Tuesday, 31 October 2023

Night creatures and spirits mix in LKF


Toby Ng

Tens of thousands of people got into the spooky spirit for Halloween in Lan Kwai Fong last night – the first maskless Halloween in years.

With customers flocking to Lan Kwai Fong in the past two days, bar owners were optimistic business would resume to prepandemic levels.

By 6.30pm last night, the streets of the city’s hottest night spot were already crowded with locals and tourists, mostly in costumes.

Children were seen dressed in black robes, holding magic wands and wearing iconic round Harry Potter glasses. Some partygoers came as Teletubbies, while others dressed up as maids, excitedly taking selfies.

Ryan, who celebrates Halloween in Lan Kwai Fong every year, said there were more people this year compared to last year and the atmosphere was better.

Wang, a mainland tourist, wore devil headgear and especially came from Shenzhen to experience Halloween in Lan Kwai Fong.

She said: “It’s my first time celebrating Halloween in Hong Kong. The atmosphere here is much livelier than in the mainland. I’ve been taking photos with others along the way, and I’m very happy.”

Business was better this Halloween compared to last year, with more tourists coming in, said Pranesh Tamant, manager of Mine Bar.

”Halloween falls on Tuesday this year, but we’ve had very good business since Friday,” Tamant added.

Tamant also said that his bar can hold 150 people, but in the past few days, there was hardly any space to walk in the bar. He estimated about 200 patrons were inside his place at one point.

In the past few months, the bar business has been recovering from the pandemic, but during Halloween, the business is back to 2019 prepandemic levels, said Ali Khal, of Lucky Thai.

Police were on-site maintaining order.

A costume store owner said maid costumes and pumpkin masks were the most popular and that they expected a 20 percent increase in revenue over last year. The owner also said there were more mainland tourists, although not as many as before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, a night carnival at the Wan Chai harborfront saw children join “do-it-yourself” workshops and took advantage of a large pumpkin bounce bed.

toby.ng@singtaonewscorp.com

The post Night creatures and spirits mix in LKF appeared first on Hong Kong News Hub.



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