6th Annual Halloween Scarefest 

The line was long to get into tunnels underneath The City College of New York (CCNY) for the 6th Annual Halloween Scarefest. Students stood outside in the cold waiting for the chance to explore what some had never seen before.

This idea was first pitched by CCNY Vice President Dee Dee Mozeleski. She wanted a Halloween-inspired event that would bring City College and the Harlem community together.  She reached out to Tara Nachtigall and Chan Harris from the Department of Theater and Speech and they put it together. Since the first event. Scarefest has become a tradition that many look forward to. 

Joeli Valerio, a CCNY junior, said, “This is my first time going to a Scarefest. Last Halloween wasn’t memorable and I wanted to be in the Halloween spirit and so I thought why not pull up to the Scarefest.”

Tara Nachtigall explained how the event comes together: “Every year students write a new script. This year’s concept was gaming, similar to online games like Fortnite.” They created specific scenes that students would come upon during the tour.  Student directors treat each scene like a mini play and students get to act.

Many students who toured the tunnel dressed like anime characters. Others wore cat ears. Some people had fake blood dripping on their faces and clothing. And others came as themselves. The wait to get in was as long as 30-minutes.

Once students  entered Compton Goethals, which led to the tunnel, they were told to walk down a hallway and were met by a guide. She gave a brief introduction and said that they were about to, “… experience the deep, dark secrets of American society.”  The group walked into the dark tunnel decorated with scary Halloween figures including the clown from the movie “It.”  When the students walked deeper into the tunnel they saw student actors dressed as clowns. The tour was split up into different sections like scenes.

My group kept walking and saw a bloody wall covered in cobwebs and then a horned beast coming after us. 

During the last part of the tour, we witnessed members of a cult dressed in red masks, warning us to not go through an exit. We chose to go on  and came out inside of the North Academic Center building. 

Jacob Sanchez, who played the clown, overcame his personal challenges to memorize lines for  his role. Tara Nachtigall works to make the event inclusive for the actors and participants. “ I make it a goal to bring people into this,” she said. “There is so much you can learn from being a part of Scarefest. And now students can earn one credit for participating in it.”

Li-Chianne Tucker was with a group of freshman friends and said, “We went to the family friendly night and it wasn’t as good as the regular one.” Scarefest has two parts, the family friendly hour is from 4pm to 5:30pm. This includes the silent disco and children’s fair in the NAC ballroom. So Tucker’s group came back for the regular session at 5:30. Aaliyah Henry said “We also went to the silent disco, that was fun.”  Zara Raza added, “The highlight of my night was getting free candy, I came to the Scarefest because we saw an email about it.” 

In the future Tara Natchtigall would like more college-wide participation. “We want to partner with other departments like psychology, journalism and marketing, because we can all contribute to Scarefest,” Nachtigall said hopefully.