What to know
- Toronto residents and festival attendees are raising concerns about overcrowding, safety and crowd management at this year’s Halloween on Church.
- Local resident Nicholas Pantaleo says he and his partner became trapped in a dense crowd on Saturday night, describing the experience as frightening.
- Pantaleo and others say the festival has become increasingly disconnected from the Village’s queer identity, with calls for more support for local artists, businesses and LGBTQ+ initiatives.
- Pantaleo is urging organizers to improve crowd control, increase security and prioritize the community’s cultural roots. The Church-Wellesley BIA did not respond to Now Toronto’s request for comment before publication.
Toronto residents and members of the city’s Gay Village are calling on local officials and the Church-Wellesley BIA to address concerns surrounding this year’s Halloween on Church festival, with many pointing to overcrowding and public safety as major issues.
The annual festival takes place along Church Street every Halloween, with the city closing the stretch between Carlton and Gloucester streets to vehicle traffic to give attendees more room to celebrate, explore the neighbourhood and show off their Halloween costumes.
But for Nicholas Pantaleo, the two-day event quickly turned into a troubling experience marked by overcrowding and safety concerns.
Pantaleo, a local resident, says he has attended the event in previous years and immediately noticed some red flags this time around, particularly because the street was not closed to vehicles on Friday night.
“I was concerned about cars driving through crowds. So I decided to go home,” he said in an interview with Now Toronto.
Despite those concerns, Pantaleo described Friday as being “okay,” but says Saturday took a frightening turn as thousands of attendees descended on the strip, resulting in overcrowding.
He says that as he and his partner attempted to walk along Church Street, the crowd became increasingly dense. At one point, they found themselves stuck in one spot for what felt like 10 minutes.
“That was obviously really frightening,” he said. “I felt really scared because I could not see a way out or the crowd moving.”
Pantaleo says he was pushed multiple times, witnessed fights breaking out around him and was touched and grabbed by other attendees. He also says he did not notice any visible crowd management efforts from police in the area.
Videos shared on social media also show attendees climbing lampposts, while other footage appears to capture altercations breaking out within the crowd.
Eventually, Pantaleo and his partner were able to safely make their way out of the crowd. However, the experience left him deeply concerned about the future of the festival. prompting him to publish an Instagram post detailing what he had experienced that night.
The post, which has since been widely shared on the platform, has attracted significant attention from other attendees, many of whom have shared their own experiences from the weekend.
Residents raise concerns over festival’s changing identity
Like Pantaleo, many have expressed concerns that the event has changed over the years as it has grown in popularity, with the festivities increasingly being promoted as a “party” rather than a community gathering.
“In the past, [it was] was more community driven. You had seen local artists coming out and showing their designs,” he said. “There were more costume initiatives. There were more community-driven events. Even local artists doing drag performances on the street or whatnot.”
For Pantaleo, the festivities have increasingly taken away from the essence of the neighbourhood, its queer community and the local businesses that help foster its identity.
He says the queer community has become lost amid the spectacle, with the festival drawing large crowds who may not necessarily be engaging with or supporting the community that has long called the Village home.
“I felt that my community was overtaken by people that were actually not there to participate in either supporting or contributing to some of the bars, or even helping some of the drag artists, [and] the local drag artists,” he said.
Calls grow for greater community support and safety measures
Pantaleo is urging local officials to work alongside members of the community to protect the cultural identity behind the festival. He says that starts with providing more funding for queer initiatives and rethinking how the event is promoted to the public.
“Making sure that there’s more funding towards queer and LGBTQ plus initiatives during those moments, and making sure that it’s not promoted as a Halloween street party. I mean, that’s not what Halloween on Church was about previously,” he said.
Beyond preserving the festival’s community roots, Pantaleo is also calling on organizers to introduce stronger safety measures moving forward.
“Security and police presence. That is really what was lacking, and that I think is really what could be different going forward.” he said.
Now Toronto reached out to the Church-Wellesley BIA, the organizers of the event, for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.
