Tickets are on sale for this family-friendly Halloween event.

By Sarah Emily Gilbert

Halloween, a time for costumes, candy, and paying to get the wits scared out of you.

We can get behind the costumes and candy, but it’s harder to understand the mass desire to visit haunted houses, fright fests, or the like come Halloween. There’s a good chance that Mike Pollock, executive producer of RISE of the Jack O’Lanterns, is right there with us. His company works year-round to create a family-friendly Halloween show that allows people to ditch the ditch ax-murderers and the headless horseman for 5,000 real pumpkins carved into intricate designs.

Wildly popular in New York and Los Angeles, RISE of the Jack O’Lanterns is coming to New Jersey’s Meadowlands Exposition Center for the first time this year. People of all ages can walk along the show’s well-lit pumpkin trail and listening to some Halloween-themed music while viewing life-sized dinosaur and dragon pumpkin displays, a 100 pound carved pumpkin, live carving stations, and more.

“We have a large staff that works every week of the year to make sure have a successful event in October,” says Tom Olton, Resident Master Carver for RISE. “This year, we will have over 150 artists working on both coasts. A few dozen are from the five boroughs (NYC), most from Brooklyn.”

The event will be held:

Thursday, October 27 (10:00 a.m. – 10:30 p.m.)

Friday, October 28 (10:00 a.m. – 10:30 p.m.)

Saturday, October 29 (10:00 a.m. – 10:30 p.m.)

Sunday, October 30 (10:00 a.m. – 10:30 p.m.)

Advance tickets are REQUIRED, with no tickets sold at the door. Ticket information can be found at www.therise.org/njny.