Tokyo Ward clamps down as this year’s Saturday Halloween poses more dangers than the past six years.
If you’ve ever visited Shibuya’s famous scramble crossing at Halloween, you’ll know how chaotic it can be. Costumes, crowds, street drinking, and people cramming into the crossing and surrounding thoroughfares for photos and impromptu meetups are all the ingredients for mayhem, and after a truck was overturned by revellers in 2018, Shibuya has been doing everything it can to clamp down on the unwanted chaos.
With Halloween falling on a Saturday this year, Shibuya is preparing for more revellers than usual, and is working hard to keep things under control with a new awareness campaign that comes with the slogan “GOODBYE BAD HALLOWEEN”.
The straight-to-the-point, all-caps slogan aims to curb what Shibuya calls “Meiwaku Halloween” (“Nuisance Halloween”) behaviour, which includes drinking and smoking on the street, littering, making excessive noise and obstructing pedestrian traffic while taking photos in costume. Shibuya says this year’s celebrations pose a significatly greater risk as Halloween hasn’t ocurred on a Saturday since 2020, and it estimates that around 18,000 people will be on the streets of Shibuya Center Gai during peak times, compared to 4,200 last year, which was the lowest since records began in 2019, when there were approximately 40,000 visitors.
Though last year’s crowds were thwarted by rain, the decrease in revellers in recent years is all down to Shibuya’s concerted efforts to discourage people from making the scramble crossing area their playground during Halloween. Countermeasures now include a year-round ban on drinking alcohol on the street in Shibuya between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m., introduced in October 2024, and 62 retailers in the vicinity, including convenience stores and department stores, have been asked to refrain from selling alcohol during those hours on Halloween night.
This year also marks the first Halloween since Shibuya began collecting a 2,000-yen (US$13) fine for littering in June, with patrols being increased from the usual three teams of three to five teams of seven on Halloween.
Combined with a large police presence, plus 185 private security guards and 70 ward employees on patrol to curb bad behaviour, Halloween in Shibuya now feels less like a street party and more like a heavily regulated, slightly hostile no-go zone. While this approach has so far been successful in keeping the peace, it does come at a cost, with Shibuya saying it has spent around 74 million yen (about US$468,000) on countermeasures for this year’s Halloween. Of that, around 58 million yen is going towards station-area safety measures, 2 million yen towards rubbish collection and disposal, and 14 million yen towards public-awareness materials like flags and banners.
▼ And, presumably, this awareness video.
Despite all the countermeasures, which include temporary fencing around the famous Hachiko statue to block it from view from 6 a.m. on 30 October until 5 p.m. on 1 November, and the suspension of LUUP and Lime services around Shibuya Station from 5 p.m. on 30 October until 5 a.m. on 31 October, Shibuya Mayor Ken Hasebe isn’t entirely against Halloween.
In speaking to the press, he has been encouraging visitors to enjoy Halloween in Shibuya, just not on the streets, but by attending events organised by shopping streets, commercial facilities and clubs in the ward instead.
So the message from Shibuya this year is clear – the streets are not an all-night party venue. With police and officials out in force during the Halloween weekend, the party vibe of years past is now long gone, so you’d be better off celebrating in other parts of Tokyo instead.
Sources: Sankei, Yahoo! News Japan
Images: YouTube/渋谷区公式チャンネル
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