Halloween

At the after-party for The Walking Dead’s Season 4 premiere in Los Angeles in October 2013, costumed zombies posed for photo ops with guests.

In September 2013, Target launched its Halloween wig collection by designer Chris March with a ghoulish bash at the Angel Orensanz Foundation for the Arts in New York. Hatch Creative Studio’s tabletop decor incorporated pieces from the retailer’s line of Halloween-theme products and home decor items. At the head of each table sat a spooky guest: a plastic skeleton.

In June, Chicago’s Revolt Events and Pure Kitchen Catering teamed up for a Halloween-theme photo shoot, where decorative accents included blood-red-and-black floral arrangements ­comprising scarlet ranunculus and red banana leaf; the ­flowers were arranged in a ­geometric vase.

Revolt Events and Pure Kitchen Catering also prepared bourbon-caramel apples with crushed peanuts on sticks.

Revolt Events and Pure Kitchen Catering presented seasonal eats, which included pumpkin-bisque shooters with cinnamon-vanilla cream and fried sage, with haunting dinner companions—skull napkins.

Spook guests by placing prop skulls or scary masks in unexpected places. At the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles in October 2013, Veuve Clicquot passed flutes of Yellow Label at its Yelloween party, which featured a liquor cabinet decked with startling tropes.

In October 2013, Chicago-based advertising agency Leo Burnett hosted an in-office Halloween bash. The party served office-friendly snacks, including a pumpkin-shaped cheese ball from Simply Elegant Catering.

Along the path to the in-office Leo Burnett bash, which had a bad-luck theme, designers from Art of Imagination placed black paper cat cutouts on the walls of the hallway.

Billed as a “skeletal spectacle,” Redmoon Theater’s 2012 Halloween party in Chicago featured dozens of the bony Halloween icons, and planners created unique ways to combine food and entertainment. At a s’mores station, two performers in lingerie and face makeup warmed chocolates over candles in a bathtub; blowtorches were used to melt the marshmallows.

At Keep a Child Alive’s “Dream Halloween” event at the Barker Hangar in Los Angeles last October, a display of oversize orange and green balloons mimicked the look of a giant pumpkin for a kid-friendly take on decor.

At last year’s “Galaween” event at the Chicago Cultural Center, Event Creative built a lavish, haunted-house-style entrance. This year, the agency’s designer Jeffrey Foster predicts that parties will take a glitzy turn with lace-covered pumpkins, silver or gold ­skeletons, marabou witches, or bejeweled or glittered skulls.

In 2008, a section of Hugh Taylor Birch State Park was transformed into a haunted Halloween scene for the 11th annual Bremen Brothers Beach Bash. Among the tented areas for the event was a black-lit library-like space that recalled a haunted house.

Interior designer Leah Pickler interpreted Showtime's Dexter series when the network partnered with Metropolitan Home in 2008 for an experiential show house. Pickler's dining room included plates, chairs, and walls splattered with blood and a centerpiece comprised of vials of red liquid.

The 2008 Design Exchange gala achieved a haunted forest effect in the museum with graffiti artist Mike Echlin's white trees painted onto a black backdrop.

At the 2011 "Galaween" Benefit in Chicago, guests walked through a temporary graveyard outside of Venue One. Inside, the raw space was transformed into an enchanted forest foyer, a torture chamber dance floor, and a haunted mansion with rags hung from the ceiling’s chandeliers.

At this year's Dining by Design in New York, the table styled by Alexa Stevenson had rather a macabre centerpiece that included moss, succulents, and a skull inside a glass cloche.

Last year's Malibu Rum launch for its Black spirit filled New York's Good Units with Halloween-inspired decor. Even the bars matched the look, with black lights and skull-and-crossbones imagery at one and plasma balls on foil-covered shelves at another.

A mob of silent, masked people marching through the streets of Manhattan last year made for a creepy, if not ominous sight. The stunt was part of a promotion from Starz to herald the premiere of Torchwood: Miracle Day.

For the Central Park Conservancy's Halloween ball in 2010, Frank Alexander dressed tables in shades of brown and green and topped each one with alternating arrangements of tree stumps with hidden gnomes and fairies surrounded by flickering candles.

