The best Halloween party in NYC doesn’t actually take place on Halloween!
City of Gods is now in its eighth year, and it’s less a party than an entire fabricated world. Co-created by House of Yes and ZERO, the festival transforms two massive warehouse buildings and an adjoining courtyard at Industry City, over 137,000 square feet in total, into a Burning Man-in-Brooklyn experience spanning 10 stages of music and an endless maze of interactive art, shrines, and sanctuaries.
Many of the stages are hosted by actual Burning Man sound camps, past years have included names like DISTRIKT, Mayan Warrior, Pink Mammoth, and Kostume Kult, each bringing their own sonic identity to the festival, and a portion of every ticket sold gets donated back to those camps’ nonprofit organizations.
At the center of it all sits the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, built in collaboration with visionary artists Alex and Allyson Grey, offering a meditative, psychedelic counterpoint to the party surrounding it.
True to form, the music lineup is kept entirely secret. There’s no set schedule to chase, just a labyrinth of spaces meant to be wandered through on instinct. Costumes are mandatory, and past attendees have gone all out, this is the kind of crowd that treats the runway-style costume contest as a real competition, with genuine prizes on the line.
Add in a Moonshine Speakeasy, a Karnival Row of oddball activities, and eight full bars running from 9 pm to 5 am, and the two nights blur together into something closer to a mini-festival than a club night.
🎃 Ticket information for this year’s City of God Halloween can be found here!