad dream.

The rival for Halloween thrills is Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights, a relative newcomer to the theme park Halloween scare business, by comparison. What Knott's does with quantity of actors and props, Universal makes up for with studio effects.  Owning rights to some famous scare movies, Universal rolls them out with during the Halloween event. They've turned the season on its righteous ear, calling on Hollywood talents to make scary sci-fi magic. Screenwriters of the genre pitch in or get called on to raise the bar each Halloween season and this year 2011 won't let you down. With Alice Cooper's "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" new  CD release used as musical scoring, Universal creates a sensory event of mind-bending illusion and sound. Pretty cool--and very different from Knott's.

Ideally, you should see both theme park scares this year because they're going to be great!

• Halloween Candy and Effects of Sugar
• Halloween Candy Horror Stories
• Halloween Candy Makes Life Dandy at Mickeyland
• Halloween Events in California For October 30, 2011
• Halloween Events on October 31 in California
• Halloween Kids Costumes and California Halloween Craze
• Halloween Rolls in Like a Train
• Halloween Saturday Celebrations in California

After you've done Knott's and Universal, don't miss some hidden gems. Queen Mary's Dark Harbor was created by a former Knott's employee and uses some of the great tricks of the trade that are proven.  Any place that has an authentic, haunted space (Queen Mary ship) as part of their haunt is worth the admission. In that same vein, the Winchester haunted mansion in San Jose is the real deal offering Halloween thrills, though guests are always kept corraled due to the nature of the haunted mansion, its age, collections, and valuables.

For kiddie theme park thrills, the king of scare (Knott's) has a Camp Snoopy event for kids. The happiest place on earth, Disneyland, wins honors for knowing its audience and creating a family oriented event with trick-or-treats for all ages, and a spectacular fireworks show just for Halloween.

There are two Six Flags theme parks in California (Valencia & Vallejo) and both will offer events of some sort for Halloween, though their mantra on a daily basis is "scare". Pirates of Emerson is one of the bigger draws in the Bay Area and is located in Pleasanton.