Spooky City

03/31/2026

The 2026 Burlington Coffin Race is 7 months away, and the teams who WIN start dreaming up their theme RIGHT NOW. 🐰⚰️

Four teammates. One full-size coffin. Four blocks of chaos, four wild games, and the glory of the most creative costume & coffin combo in downtown Burlington. 🏆

So while you're hunting eggs this Easter — start hunting down your three teammates too. 👀

Tag your crew below, see if they are brave enough to hop on in. ⬇️

03/20/2026

Annual Downtown Halloween event for Burlington Wisconsin families. Free trick or treating, Coffin Races, Dia de los Mu***os, entertainment, movies, hayrides and more! Last Saturday in Oct.! WHOOOOO knows why our owl is wearing a construction hat?!

03/20/2026

2026 COFFIN RACES = 225 Days until SATURDAY, October 31- 36th Spooky City!

SO much fun to be had, here’s something to get your competitive and creative juices flowing! Some ideas for your coffin theme (Our race track is tough, but not this crash-generating!)
https://youtu.be/G0ydCssEd_8?si=IQ1rJQH9zdrkNkIm

11/12/2025

Wendy Lynn Markus, Violinist was a great addition to our Pine Street Performers this year. She played her beautifully haunting music and interacted with the families as they trick-or-treated downtown. Josette Jewelry sponsored her, as Wendy was fiddling right outside of her location! Wendy is a great crowd pleaser, it was a real TREAT to have her at Spooky City!

11/08/2025

So many businesses helped to make the Coffin Races the cool event that it was!! H.J. Faust, Inc Heating and Air Conditioning provided the clappers- and clapping we did! Thanks a bunch for the extra fun!

11/03/2025

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr.

We have a large crew of very happy (very giving) people who make up the Spooky City/Coffin Race volunteer staff. Thank-you all, with a big smile!

11/02/2025

Climbing up on the Mercantile roof to catch an early morning glimpse of the Coffin Race setup and then again during Spooky City trick-or-treating. The Burlington police checked on my rooftop prowling the second time- making sure my intentions were not too tricky! Good to know they were watching out for us all!

10/31/2025

What a hoot! 🦉 Love to be a part of the fabric of Burlington! 🤎

Great write up from Burlington Standard Press on Spooky City featuring The Coffee House, Quotes + Cotton, & Archives Bar and Grill!

10/30/2025

🙀In the twitch of a black cat's 🐈‍⬛ tail, Spooky City 👻 2025 🩶 is over!🏁

Here’s the spine-tingling saga that sent shivers through our streets! And remember, without our 60+ downtown businesses participating, our event would disappear in the whizz of a witches wand!

Bank CMG (formerly Greenwoods) kicked off the day with Pumpkin Decorating, Face Art, Picture Taking & Games

Nestle handed out over 2,000 Free/ Blackbird Bakery baked Cookies

City of Burlington Fire Department Filled their Boots for MDA

Ace Hardware of Burlington & Paddock Lake hosted the first Touch-a-Truck, we hope to see this become a yearly addition

Burlington Public Library & Miss Emily offered stories with their treats

The MacVeagh's helped all the little goblins on and off the Nabers hay wagons

Marie Fredrick and DJ Keith were our story tellers and music makers

We were free of being ghosted with the Wisconsin Ghostbusters Ectomobile on Pine Street

Daniels Family Funeral Home & Crematory parked their hearse nearby, just in case someone crossed the River Styx in freight

Bucciferro Family McDonald's our longest supporting sponsor helped to make this all possible

BHS made an appearance with their Key Club and HOSA – Future Health Professionals

The Pop Shoppe Cake Pop Camper offered their goodies in Wehmhoff Square

Mario was our Milwaukee Krampusnacht Creature

Wendy Lynn Markus, Violinist was magic with her Electric Violin (Presented by Josette Boutique)

Taylor Flows did just that, with her Hula Hoop & Fire Performances (Presented by Kevin McSwain at Bank Five Nine)

Our annual Kiddie Costume Parade was led by Spider Man and Spider Lady (Presented by Community State Bank)

H.J. Faust, Inc Heating and Air Conditioning kept our Coffin Race onlookers warm with constant movement and noise making by hundreds of free Clappers

Victor Mata roped us in with his Lasso Show

The Browns Lake Aquaducks raffled tickets for their ATV to fund the Fishing Jamboree

Burlington WI Police Department & City of Burlington Fire Department kept us safe and sweetened with candy treats

The Plaza Theater hosted 3 Halloween themed movies

Nine establishments brewed their own concoctions in the Spirit Walk for those adult Trick-or-Treaters

FOX6 News Milwaukee appeared with their camera man, he edited 2 segments for the news that fateful evening

Experience Burlington WI kept our Spooky Stories flowing throughout October

We'll be sharing the gorgeous Die de los Mu***os photos and some additional Experience Burlington Coffin Race pics in another post.

(Thanks Morgan Volbrecht and Sophie Branen for your photos!)

10/30/2025

Check it OUT!!! Google must have noticed that we were celebrating Pacman's 45th Anniversary with our Coffin Race Creative Spirit award (We used a vintage Japanese 'Puck Man' for our trophy- only the best for our Creative teams!) and made their Doodle of the Day in honor of our recipients, Entombed: Tithof Tile & Marble

Google Doodle Celebrate 45th Anniversary PACMAN – Halloween 2025 Edition

Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades.

Game development began in early 1979, Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes that appealed to traditionally masculine interests, such as war or sports.

Although the inspiration for the Pac-Man character was the image of a pizza with a slice removed, Iwatani has said he rounded out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (Japanese).

The in-game characters were made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players. The original Japanese title of Puck Man was derived from the Japanese phrase paku paku taberu, which refers to gobbling something up; the title was changed to Pac-Man for the North American release due to fears of vandals defacing cabinets by converting the P into an F. ~ Wikipedia