Virtual Halloween Party Ideas, Games & Activities for 2023

Here is our list of the best virtual Halloween party ideas, games and activities.

Virtual Halloween parties are online Halloween events held on platforms like Zoom, Skype, and WebEx. The activities and games at these events tend to be Halloween themed, and may include virtual trick or treat, spooky scavenger hunts, and online haunted houses. Halloween is on October 31 each year, so these parties usually take place at the end of October. You may also call this event a “Zoom Halloween party”, “online Halloween party”, or “remote Halloween.”

Virtual Halloween is a type of virtual team celebration, is similar to hybrid Halloween and a subset of virtual holiday parties and Halloween team building.

This list includes:

• virtual Halloween ideas
• online Halloween games
• virtual Halloween activities
• Halloween Zoom ideas
• virtual Halloween events
• virtual Halloween activities for adults
• virtual Halloween ideas for students

And more spooky ideas too 🙂

Here is the list.

Virtual Halloween party ideas

Your team can put the web in WebEx this year by hosting a hair-raising virtual Halloween party for the office. From horror movie marathons to virtual haunted house tours, here are some fun ideas for your online Halloween party.

1. Fully Hosted Virtual Halloween Party 👻

We created a Virtual Halloween Party event that remote teams LOVE. The event is 90 minutes and includes Halloween themed games and activities like haunted trivia and trick-or-treat icebreakers. The experience is designed from the ground up for maximum engagement, even for introverts.

We built this event with team building in mind, which means we focus on connecting your people and creating genuine friendships; it’s not only fun, it’s impactful. Our host is trained to maximize engagement and make sure your people feel comfortable and confident participating.

Learn more about fully hosted virtual Halloween parties.

2. Virtual Halloween Bingo

Bingo is one of the easiest virtual Halloween party games to play. With online parties, you don’t even need a printer; simply randomize the squares and send players a link.

We made a template you can send to your squad.

To play, split up into breakout rooms and ask questions of other party guests. Players can also fill in the spaces from memory or personal knowledge but will have to back up the facts. Participants cannot use the same teammate in any consecutive row, column, or diagonal.

Here is another virtual Halloween Bingo template.

Learn more about virtual team Bingo.

3. Ghost Hunt in a Haunted Mansion 👻

Ghost Hunt in a Haunted Mansion is a guided virtual haunted house activity. In this 90 minute event, a spooktacular host leads teams on a Zoom tour of the famous Winchester Mansion. Throughout the experience, teams must cooperate to find clues, crack codes, and beat puzzles. This event is a lively, collaborative Halloween challenge that tests team’s smarts and bravery.

Learn more about Ghost Hunt in a Haunted Mansion.

4. Virtual Trick or Treat

Trick or treating is one of the most exciting Halloween activities. Virtual trick or treating allows your remote employees to enjoy the spoils of the Halloween hunt without strangers asking, “aren’t you too old for this, Michael?”

How to virtual trick or treat:

1. Send each member of your team a digital treat, such as virtual wallpapers, credits for app downloads, or online gift cards.
2. Encourage your teammates to reach out to each other via email or instant messenger.
3. Equip the gift givers with Halloween jokes, riddles, and questions for trick or treaters to answer.
4. Instruct your gift givers to send the treats when trick or treaters answer correctly.

This activity encourages remote team members to interact and adds a modern twist to a nostalgic Halloween experience.

5. Virtual Halloween Scavenger Hunt

Playing games online is one of the most entertaining virtual Halloween party ideas. There are plenty of ways to add a spooky twist to standard remote team building games, including completing a Halloween-themed scavenger hunt.

We made a template for a Halloween scavenger hunt you can play with your teams during your online celebration.

To play:

1. Schedule a team and pick your online conference software.
2. Divide your group into smaller teams, give each team the list, and allow a designated amount of time for teams to complete the challenge. We recommend no more than 30 minutes.
3. Utilize the breakout rooms feature in Zoom to allow players to strategize and collaborate in small groups.
4. Award a spooky prize to the winning team!

