Just over the hill in Calabasas, crowds of area residents are celebrating the Halloween season at Nights of the Jack, a “Halloween jack o’lantern experience” running now through Nov. 4.
The event, which begins around sundown every night at King Gillette Ranch, features a stunning array of more than 5,000 hand-carved pumpkins (real and “craft”) for visitors to view—with installations including enormous dinosaurs, a graveyard, intricate Día de los Muertos skulls, a Hollywood sign and more. About 10,000 visitors made their way through the outdoor event in the first two weeks of the attraction, which is put on by television production and event industry veterans Ben Biscotti, Tony Schubert and Bobby Rossi.
“We’ve really seen the people embrace the show and come and post about it and tell others about it,” Rossi said in a phone interview with The Malibu Times. As word of mouth spreads, Rossi said organizers were expecting perhaps another 30,000 or so visitors in the next two weeks.
In addition to the jack o’lantern walk, the event includes food trucks, an adults-only outdoor bar and interactive areas for photographs. In addition, there’s an homage to the history of Calabasas.
“At the top of the Calabasas grade, which is east of Las Virgenes Road on the original El Camino Real, legend has it that in 1824, a Basque rancher from Oxnard spilled a wagonload of pumpkins on the road en route to Los Angeles” reads part of the text on a sign inside the exhibition. “The following spring, hundreds of pumpkin seeds sprouted alongside the road. The area was named Las Calabasas—the place where the pumpkins fell.”
“It’s great to keep up the tradition and educate, as well,” Rossi said.
“It’s being received very well,” Biscotti added. “We’re grateful for that, so far.”
