Hundreds of kids will have Sophia Araujo to thank for their Halloween fun this weekend.

She's behind tomorrow's Spooktacular Halloween Boo-Thru in the Botanical Gardens. Costumed characters will decorate a route through the Paget park, handing out candy and treats to kids as they are driven past.

Ms Araujo, who plans events through her company Kreative Innovations, came up with the idea after she was unable to find a safe way for her daughters to enjoy the annual celebration.

"I was looking around trying to see if anything was happening for my girls, who are two and eight, and realised there was nothing going on," she said. "I thought it would be an amazing opportunity for all the kids of Bermuda just to experience a little bit of trick-or-treating; they’ve lost out on so much through Covid.

"I actually do event planning specifically for kids and it has been continuous – cancellation after cancellation after cancellation. I just felt like I wanted to give back a little bit to them."

Apart from candy, trick-or-treaters will receive cake pops, popcorn "and all sorts of baked treats".

"We are going to be setting up stations that are going to be themed in different ways, to have the kids drive by and collect candy," Ms Araujo said.

"There will be a fairytale land, so a little fairytale area staged set-up, there will be a hocus-pocus space, there will be a graveyard area with skeletons and ghosts and then a haunted pirates area and a haunted circus area. It's kind of like a reverse trick-or-treat – typically you'd drive up, you get out of the car and you go and collect candy. Instead you drive up and the candy comes to you."

Two people dressed in costume will hand out candy at each station. Ms Araujo loved that the idea was relatively easy to execute.

"I've been wanting to do an event for kids specifically for Halloween for the past three years but Covid put a hold on all of that and I was trying to see what we could do that’s safe and good for the kids and easy, simple," she said.

"They have to stay in their cars, no matter what; they have to be masked to receive the candy."

To capture the moment she plans to have a photo opportunity at the very end of the route.

"I'm going to do a backdrop set-up where, one by one if they need to, they can get out of the car quickly to get a quick little snapshot and then head on their way.

"But basically from 4pm to 8pm it will just continue on with people just driving through and collecting candy."

With her own daughters in mind she designed an event that would be appropriate for trick-or-treaters of all ages.

"I've had people ask me, 'I have a really young child, is it going to be OK for them?' So we are going to have some spooky things but, because it's during the day it makes it a little bit less spooky.

"We've taken a lot into consideration what would be appropriate for different age groups – I do that with my own parties as well. We're going to make it fun and exciting for all of them."

Her hope is that people with younger children come during the day. As it gets closer to the evening her plan is to "spook it up a little bit more" for the older ones.

"I do event planning and I do event décor and then I also do character entertainment so there will be mascots as well as live characters," she said. "What we're going to do is bring the props to life, if you want to call it that."

The Boo-Thru starts at the Botanical Gardens entrance on South Road, Paget, across the street from Peace Lutheran Church. Cars will exit onto Berry Hill Road.

"It was the tightest, safest way we could make it happen," Ms Araujo said.

She started Kreative Innovations five years ago with a goal of providing customers "with an out-of-this-world experience that will leave you and your guests speechless".

The company offers event planning and décor, fire and LED entertainment as well as character entertainment.

"I actually do custom party supplies as well – things like cake toppers and banners, I actually make all of that stuff," she added.

Response to tomorrow's event has been "amazing". At 7pm on Tuesday night she was expecting 197 cars and roughly 417 kids and was forced to cap ticket sales at midnight on Wednesday.

"We started seeing the numbers go up and up and up over the last couple of days," Ms Araujo said. "I needed to make sure I had enough candy and also that I could bag enough candy."

For more information: kreative@kreativeinnovations.com; 532-0373