Howl-O-Ween Pup Parade brings dog trick-or-treat to Beltline

And as promised, as we went to break, we're going to be talking about Halloween. There's going to be a big event happening on the Beltline this weekend. And let me just say, it's going to the dogs this Saturday. Pups in costumes will parade down the trail, then trick-or-treat their way through the Krog District. And Dave Barton with the Atlanta Beltline Partnership is joining us now live this afternoon to talk about this first-of-its-kind event for the Beltline. David, thanks so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me, Tyler. Great to be here. excited to talk about the event. Yeah, so this is the first time you guys are doing something like this. I've heard about Halloween at other places, some restaurants, different organizations put things like this on. Why did you guys decide you wanted to bring this to the Atlanta Beltline? Yeah, it's been an idea that's been floating around. If you've been on the Atlanta Beltline, you see a lot of people bring their dogs. So we teamed up with Bite Lines Atlanta Food Tours and Wolfgang Bakery, which is on the East Side Trail, and said, you know what, let's do a parade. Let's do a doggy parade. So this is the first year we've done this. So it'll be a doggy parade from the skate park at Old Fourth Ward, and that will go down to the Krog District. And we are totally sold out of tickets, which is great news, but we still welcome people to come and watch, see all the great costumes and watch the parade you guys already sold out i mean did you expect this to be so popular uh i mean dog owners are very passionate about their dogs i know i am so we were we knew there would be excitement around it we didn't know it'd sell out so early um so i think we will be doing this again next year if all goes well so just make sure reminding people to get your tickets early but again we want people to come and be spectators the south side trail is complete now So we'd love for people from the west side and south side and around the east side trail to all come together. And the Beltline is all about connection. So it'd be great to see everyone come out and support all the furry friends. You had mentioned how popular it is for animals. I mean, I take my dog for a walk on there multiple times a week. We love to walk the east side trail. And you just see so many people out and about, especially on a very nice day like today. with their dogs or just out there for a walk or just maybe walking to a location for either drinks or maybe a dinner or lunch or something like that. And so this is a very unique way to be able to bring people out on a weekend, especially because it's happening Saturday and honestly for something fun, I mean, Halloween. Yeah, it's Saturday at 11.30 a.m. So come to the skate park at 11.30 or meet us at Krogh District later on because that's where the parade will end. But yeah, this is super exciting that we're we're doing this um we want everyone to be included so for example we have a east side race on december 5th coming up there's still tickets available for that so if you're a runner sign up for the 12k but we also have a 3k not everyone wants to run a 12k including me so you can come do the 3k and you can actually bring your dog to that uh on the 3k or bring your stroller or you can walk or run so it's a it's a shorter race and encourage everyone to come out and enjoy the beautiful day. I just saw your forecast. It looks amazing. So we're excited that we're getting good weather for this. Yeah, I mean, especially on the Beltline, that's pretty much the best days to be out there when the weather is fantastic. One of the busiest days I've ever seen on the Beltline was I think it was last year or the year before on St. Patrick's Day. Yes. You could not even, on a random weekend. I mean, it's St. Patrick's Day, obviously in March, super nice time, and people just come out and enjoy it. Back to the event you guys are doing this weekend, the Halloween, people are going to be dressing up their dogs i mean what are people going or the judges going to be looking for because i understand this is going to be a costume contest yeah great question so there'll be three different categories uh the first one will be um best overall costume for the dog and then the second one will be duo so uh dog owner and dog combo and then the third one which i'm most excited about is the uh best atlanta theme costume so there's so many great things going on atlanta i'm excited to see what people do i have a feeling you're probably going to get like a something lemon pepper themed for the dogs or like i would think so and i hope something atlanta dream themed because we've got them playing today so uh excited to see all the different costumes so obviously the tickets are sold out but can people still come out and like line line the parade route and things like that if they don't have a ticket yeah for sure the belt line we're not we don't close the or anything so anyone can come come watch um and and bring their dogs to come watch and i just think it's going to be a great day um for the community and i hope people come join and and come watch um yeah really excited for this saturday again the weather looks great um and i do want to mention that uh some of the proceeds from this event from the tickets do go to atlanta beltline partnership um and all that money goes to the great programs that we have so we have the largest free fitness program in Atlanta. So 500 free fitness classes all around the city, all around the Beltline. And then we have our race series that I mentioned. And then we have Empower workshops, like teaching people how to do their tax appeals for their homes or financial literacy courses. So some of the proceeds will go to that, to our donor funded programs. Well, and so you took the question out of my mind, because obviously this is going for such a good cause, being able to help you guys do more events and connect people in our community to uh as you said fitness classes we actually talked about that i think a couple weeks ago maybe a month or two ago right here on Seven News Live at one o'clock uh and i mean there's just always something to do on the Beltline is that is that the goal of what you guys are trying to do uh make it a destination where people can come on out and there's going to be likely something they can do either on the east side the south side the west side and things like that pretty much all throughout our city that they can connect with yeah and the trail is meant to it's meant to connect neighborhoods neighborhoods um you know sometimes we can get stuck in our own neighborhoods and just do things there but now with the the completion of the south side trail we encourage people from the east side to go to the west side and check out the south side and the north side is is going to be done in 2030 so it'll be exciting to go up there and go do things i think it's great to get out of your neighborhood and go check out other things um i do want to shout out also our sponsors for this event so the presenting sponsor is Hertz Gold Squad and then we have seven other sponsors that are getting involved so and tons of different restaurants and businesses that are going to be part of the trick-or-treating so that'll be exciting too um and they'll have some um specials uh too for humans and dogs um but yeah i think it's just a great time for people to get together from all over Atlanta and enjoy a fun halloween day i know you mentioned the race uh is there and this obviously the event this weekend uh is there anything else you guys have in the pipeline over the course of the next couple of months that people should be on the lookout for yeah the race is the big one for the for the end of this year what was exciting this year is the first year we did the south side race with the opening of that trail so um when that race happens on december 5th we will open up signups for all of the races next year so um if you're a runner or even if you just want to do the 3k and walk it with your dog um i yeah sign up for all of next year's races because it's super fun to see all the different areas of the trail. But in terms of this year, like that's our big event. And then we also have an Empower workshop coming up in December. And people can find out all about these events at Beltline.org. Just go to the events page. I keep saying once you guys finish the entire trail where you can do it one big loop around, I would love to make a day of it being able to hop on a bike, hop on a scooter, and just make it all the way around and explore different local businesses. Yeah. Because there's a lot going on. Yeah, it's great. It's really amazing. I'm from Atlanta, so it's nice to be able to get to places without a car. It's nice. Well, David Barton from the Atlanta Beltline Partnership, I appreciate you joining us this afternoon to talk about the Halloween event that you guys are doing this weekend. And I'm sure a lot of people are going to love it if they're walking the Beltline and seeing all these dogs. It seems like it's going to be a great event. Yeah, we're looking forward to it. And again, encourage everyone to come out. Thank you so much, Tyler. I really appreciate it. David Barton from the Atlanta Beltline Partnership. Thanks so much for joining us.