A potential highlight of your adult Halloween party this year will be the costume contest, determining who's the most spooktacular of all. It’s an exciting and memorable part of your boo bash.
Announce It
If you’re planning to have a costume contest, indicate it on the invitation- it will encourage partygoers to be more creative and go all out when building their costumes. Simply say “Costumes Encouraged- Prizes for the Best!” or “Dress up for our Costume Contest!”
The Voting
You’ll want to create a simple ballot (just the name of each category and a blank line for people to fill in the names) so guests can vote for one another at the party. Set up a table or area on the kitchen countertop with ballots, pencils, and a pumpkin bucket or cauldron with a sign marked “Vote Here!” Guests will have fun gathering at the voting station and discussing who’s who in cool costumes at the party. Tallying up votes can be tricky- often people cross-vote different costumes into different categories. The party hosts may have to use a bit of judgment to determine winners if it’s close.
Costume Categories
You will need categories so you can list them on the ballots. Some ideas for categories are Funniest, Scariest, Best Couple, Best Group, Most Original, Sexiest and Best Overall. The Best Overall costume is a good idea because when you are counting up the votes, there is usually one stand-out costume that people vote for in multiple categories. If your Halloween party has a theme, you could add a costume category of Best Themed Costume – for example, if you are having an '80s party and someone really goes all out for the theme, they could be chosen for this award.
Halloween Prizes
There are actually little statuettes that resemble gold Oscar awards, but the figure is a skeleton holding its own head. (Some Halloween costume contest veterans refer to them as the “Skelly” awards) They’re very cute, and truly become prized possessions of the awardees. There are several variations of this type of costume award: there are gold pumpkins, a curvy woman figurine for "sexiest", and so on.
There are also traditional blue-ribbon style awards, plain ribbons, etc. Of course, if you are very creative, you could produce awards from scratch. Or, with blank orange ribbons you could write the category names to attach them to the "skellies". There are also "Vampire" and "Witches' Brew" wines that would make great prizes as well.
Make sure to take tons of pictures as guests arrive and during the costume awards. Running a slide show of past contest winners during the party can become a highlight of your party for years to come.
Learn more about adult Halloween parties, food for your Halloween party, or read the best Halloween tips on the WEB.
Mary McCarthy - Mary T. McCarthy is the blogger at pajamasandcoffee.com and Editor of Chesapeake Family magazine.