Feel free to add even more creepy clues to increase the ghostly challenge for your team.

6. Virtual Haunted House Tour

Haunted houses are a staple of Halloween entertainment. Though you and your remote team may not be able to physically tour an abandoned mansion or take a frightening hayride together, you can still give your group goosebumps with a virtual haunted house experience.

Virtual tours of real-life creepy locations:

• The Paris Catacombs
• Isla de las Muñecas (Island of the Dolls)
• Winchester Mystery House

You could also follow virtual walk-throughs of entertainment-based haunted houses, such as the ones on this YouTube playlist.

These virtual tours provide all the thrills and chills of a traditional haunted house experience, with the added bonus of allowing you to switch to a different tab if it get too scary.

Check out our list of virtual haunted houses you can explore with your team.

7. Virtual Halloween Costume Contest

All Halloween parties need costumes, and virtual celebrations are no exceptions. To set the tone of the holiday, invite your attendees to join the video call in costume. Be sure to set a dress code so that employees know that holiday attire should remain professional, so no overly revealing garments or excessive gore.

Virtual costume party ideas:

• Disney characters
• Movie monsters
• Anything but humans
• Classic commercials
• Guests from the future

You can up the fun factor by hosting a virtual costume contest. Before the party, announce the categories, such as best coordinated costume, funniest costume, scariest costume, most creative costume, most detailed costume, and most timely costume. During the call, you can ask attendees to cast votes for the top costume in each category using your video platform’s polling feature or private chat. Once all votes are in, announce the winners and award prizes like Starbucks or Amazon gift cards.

Pro tip: Award extra points to anyone who dresses up a pet!

Check out our post on virtual costume contests for more ideas.

8. Halloween Zoom Backgrounds

Sure, you and your team could go crazy covering the living room in artificial cobwebs or writing threatening messages in fake blood on the walls. Or, you could decorate for your Zoom Halloween party the easy way by changing your Zoom backgrounds to sinister or seasonal scenes.

Spooky Zoom background suggestions:

• Haunted house
• Graveyard
• Pumpkin patch
• Foggy forest
• Full moon
• Hotel hallway from “The Shining”
• Disembodied hands
• Zombie wasteland

You can even turn the activity into a competition and award a prize to the most amusing, creative, or interesting entry.

Here is a tutorial from Zoom on how to change your background.

9. Alice Escapes Wonderland

While Alice in Wonderland is not strictly a Halloween story, its characters have made popular Halloween costumes for decades. Not to mention, the fantastical nature of Wonderland fits right in with this most imaginative of holidays. In this 90-minute fully-facilitated virtual events, teams fall down the rabbit hole into an immersive 3-D VR hub. Players embark on a quest to retrieve Alice’s stolen mirror and help her return home. This escape room experience includes puzzles, riddles, mazes, and wordplay galore. Each puzzle is interactive and on-theme and makes for a thrilling adventure!

Learn more about Alice Escapes Wonderland.

10. Virtual Halloween Movie Marathon

Halloween and Christmas are the holidays with the most TV and movie specials. While Christmas movies aim to make you feel warm and fuzzy, Halloween moves aim to make you scream, either with fear or with laughter.

To set the mood for your online Halloween party, you and your team can stream creepy Halloween content on platforms like Zoom. By using a program like Metastream, you and your group can watch shows and movies simultaneously.

Scary Halloween movies:

• Friday the 13th
• Nightmare on Elm Street
• Halloween
• The Exorcist
• The Ring
• The Sixth Sense
• Insidious
• Cloverfield
• Poltergeist

Funny Halloween movies:

• Clue
• The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror specials
• It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
• Hocus Pocus
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Young Frankenstein
• Ghostbusters
• Beetlejuice
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Watching Halloween specials together is a great way to find out which of your virtual teammates are jumpy and which ones have wicked senses of humor. Not to mention, surviving scary movie viewings is always easier with company!

