LOS ANGELES — The tall iron gates and 19th-century homes that make up the Heritage Square Museum are spooky enough on their own, but on Saturday, they'll be the backdrop of an event that seeks to conjure that bygone era with mystics, apothecaries, carnival games — even a human freak show.
"Everybody thinks Victorians were conservative, but they enjoyed their evening events," said Kori Capaldi, director of the Heritage Square Museum in Montecito Heights, which will be holding its evening event on June 12 when it's transformed into Les Carnaval de la Lune.
Part Victorian-era circus, part traveling sideshow, the Carnaval will include live performers and photo ops with handcrafted and themed backdrops, as well as a magickal marketplace.
The museum partnered with the event company Witches Brew LA for the Carnaval. The event's night market, running from 4 to 10 p.m., will feature era-appropriate vendors. These include Paper Moon Vintage, "dark crafts" from the Little Haus of Horrors and Little Ghouls perfumes, as well as "frights and bites" from the likes of Bones Brew coffee, Hustle n' Dough doughnuts and the Haunt Dogs Frankenstand.
During LA's Victorian era in the latter half of the 19th century, it wasn't uncommon for residents to indulge in narcotics and enjoy a precursor to film known as phantasmagoria, during which "they truly believed they were seeing something from beyond the grave, so this whole event just plays into that element of what Victorians liked to do," Capaldi said.
On Saturday, Carnaval visitors will have their chance to encounter lost souls with the intuitive guide and occult specialist Zachariah The Witch.
The Victorian era ran from 1850 to around 1920, during Queen Victoria's reign of England. But her influence was felt even as far away as LA.
"People followed her fashion, her beliefs, her etiquette," Capaldi said. "So when architecture came to LA and houses were being built, they took from what Queen Victoria would've built in England and Americanized it."
The nine Victorian buildings that comprise Heritage Square were relocated from Pasadena, Boyle Heights, Highland Park, Palms, and other LA parts where they would otherwise have been destroyed.
Like so many other museums that were forced to close their doors during the COVID-19 pandemic, Heritage Square stopped doing indoor tours last March. Unlike other museums, it has five acres of lawn, trees and gardens that it's kept open for walking tours and picnics.
The Carnaval de la Lune is its first event coming out of the pandemic, and attendees will be required to wear masks. General admission is $15 and includes a two-hour timed entry to the museum grounds for the themed experience. Carnie packages are $35 and include all-day access for the themed experience and marketplace as well as a tote bag and event pin.
While the Carnaval is being billed as an immersive outdoor experience, Heritage Square plans to resume interior tours on June 19.