EASTON, Pa. – Costumes, candy and cars all dressed up for spooky season: the 44th annual Phillipsburg-Easton Halloween Parade is marching into town on Sunday.
There will be “everything from marching bands to dance groups, nonprofits, big business, small business, you name it,” said Caitlin Hamlin Myers, assistant vice president for the Easton Area Chamber of Commerce and Warren County Council.
The parade joins a town and a city, across counties and states.
“It’s always a friendly rivalry, friendly competition,” said Jessica O’Donnell-Gower, executive vice president of chambers of commerce for the Greater Lehigh Valley, said. “But this event truly unites them.”
“I love when you come across the Free Bridge coming to the circle,” said Easton City Councilmember Frank Pintabone. “The crowd just merges in closer and closer. It’s just a great feeling.”
“We have thousands of people come out,” Hamlin Myers said.
The floats will get to travel the traditional trajectory, thanks to the Black Bridge on South Main Street finally opening back up for the first time in six months, as of Thursday.
“We’re so thrilled it opened this week,” Hamlin Myers said.
The parade is celebrating 44 years of growth, with 44 floats. Hamlin Myers said the number of years matching the number of floats was not planned.
“It wasn’t,” she said, “but it’s kismet that it all came together that way.”
Call it kismet, but that doesn’t mean the Chambers of Commerce didn’t have plenty to plan as well.
O’Donnell-Gower said it can take half a year, and participants go all out with the float decorations.
Phillipsburg resident Ryan Greene said he worked almost nonstop on his truck-turned-Ghostbusters-float for two weeks.
“The number of hours?” he said. “I don’t know because I spent many, many, many hours on it.”
Winners of four categories will each get a $150 prize.
Hamlin Myers said those include: most creative, spookiest, best marching band or dance group.
“And then the mayors also get a choice in it,” she added.
But even the most impressive floats aren’t necessarily just in it to win it.
“We’re just having fun, looking to share some smiles,” Greene said.
The two-hour parade will start at 3 p.m. Sunday, on McKeen Street in Phillipsburg, and will continue along South Main Street toward the Northampton Street Bridge, ultimately making its way to Centre Square in Easton.
For more information on the event and parking, check out the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce’s event page and the City of Easton’s calendar.
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