11. Espionage!

Rather than just dress like spies, Espionage! lets teammates role play as operatives. In this fully-hosted virtual event, players assume the roles of agents or double agents. Over the course of 90-minutes players engage in subterfuge, sabotage, and suspicion as the true spies try to pinpoint the traitors, and the moles try to mess up the mission while remaining unseen. While most team building events focus on building trust, Espionage lets teammates point fingers at each other, all in fun, of course. This experience is full of faced-paced puzzles and brain-bending challenges, as well as practice in people-reading.

Learn more about Espionage!

12. Halloween Candy Goodie Bags

Halloween is notorious for two things: costumes and candy. No Halloween party would be complete without sweet treats. Instead of making your employees dip into the trick-or-treat stash, send each team member sweets to enjoy during your virtual Halloween bash.

Virtual Halloween sweet treat ideas:

• Full size candy bars, the ultimate trick or treat score
• Candy boxes, like these subscription boxes from Cratejoy or these assortments from Amazon
• Candy or caramel apple kits
• Cupcakes in a jar, like these confections from Baked Cravings

If you want to personalize your goodie bags, then you can always create your own candy bags to mail to the team. You can even include some fun Halloween-themed toys such as spider rings, vampire fangs, and witch fingers. Your team may consist of modern professionals, but chances are many of your colleagues are kids at heart when it comes to candy.

13. Digital Fortune Telling

The supernatural takes center stage in the month of October. During your virtual Halloween party, entertain your team with the occult by way of digital fortune telling and online seances.

You can consult a virtual Ouija board on the Museum of Talking Boards website, or get a free online tarot card reading from Lotus Tarot. A site called Spirit Navigator offers upwards of fifty different free online fortune telling methods, so you and your team can explore various options of reading your fates.

Or, if you and your team would rather not tamper with the unknown, then you can craft custom fortunes for teammates as a storytelling exercise.

14. Ghost Stories

Ghost stories are a classic form of Halloween entertainment. You can liven up your online Halloween party by asking your teammates to share spine-tingling scary stories.

For inspiration, check out CreepyPasta, which are scary stories shared on various websites. You can also read through this list of terrifying tales on HuffPost or head over to the super short scary stories section on Reddit for ideas on how to tell a bone-chilling tale.

If your team feels creepily creative, then each member can write an original frightening story to share. Or, if you and the gang would rather listen to a guide tell ghost stories, you can check out our guided tiny campfire event and enjoy s’mores while you shiver.

15. Creepy Cocktails

Adult Halloween parties have one distinct advantage over kid’s Halloween parties: booze. Halloween-themed cocktails can add an element of eerie fun to your online soiree.

For inspiration, check out this list of creepy cocktails from Good Housekeeping.

I recommend sending your team a list of ingredients or recipes ahead of time so that your guests come prepared. You can either lead the team through a Halloween-drink-making tutorial during the call, or you can allow each team member to pick a poison and brew a Halloween spirit to bring to the party.

Online Halloween games

Virtual Halloween games are contests to entertain your online party guests. From murder mysteries to scavenger hunts, here is a list of online Halloween games you can play at your party. These activities are also called virtual Halloween party games.

16. Virtual Halloween Persona Game

Virtual Halloween games will keep your guests entertained during your online bash. The Halloween party persona game is an improv activity where each guest acts out a distinct trait and other guests must guess the quirk. We made a template with ideas for Halloween-themed personas, and you can add your own identities to the list too.

To play:

1. Wait for all participants to join the video call.
2. Privately message each team member with a quirk. To save time, you could also email players the quirk before the call.
3. Allow 10 to 15 minutes for participants to interact.
4. At the end of the game, ask participants to send you guesses on the identities of each unique Halloween party guest.
5. Reveal the identities. Tally up correct answers and award the winner.

