Burns National Heritage Park's Darkest Ayrshire festival of Scotland's Hallowe'en proved a success in its first year. The project, which is part-funded by a Tourism Innovation Development Award from Scottish Enterprise, saw a series of Hallowe'en events at Burns National Heritage Park and other participating Ayrshire attractions as well as the distribution of a free 24-page guide to Ayrshire's mysterious and bloody folklore. Over 1000 people attended scheduled events and thousands more visited the featured attractions during the festival. The festival events and the Darkest Ayrshire guide received national television and press coverage and BNHP is already receiving enquiries about next year's Darkest Ayrshire events.

The mini-festival had two principal aims. One was to reclaim Hallowe'en as a Scottish festival and the other was to celebrate Ayrshire as the spookiest and most mysterious region in Scotland and a natural destination for visitors with an interest in the darker side of culture and heritage. Burns National Heritage Park, Kelburn Castle and Countryside Centre, Vikingar! and Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park, The Great Escape, all participated in the festival, staging special Hallowe'en events. The events, which ranged from Hallowe'en parties and storytelling to Druidic rites and an all-night ghost vigil, were extremely popular, with over half of events completely selling out. The positive response to the festival in its first year will hopefully encourage more tourism businesses to participate in next year's Darkest Ayrshire festival and the mass of responses to the guide have already provided enough additional material for a second edition.n More than anything, the festival has confirmed Darkest Ayrshire as Scotland's spookiest, most mysterious and most blood-soaked region!