What to Know
- Victorian Mourning Faire at Heritage Square Museum
- Oct. 15 and 16, 2022
- $25 per day
There are many memorable ways to approach the fall, and only some of them involve small candies, plastic pumpkins, and scary movies.
Some happenings take a more historical approach, and a sartorial approach, too. Those atmospheric events look back at the traditions of people who lived decades or centuries ago, focusing specifically on those rites that involve passing between this world and the next.
Heritage Square Museum is one of our city's most authentically Victorian destinations, thanks to its collection of beautiful 19th-century homes and buildings, spectacular structures that had been saved by the wrecking ball prior to finding a new and forever home next to the Arroyo Parkway in Montecito Heights.
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So it makes sense that, come October, the team behind this time-travel-y attraction would spend time considering how Victorians approached funerals, the afterlife, and honoring the person passing beyond the veil.
The Victorian Mourning Faires are some of the biggest happenings on the Heritage Square calendar, and they'll be back in the middle of October 2022 for two days of mysterious, esoteric, and evocative activities.
The emphasis of the 2022 weekend is on "Victorian Divination," which means visitors may encounter "(c)rystal gazing, cartomancy, dice games, tea leaf & tarot card readings, palmistry and other forms of fortune telling were quite popular in the 19th century."
Vendors selling phantom-inspired finds will be on the picturesque grounds, while bites and sips will be for sale. And the "music machines" of yore? They'll play a part in the event, creating sounds that have a spectral tinge.
Tickets?
They're $25 for a single day; you can conjure yours here. Dressing for the eerie and elegant experience? Plenty of guests do, complete with parasols, dresses with bustles, and the all-important top hats and veils.
The Victorian Mourning Faires aren't the final fancy of the Heritage Square's upcoming Halloween season; Cemetery Lane, helmed by the team behind Midsummer Scream, will alight at the destination over several trick-or-treat-able nights near the end of October.
