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Spooky nights in Währing: This is how Vienna celebrates Halloween 2025!
Find out how Ottakring and Währing are celebrating Halloween 2025 with parties, events and spooky activities.
Spooky nights in Währing: This is how Vienna celebrates Halloween 2025!
There are only a few days left until the big festival. Halloween is just around the corner and is also being celebrated big in Vienna and especially in the Währing district. The people of Währinger show off their creativity at Halloween parties and events that take place across the city. The largest event, a masked rave with a spooky touch, takes place at the Ottakringer Brewery.
This eerie party mood doesn't just find its way into the big locations. The “Halloween opening” of “Die Galerie” at Kutschkergasse 16 on Friday, October 31st, from 6 p.m. also promises spooky fun. Visitors are welcomed with scary punch and the best disguise is rewarded. The Theater Libelle has also come up with something new and is offering a Halloween reading with spooky entertainment value. Such events show that the desire for horror and the fascination for horror are unbroken.
The Origins of Halloween
But how come we celebrate Halloween the way we do today? The name “Halloween” comes from “All Hallows’ Evening,” the evening before All Saints’ Day, which has been celebrated on November 1st since the year 835. The roots run deep into Celtic tradition, especially the festival of Samhain, which marked the transition from the harvest season to the winter months. Here the ancient Druids believed that on these days the souls of the deceased could interact with the living.
Historically, fire was lit during Samhain to protect the spirits. The idea of offering candy or dressing up on Halloween could also come from the belief that this would appeal to the evil spirits that were roaming around. Historically, children would visit houses on Halloween and ask for "soul cakes," a practice known as "souling" that gave rise to today's trick-or-treating.
More than just monsters and candy
Despite its more gruesome origins, Halloween has now become a celebration of fun and creativity in many countries, including the United States. In the United States alone, a quarter of annual candy sales are recorded during the Halloween season. Every year, Americans spend nearly $10 billion on Halloween, and the holiday ranks only behind Christmas as the highest-grossing occasion.
In Germany, where Halloween is becoming increasingly popular, sales for Halloween items in 2023 were around 480 million euros. Hollowing out and carving pumpkins is not just a fun tradition, but goes back to the Irish legend of the farrier Jack, who sealed his own fate. In Germany, for example, Halloween is celebrated as trick-or-treating.
Considering the many facets of Halloween and the complexity of its origins, it becomes clear that this holiday also represents, in part, a deeper examination of one's own life and inevitable death. Confronting your own fears makes the scary things more bearable in a way, which also explains the fascination with the scary aspects of the festival, according to MeinBezirk.
However, the question remains interesting today as to whether and how Halloween is viewed in different faith communities, especially for Christians who should reflect on the celebration and its origins, as BibleInfo addresses.