You can play as many rounds as you would like or as time allows. This game serves as a great icebreaker, as well as an opportunity for teams to exercise imagination and communication skills.

17. Murder Mystery Games

Halloween is one of the best times of the year to plan a murder mystery party. There are many virtual murder mystery games that can challenge your team to figure out the killer.

For instance, we host a virtual Halloween-friendly event called Murder in Ancient Egypt that challenges players to unravel clues about one of Egypt’s most infamous mysteries. Since mummies are classic horror movie characters, this mystery fits right into the Halloween theme. You can find other pre-made murder mystery packages online, or you can even write your own.

Playing Halloween games online encourages remote teammates to communicate and use critical thinking skills to solve puzzles and riddles. Murder mystery games encourage teamwork and collaboration in a fun and relaxed environment. Plus, these games award the master detectives on your team with verified bragging rights.

Here is our complete guide to online murder mysteries.

18. Zombie

Zombie is a game that promotes mindfulness. From time to time, each of us zones out and enters “zombie mode.” To play Zombie, ask your staff if they have done any of the following actions without thinking:

• Forgot to double check the front door lock
• Got out of the car to check that front door locked
• Took a bite of a food with the wrapper still on
• Put a non-food item in the fridge
• Forgot where you parked
• Tried to get into the wrong car
• Forgot to pick the kids up from school
• Missed a meeting
• Thought it was a different weekday
• Forgot a birthday
• Accidentally missed a deadline
• Forgot lunch at home
• Forgot you brought lunch and ordered out
• Misplaced your glasses
• Misplaced your coffee cup
• Misplaced an important paper
• Accidentally deleted an important email
• Forgot your keys
• Forgot your wallet
• Locked yourself out
• Misspelled your email address

Most of us have fallen victim to the mistakes on this list at least once or twice in our lives, so you may want to shorten the window to the last six months or so.

If the statement applies, then the player “got bitten” and must blackout their screen. The last player remaining wins the game.

19. Guess Whoooo?

Guess Whoooo? is a team bonding game that invites players to determine the identity of people answering questions. To play virtually, a leader will ask the group a Halloween-themed question. All players will privately message the leader the answer. The leader will then share the responses, and players must match each reply to the correct participant. Players can either try to guess individually all at once, or can discuss answers together and narrow down the pairs one by one.

We made a template you can use for your game.

Feel free to add your own spooky prompts, too!

20.Zoom Trivia

Zoom Trivia is one of the best games for virtual Halloween parties. Guests can split into teams and square off in a test of spooky season smarts. Trivia categories may include traditions, candy, horror movies, monsters, and costumes. You can either write your own questions, or find sample Halloween trivia questions online. Or, you can book a hosted trivia session and let the emcee be the judge of who among your team is the pumKING of scary trivia.

For a facilitated trivia event, check out Virtual Halloween Trivia or Virtual Scary Movie Trivia.

21. Virtual Crime Scene Investigation

A virtual crime scene investigation, or V.C.S.I for short, is a problem solving game similar to murder mysteries and escape rooms. In this game, participants review a crime scene and follow clues to answer the ultimate questions: who did it, how and why? These games are excellent for Halloween, fun for participants, and a highly engaging way to spice up your Zoom Halloween Party.

Learn more about virtual crime scene investigation games.

Virtual Halloween activities

Virtual Halloween party activities are fun ways to entertain guests at virtual Halloween parties, and are not necessarily games. Below, you will find unique ideas like Drink and candy pairings, and scary story writing.

22. Virtual Escape Room

Escape rooms are a popular corporate team building activity, and virtual escape rooms are a fun way to spice up your online Halloween party. These web-based adventures challenge your teammates to work together to find clues and solve puzzles.

You can turn the activity into a competition by splitting the group into teams and racing to find the answer, or you can complete the tasks together as one entity. Choosing a seasonally appropriate online escape room such as Murder in Ancient Egypt, or the Hogwarts Escape Room keeps your online Halloween party on-theme.

