By MARK NARDONE
Big Shout Magazine | Halloween Loop Extra, October 1993

Decisions, decisions. For years, Wilmington had only one Halloween Loop, the hellish holiday version of the once-monthly bar circuit. This year there are two — one featuring 15 bars and restaurants downtown, the other with 13 west side establishments.

As if planning a Friday night wasn’t difficult enough. But don’t fret about making the wrong choice. Organizers of both loops say their separate events, each with plenty of drink specials, entertainment, and transportation, guarantee a ghoulishly good time for all — and could become a shot in the arm to local nightlife.

“If you’ve never seen the loop, it’s like Mardi Gras,” says Bottlecaps owner Paul Ogden, an organizer of the Downtown Loop. “It’s unbelievable.” And if all the 8,000 to 10,000 costumed partiers he expects actually show up, it should be quite a spectacle.

Bars on the Downtown Loop are The Barn Door, Bernie’s Tavern, Bottlecaps, Cavanaugh’s, Feasel’s Cafe, The Greenery, Holiday Inn American Bar & Grill, Knuckleheads Saloon, O’Friel’s Irish Pub, The Renaissance, Scuba, The Stadium Pub, The Attic, Varsity Grill, New York Cafe, and Waterworks.

Most downtown establishments will feature live entertainment. Four shuttles will make regular circuits of the hot spots, but several are within walking distance of each other. And there is plenty of parking. The cost is $3 for four hours of festivities that begin at 9 p.m.

On the west side, loopsters can check out Bull’s Eye Saloon, The Cantina, CJ Bart’s, Comegy’s Pub, Cynthia’s, Gallucio’s, Jasper’s Next Dorr, JT’s Cafe, Kelly’s Logan House, Kid Shelleen’s, P.A. Woody’s, Peck’s Place, and Scratch Magoo’s.

Most will have live deejays to entertain the crowd, and shuttles are available. The cost is $3.

The split was necessary, Ogden says, because the loop has grown too big to easily transport participants. “There’s a lot of new blood coming downtown,” he says. “everybody wanted to get in on it. They wanted to make things happen.”

Past loops were made up of fewer than 10 establishments. With so many places this year, several that have opened only in the past few months, “there’s just no way to get people around,” Ogden says.

With 28, five-minute stops, and five minutes of travel time between, it would take one shuttle more than four hours to make one loop. “Logistically,” he says, “it just wouldn’t work.”

“It’s become a city-wide event,” says Dale Melton, who began organizing loops in 1979 and is consulting owners of west side establishments on their Halloween loop this year.

From 1979 to 1982, the Loop was a monthly event. More than 4,000 people shuffled from bar to bar, mostly downtown, on the last Friday night of each month. Then recession hit and people lost interest in partying. But the Halloween Loop was always the largest of the year, and establishment owners are piqued.

“I think there’s a renewed interest in Wilmington city nightlife. There just hasn’t been that interest in many years,” Melton says. “Now it’s more than Wilmington’s Loop. It’s bigger than that. It’s become Wilmington’s Mardi Gras. And nobody should limit that. Where else are you going to be but the city of Wilmington on that night?”

Melton hopes the loops, though separate this year, will become a unifying force for all city establishments. “I think everybody’s going to do really well,” he says. “I think that with this kind of momentum, a lot of things are really going to start to happen.”

But never mind that. The main objective is fun, which shouldn’t be hard to find. Deejays and bands abound, but the real entertainment is the costumes.

“I once saw a guy dressed in a blue sheet with his head stuck in an aquarium,” Melton says. “And it was full of fish just swimming around. He was breathing through a snorkel. It was amazing.”