“A cultural mainstay in Jersey City”
— James Solomon, Mayor of Jersey City
“One of the city’s best-loved annual events”
— Jersey City Times, 2025
“One of Jersey City’s most anticipated events”
— Jersey City Times, 2024
“A destination affair during Halloween weekend”
— Gothamist
“An Amazing Spectacle”
— City of Jersey City (via Facebook)

October 24, 2026

you’re invited to the
7th Annual Zombie Opera

from
pandemic
to Endemic

The Zombie Opera is never going to die!

A 2020 pop-up performance is now a yearly staple, and Jersey City’s favorite extra day of Halloween. Entering its seventh year, our labor-of-love show has grown to a spectacular scale.

A look back at the 2025 Zombie Opera in Jersey City, NJ.

The First Zombie Opera

October 31, 2020

A humble Halloween celebration during the Covid-19 pandemic meant to provide free and socially-distanced entertainment to residents. Performances were split across two stoops on opposite sides of Jersey Avenue between 6th and 7th St.

  • Attendees : 1000 people

  • Singers : 5 opera singers

  • Crew : 3 (1 director, 1 makeup artist, 1 production designer)

  • Essential Volunteers : 7

Technical Details

  • Music : 2 speakers playing backing tracks

  • Set & Lights : 4 strings of lights, 2 clips lights, foam gravestones

  • Costumes : singers provided their own

October 25, 2025

The sixth Zombie Opera

Now a full-scale spectacle built around the gazebo in Hamilton Park, the sixth year of the show is 900% larger than the first. (We did the math but we will not show our work.)

  • Attendees : 4000+ people

  • Performers : 6 opera singers supported by a 16-member chorus, MCed by Jersey City’s Poet Laureate

  • Dancers : 24 dancers, 2 choreographers

  • Crew : 23+ (including 1 director, 1 art director, 3 hair and makeup artists, 1 set painter, 1 sewing assistant, 1 videographer, 2 photographers, 3 production coordinators, 1 graphic designer, 7 technicians, 1 lighting designer, 1 sound designer)

  • Essential Volunteers : 12+

Technical Details

  • Music : a 24 speaker sound system for an orchestra of 17 players and 1 conductor, with 1 DJ for before and after the show

  • Video (added in 2024) : Two 16ft LED video walls

  • Lights & Projections: a 24ft truss system rigged with 20 LED lights and HD projectors

  • A fully immersive Set, including a clamshell fit for a goddess

  • Costumes : 27 sewn costumes plus 1 lightning bolt

  • Photo Booth : large enough to fit a family of 4

  • Merchandise : 200 t-shirts sold (and counting!)

read more about the zombie opera
Meet the Zombie Opera team
A performance scene on a brick building's balcony with a woman in a red dress, wearing Halloween-style face paint, standing next to a microphone stand, with a man in the background. Another person is on the balcony with decorations resembling gravestones and metal railing.

year one : 2020

year six : 2025

some things may have changed…

…but one thing remains the same:

We are committed to

keeping the Zombie Opera
a free & Accessible event

For the lifetime of the show