23. Virtual Pumpkin Decorating

Jack-o-lantern carving and pumpkin decorating are Halloween party staples. Though a member of your crew may not be able to pass you the glitter glue, you can still craft a ghoulish gourd together as one of your virtual Halloween party activities.

To ensure that your team has all the supplies for a dazzling design, send decorating kits with the following materials:

• Sharpie markers
• Glue
• Glitter
• Puffy paint
• Bat and ghost confetti
• Googly eyes
• Carving knife

Shipping real pumpkins may prove to be costly and slimy, so consider reimbursing staff for mini-pumpkins, or sending replicas from Amazon or a craft store instead.

Here is a guide to doing online pumpkin carving.

24. Drink and Candy Pairing

Halloween parties often feature a witches brew or two and plenty of spooky snacks. Pretzels pair well with beer, and wine-sippers love a bite of cheese, but few folks know what beverages compliment Halloween candy. A drink and candy pairing makes for a unique remote Halloween activity, and is the perfect marriage of kid Halloween and adult Halloween.

Since not everyone drinks alcohol, we provided virgin beverage options too.

Feel free to experiment. You could even use the polling feature to vote on the best combinations!

25. Virtual Halloween Icebreaker Questions

Starting your party with icebreaker questions is a great way to warm up guests. By theming your questions toward Halloween, you can also help everyone get in the holiday spirit.

Here is a starter list of icebreakers:

• What is your earliest memory of Halloween?
• Which movie were you too scared to watch as a kid?
• What is the best horror movie of all time?
• Would you rather be a vampire or a ghost?
• Do you prefer chocolate or chips?
• What is the best candy in the world?

Here is a longer list of icebreaker questions you can reference too.

26. True Crime Podcast

While ghosts and goblins grant some folks a proper Halloween fix, other people prefer real life horrors. By listening to a true crime podcast, you and your gang can hear a chilling real-life tale and try to unravel the mystery.

Here are some crime podcasts to check out:

• Serial
• My Favorite Murder
• Dirty John
• What Did You Do?!
• Missing & Murdered
• Once Upon a Crime
• Criminal
• RedHanded

To add to the intrigue, pause the podcast to discuss and debate the case and concoct your own theories.

27. Scary Story Writing

Anyone who has ever shouted, “Don’t go into the basement!” during a horror movie will enjoy writing scary stories with the team. To start this activity, give guests a first line or theme.

Suggestions for prompts:

• It was a dark and stormy night…
• The house stood empty for as long as anybody could remember…
• It all started when he died…
• I was sure I was alone, until…
• I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone, or something, was watching me…
• A scream rang out through the silence…
• They came from the sea…
• Murder is never a pleasant affair, but this one was especially foul…

Either tell the tale aloud a few lines at a time, with each guest taking a turn, or compose the story sentence by sentence in the chat. If you type the story, then the activity becomes a race to see which participant can answer first or concoct the craziest response.

28. War of the Wizards (Fun RPG)

Halloween celebrates magic, and nobody does magic better than witches and wizards. Fans of Gandalf and Harry Potter will love War of the Wizards, a guided virtual event that combines elements of role-playing and storytelling to lead teams through a magical challenge.

Throughout the game, teams will work together to tell stories and solve puzzles in order to vanquish the forces of evil. Teams can get creative and downright witchy in a friendly competition to save the world from a sinister wizard. Teammates who dreamed of receiving a letter to Hogwarts can live out spell-casting fantasies through this online experience.

Learn more about War of the Wizards.

Virtual Halloween Ideas for Students & Kids

While many of the activities and ideas in this article work for younger audiences too, the items on the list below are ways you can make online Halloween parties extra fun for kids and students.

29. I Spy Halloween

I Spy is a game of inference that forces players to pay close attention to surroundings. One player picks an object, says “I spy with my little eye, something….” and describes the object. In turn, other players guess items.

