Arts in the Dark Parade celebrates all things Halloween this weekend

CHICAGO - Chicago's Arts in the Dark Parade is back for its ninth year, offering a spectacle of giant puppets, performances, costumes and more.

Highlighting Chicago arts of all kinds, the Halloween-centric parade goes down along State Street from Wacker Drive to Van Buren Street 
this Saturday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Organizers expect 100,000 people to line the route and the hope is that they, too, will be in costume.

"If you don't like parading, you haven't seen Arts in the Dark," said artistic director Mark Kelly.

"We have 100 cultural organizations, film, music, theater dance, literature, poetry, all of Chicago arts coming together ... 4,000 performers on the street. This was just selected as one of the major Halloween events of the world," Kelly said.

Many of the parade's participants are members of cultural organizations, theater groups, and youth programs.

"There are no politicians waving," Kelly said. "There are no traditional beauty queens. It's just the real thing, the theater, the music, the dance, the arts all coming together."

The parade will also feature a variety of ethnic and cultural traditions, including Mexican, Brazilian, Caribbean, Jamaican, Polynesian, and Irish.