Registration, Costume & Float Guidelines and Requirements
Fill out the form below to participate in the parade.
Float requirements
All floats must meet the following requirements:
- Height: 9’ (fits under the 12th Ave S viaduct and avoids damage to trees on Flora Ave S)
- Width: 8’ (almost as wide as a dump truck)
- It must be able to navigate around one-lange rotundas, which are 10’ wide.
- It must be able to move, or be moved, stop, slow down, or speed up
No restrictions on float locomotion. How you choose to move your float is up to you. Floats can be pulled by cars, people, bicycles, motorbikes, or sit on top of cars & trucks (or something else!)
Float length can vary because cars are different sizes. Just bear in mind floats must be able to make it around the rotundas on S Warsaw St and S Eddy St, which are about 10’ wide.
Costume guidelines
No restrictions on costumes. However, with great power comes great responsibility. We ask everyone attending the parade to follow the rule: “be kind, take care of each other.” Costumes can (and should!) be scary, gory, racy, sexy, filthy, glamorous, and gruesome as long as they aren’t intended to make others feel seriously unsafe.
In other words, please be respectful — dressing up as a particular culture can be easily offensive if you’re not part of that culture. For example, it is never okay to dress up in blackface, wear something transphobic, discriminatory, based on or promoting discrimination, hate, or violence against a particular group.
In other words, don’t dress as anything that may haunt another member of your community (or could one day come back to haunt you).
In the interest of public safety, where are some obvious don’ts that bear mentioning:
- Please do not bring real firearms (fictional/costume and/or props are fine)
- Please do not bring open flames or fireworks
- Please no religious proselytization
If you’re not sure, just take a photo of your costume or float and send it to events@georgetown-city-arts.org, we’ll advise you. Any such email will be treated as confidential and deleted after we respond to you.
See FAQ
Don’t forget, join our mailing list to receive announcements about free float building workshops, cosplay, prop building. These classes are all free and open to the public, and should teach you everything you need to have a kick-ass Halloween!