The Walking Dead celebrated its 100th issue at Comic-Con in San Diego this past July with a party that referenced the comic book's gory, zombie-filled contents. At the edge of the event, two zombie nurses interacted with guests.

The look of the Lexus event during the 2011 New York International Auto Show might have been more futuristic than spooky, but the eerie glow of blue lighting and the fog coming out of the drinks works just as well for Halloween parties. Caterer Creative Edge served up a liquid nitrogen cocktail of vanilla Absolut with tangerine and a vanilla kumquat marmalade alongside passion fruit meringues dipped in a bowl of nitrogen for the carmaker's preview event.

In 2006, the Art Gallery of Ontario threw a costume ball that put ghostly figures in the long, dark entry corridor. The performers played unearthly sounding melodies on tiny music boxes as guests entered the venue.

There was no shortage of inspiration for HBO when it hosted a premiere party for vampire series True Blood in 2008. In addition to Mexican relic shrines and cemetery lanterns, the event included a menu of blood-colored dessert bites.

Edward Gorey's morbid illustrations were the inspiration behind the design for the 2006 Central Park Conservancy Halloween ball. Inside the dining room, Grayson Bakula (a company that has since changed its name to Bakula Design) decorated the walls of the tent with projections of barren branches and hung menacing hooded figures from the ceiling.

The Art Gallery of Ontario's 2006 Shadow Ball had tables topped with skull-shaped candles from sculptor Marcello Dalmao.

At the 18th annual Dream Halloween AIDS Benefit in 2011, guests entered the main space of the transformed Barker Hangar only after walking through a series of five haunted tombs amidst a foggy forest.

At the Florida Aquarium's 10th annual masquerade ball, Nauti-Night, in 2007, the entire space was transformed into a spooky environment for drinking, dining, and dancing. The webs that covered the exhibit walls created ghostly passages for guests to explore.

At the 2009 Green Halloween launch, caterer Flavor Palette crafted a menu that included jack-o-lantern-, ghost-, and graveyard-inspired sushi.

Recalling the movie's dark themes and visuals, the premiere party for Dark Knight in 2008 had red-painted graffiti on the walls, tables, and windows of the Mandarin Oriental ballroom in New York.

Rather than creating elaborate centerpieces for the Central Park Conservancy's 2006 ball, Grayson Bakula (now known as Bakula Design) used intersected pieces of laser-cut plexiglass to form the ghostly dining table decorations.

For its Yelloween party in 2010, Veuve Clicquot filled bathtubs with skeletons and yellow rose petals at Tao Las Vegas.

During Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York last September, retail display company Aux Armes crafted creepy black-and-white cutouts of spiderwebs, hand saws, and candelabra for Rachel Antonoff's presentation.

For the Dexter season 4 DVD release party in Miami, Showtime fashioned crime scene sets at the National Hotel's poolside cabanas using police tape, fake dismembered bodies, and blood splatters.

The Addams Family-inspired Citi Performing Arts Center Gala in 2011 was ridden with graveyard imagery.

Neuman's Halloween-themed table for the ISES competition at the 2010 BizBash New York Expo used skeleton hands napkin rings, mini coffins and cauldrons, and a barren hilltop centerpiece to set the eerie mood.

NYC Photobooth’s “Haunted Photocrypts” photo booth station includes an interactive talking skull to instruct visitors and a number of spooky backgrounds to choose from.

In 2009, Old Navy created a pop-up pumpkin patch in New York City's meatpacking district that had a plethora of carved pumpkins.

In 2006, when XBox 360 launched its Gears of War game at Hollywood's Forever Cemetery, the spooky and unconventional mausoleum made for a suitably morbid venue.

At The Simpsons Halloween-Carnival party in 2009, a mask-making station at the Barker Hangar in Los Angeles let kids and adults create their own face coverings as a unique event souvenir.

At the Brooklyn Museum's 2011 Artists Ball, the centerpiece of Aleksandar Duravecevic's table was a taxidermied ram.

Playing off the venue—the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles—and eerie plots of its forthcoming shows, Showtime's 2006 event was set amid dry ice and twisted scenery.