Liverpool’s Halloween Carnival is back for 2025, and this year, it’s set to be more spectacular than ever as it marks 10 years of the city’s very own samba band, Katumba.
Every autumn, as the nights grow longer and the air turns colder, the veil between worlds begins to thin. Halloween has always been more than costumes and sweets, it’s a time to honour our ancestors, to gather in ceremony, and to transform fear into celebration.
This year’s theme, “Ancestral Spirits, Ritual Fire,” reclaims those deeper roots. It weaves together the diasporic origins of carnival with the ancient pagan traditions of Samhain, a fusion of remembrance, resistance, and renewal. Carnival, after all, is a living ritual: a space where communities come together to drum, dance, and light the darkness with rhythm and spirit.
By blending Afro-diasporic beats with the fire and folklore of Halloween, Katumba’s 2025 procession becomes both a homage and a reinvention, connecting past to present, ancestry to community, and darkness to light.
Since its humble beginnings in 2012, when a small group of drummers took to Liverpool City Centre for a spontaneous Halloween parade — Katumba Halloween Carnival has evolved into one of the city’s most anticipated annual events. Today, it’s a vibrant fusion of carnival, culture, and community, filling the streets with drums, fire, light, dance, and theatre.
The 2025 celebration also marks the grand finale of Katumba’s Black History Month programme, as participants from the group’s Routes & Roots beginner sessions take part in the parade.
The procession will begin on Bold Street, travel through Church Street and Lord Street, and culminate in an unforgettable finale at Liverpool ONE, an explosion of rhythm, movement, and unity.
Every costume, every beat, every spark of flame in the Katumba Halloween Carnival is created and carried by the people of Liverpool. And this year, there are even more ways to be part of the magic. Katumba are inviting everyone to join their special Halloween-themed workshops, where you can drum, dance, and play your part in this unforgettable celebration.
Join Katumba in celebrating a decade of drumming, movement, and community, and experience a Halloween Liverpool will never forget.
Learn to craft everything you need for a real carnival, inspired by ancestral spirits, beat out rhythms that shake the streets alive, move, dance, and embody the energy of carnival… then step into the procession itself!
Join the following FREE workshops:
Saturday 25th of October – Lantern Making
Make your very own lantern (no fire involved!) to light up Katumba Halloween Carnival – ages 5+
Saturday 25th of October – Circus Workshops
A chance to discover the magic of circus with silk ribbons, poi, juggling balls, devil sticks, hula hoop and spinning plate with Bring the Fire Project – ages 7+
Sunday 26th of October – Katumba Drumming
Come along to Liverpool One’s Halloween Party from 12pm and take part in a Katumba Drumming workshop – under 18’s
PLUS: Sunday 2nd of November – Sounds & Sauna, An Evening of Wellbeing
Music, movement and mindfulness, the best way to wind down and relax after our Halloween carnival with sound bath, mindful movement and a gorgeous wooden sauna to top it all off on the – 18+, ticketed
Book now here.
