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Queens Night Market to close season with Halloween costume contest

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Queens Night Market will host a Halloween event on Saturday, Oct. 30. (Photo by Sarah Choi)

For their sixth annual Halloween-themed season, the Queens Night Market will host two final spooktacular events featuring a costume contest with prizes for both kids and adults, including musical entertainment, on Saturday, Oct. 30.

After canceling their entire season last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, John Wang, founder of Queens Night Market, is looking forward to the market’s beloved season finale. 

“As we head into the twilight of this year’s crazy season, we’re super excited for visitors and vendors to dress up in costume for our Halloween finale,” Wang said. “In 2019, we had about 100 contestants in our costume contests competing for prizes. We hope for even more this year!” 

The children’s costume contest will begin at 8:30 p.m. and the adults’ contest will immediately follow around 9:15 p.m.

Along with costume contests, the event will include an entertainment lineup of “local champion for Queens” DJ Katie Honan, Dominican band Urbanova, yo-yo extraordinaire Richard Pigkaso and Filipino acoustic pop trio The Werners.

The prizes for the competitions will include a Noah Syndergaard-signed baseball from the NY Mets; exclusive VIP-suite concert tickets from Forest Hills Stadium; gift certificates to iconic toy store Kidding Around; a $200 gift certificate courtesy of The Shops at Skyview; a $100 gift certificate courtesy of Queens Center Mall; concert tickets from the Kupferberg Center for the Arts; a gift basket from Queens Botanical Garden; a swag bag from Queensboro FC; and more.

The Queens International Night Market is a large, family-friendly open night market located at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. It features up to 100 independent vendors selling merchandise, art and food as well as small-scale cultural performances, all meant to celebrate the cultural diversity and heritage of Queens and New York City as a whole. 

Since its first debut in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in April 2015, the Queens Night Market has welcomed nearly 2 million visitors, helped launch more than 300 new businesses in New York City, and represented over 90 countries through its vendors and their food.

Though the event was eventually shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the market resurfaced this year, which has been the market’s busiest on a nightly basis.

For Wang, this season has been bittersweet. Times have been tough for Queens residents; on the other hand, he is happy for the success of the market’s vendors, many of whom he says struggled during the pandemic. 

“Despite the $5 and $6 price caps we maintain on food, vendors had their best year yet at the Queens Night Market,” Wang said. 

Wang received a proclamation from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards marking June 19 as “Queens Night Market Day.”

“We realized that we had such a busy season precisely because we’re still in a pandemic, and that outdoor spaces and events like ours have really become an oasis during these tragic times,” Wang said. “Hopefully we’ll welcome back New Yorkers and tourists under much happier circumstances next year.”