Outside in the square a feast with parkin, spit roasts and miniature toffee apples served from the Witches Gingerbread House as a series of characters welcome you to the past.

Join us in a Medieval March through the streets of Walsall, led by the Musical Hall musicians The Dead Victorians. Explore the ghosts and dark side of our nature through drawing, puppets, drama and theatre with Pegasus, the travelling Horsewagon theatre. Experience Carnival Games with a twist, treats from The Witches Gingerbread House and Navarac the mirrored caravan. Witness improvised drama and storytelling from the Story Pirates, film projection, potato sculptures with NoNose, the Museum of Prodigies, Live Freak Shows from Mental Floss and Georgina White Aldworth the Visitors From Another Dimension, medieval band Princes in the Tower, folk singers Fanny Feeney with Tudor Ballads and The Marvellous Sam Lee with his old English voice, Zombie DJs, Mexican wrestling displays and Material Transformations from Ian Dawson. Join Matt Harling in his Bubble Dome for mad science experiences, Jim Bond and his Kinetic Ghost Challenge, fortune teller Madame de La Cartomancer and her tarot cards, Sefi the Snake Lady and her snake charming act, burlesque French DJ’s Les Apaches, Marika Rauscher singing Macabre Opera, The Lonesome Cowboys From Hell and their unique Texan Shakespearean stage act. Rhiannon Evans and Liam Ramsden present and gather Herbal Medicine, Folklore for the Ethnomedica project at Kew Gardens and spooky tales of the night with Don’t Tell Stories, courtesy of writer and storyteller Rachel Newsome. Also discover a Surreal installation, from creative arts organisation Container PLUS.

Saturday 31 Oct, 12pm – 5pm over a dozen workshops including lantern making, props, costumes, potato sculptures, fortune telling, exploricating, herbalism, freak shows, museums of curiosity.

Sunday 1 Nov, 11am – 4pm Gallery Square and various rooms throughout the Gallery itself.

LANTERN PARADE

Saturday 31 Oct at 6pm, Dress up and join us for a parade with a difference from the Sister Dora statue on the Bridge all the way to Gallery Square.

HAUNTED GALLERY

Saturday 31 Oct until 11pm, Gallery Square and in the Gallery foyer, including live stage with bands and performances.

What’s even more amazing is that its all free – for further details check out www.thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk/

For more information visit www.houseoffairytales.org/

Just a little reminder that this Saturday we are hosting the ATP Release The Bats Halloween party in Space 2 at the Custard Factory, with an unmissable line up (only show outside of London):
SHELLAC / OM / WOODEN SHJIPS / PISSED JEANS / LIGHTNING BOLT + DJ ANDY WEATHERALL
Doors 6.00pm – Lightning Bolt perform at 6.30pm

There are still a handful of tickets available from:
Ideal 18 / 20 Gibb Square, The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham, B9 4AA
Polar Bear 10 York Rd, Kings Heath, Birmingham, B14 7RZ, 0121 441 5202
Swordfish Cheltenham House, 14-16 Temple St, Birmingham, B2 5BG, 0121 633 4859

Now on to competition time:
ATP invite all Release The Bats ticketholders to dress up for Halloween, either as something traditionally spooky or as something to do with one of the bands. Like last year there will be Best Costume and Best Photo competitions, with prices including ATP Chalets, Polaroid PoGo Cameras and ATP goodies.
•    People wearing costumes should take a picture with either one of our roving photographers or at the Release The Bats Photo Booth. The three best costumes on the night will win prizes including a PoGo. Images of the costumes from all three Bats events will then go onto www.atpfestival.com/releasethebats where people will be able to vote to find the overall chalet winner!

•    The best photo competition will be judged after the events through photos uploaded to Flickr at www.flickr.com/groups/releasethebats2008 and the best photo over all three nights as picked by a professional photographer will win the chalet!

And here are some suggestions of costumes should you be a small dog coming along to the event.

Hours of fun to be had searching for dogs in costumes (clearly a favoured past time of mine)

Ideal
18 / 20 Gibb Square
The Custard Factory
Digbeth
Birmingham
B9 4AA
Opening Times
10.30 am – 6.00 pm Monday through to Saturday.
12 Noon – 4.00 pm Sundays.

Also selling tickets are
Polar Bear
10 York Rd
Kings Heath, Birmingham, B14 7RZ
0121 441 5202

Swordfish
Cheltenham House
14-16 Temple St, Birmingham, B2 5BG
0121 633 4859

RELEASE THE BATS 2008 Halloween Party with:
SHELLAC
OM
WOODEN SHJIPS
PISSED JEANS
LIGHTNING BOLT
+ DJ ANDY WEATHERALL
@ Space 2 . Custard Factory . Birmingham
Sat 1st November

Fancy dress welcome: we’d love it if you could come dressed as something inspired by one of the bands (Perhaps you could simulate some Pissed Jeans? Or arrive in a…Shjip?) or as something spooky to help us with creating the Halloween mood.

We put on Lightning Bolt in 2004 in the theatre space at the Custard Factory and for many in the audience it was a night of musical revelation. If you don’t know much about the band check out this documentary ‘The Power of Salad’ and you too will become a convert to the power of the Bolt, easily one of the most exciting live bands of the last 10 years!

and then of course there is Shellac featuring Big Black guitarist Steve Albini, a band that Capsule have been wanting to bring to Birmingham since we started back in 1999. Probably one of the greatest songs ever written ‘`Prayer To God’

For further details on tickets/recommended hotels and band info check:
http://www.capsule.org.uk/event/release-the-batsatp-halloween-party
Let us know just how excited you are on scale of 1 to 10, we’re pretty much on 11!