For best results, follow these three rules:

1. Objects must be in clear view of the screen.
2. Objects must be large.
3. Objects must be Halloween-related.

To make the game easier for kids, you and the other adults can plant Halloween objects around your rooms, or use custom holiday-themed backgrounds.

Pro-tip: During your Zoom Halloween party, you should divide large groups into breakout rooms so that players can participate and interact more easily.

30. Mask-Making

Crafts are a great way to entertain kids during a remote Halloween party, and masks are great crafts. The supplies are easy and inexpensive to send. Either slip a plain white eye mask and decorations such as feathers, stickers, googly-eyes and glitter into an envelope, or send guests a printable mask pattern and encourage drawing by marker.

During your party, embellish the masks together. We recommend pausing every few minutes to show-off and share progress, which will keep the kids excited and engaged.

31. Scream-Off

Kids love to scream, and Halloween is one of the only times of year that screaming is festive instead of impolite. Using an online decibel meter like Youlean and your computer’s microphone, measure the intensity of your young guests’ shrieks. Feel free to encourage the kids to shout louder, as long as the neighbors are not nearby! After every attendee has a turn, and you engage in one ear-splitting group screech, award the loudest yowler with a prize.

Or, you could also use the Scream-O-Meter game on MIT’s Scratch Lab. While this application lacks levels and uses low-key graphics, kids may still enjoy the colors and growing-smiley face effect.

32. Creepy Cookie Decorating

Treats are often the highlight of a Halloween bash, especially the adorable kooky-character-themed snacks that fill the buffet tables at kids’ parties. Though you may not be able to lay out a Pinterest-worthy spread for your online Halloween party, the guests can still decorate creepy cookies live on camera.

To decorate spooky spider cookies, you only need three ingredients:

1. Cookies
2. Peanut butter cups
3. Chocolate frosting

Simply affix the peanut butter cups to the cookies using frosting, then use the frosting to draw eight legs. Voila: instant spider cookies.

33. Interactive Storytelling

Because children are balls of energy, convincing kids to sit in front of a computer screen for the duration of a party can be a struggle. Activities that require action and response help hold boys’ and girls’ attention. Interactive storytelling is one way to engage your young crew online. Think the spirit of a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, only with kid-friendly content.

Simply concoct a Halloween story where certain words require reactions. Here is a key:

• Mummy = Wave a sheet of toilet paper
• Ghost = Cover and uncover yourself with a sheet
• Cat = Meow
• Vampire = Show your teeth
• Frankenstein = Shout “it’s Alive!”
• Witch = Hop on and off a broom
• Pumpkin = Eat one piece of orange candy

This exercise not only energizes kids, but also practices following directions.

Virtual Halloween party tips

These virtual Halloween party tips can help you host the spookiest bash your remote team has ever seen.

34. Send Frightening Virtual Halloween Invitations

Part of the fun of Halloween is the hype, and building anticipation for your online Halloween party can add to your team’s excitement. When sending your team invites, use a program like Canva or Crello to craft a devious design.

Haunted houses, graveyards, jack o’lanterns, full moons, and spider webs can set the right tone. True Hallows Eve enthusiasts might even dress up in costume to record a chilling video invite.

35. Curate a Hair-Raising Playlist

During your Zoom Halloween party, you must play the Monster Mash at least once. I don’t make the rules; that song is the official holiday anthem. There are other spooky songs you can add to your party playlist. Horror movie soundtracks can provide more terrifying tunes.

Virtual Halloween playlist suggestions:

• The Nightmare Before Christmas, “This is Halloween.”
• The Exorcist Theme
• Halloween movie theme
• Young Frankenstein, “Putting on the Ritz”
• Ghostbusters theme
• Hocus Pocus, “I Put a Spell on You”
• Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”

You can find pre-made playlists on YouTube and Spotify as well.

36. Gage the Crowd’s Terror Tolerance

On Halloween, some people like to scream in delight, while others prefer to scream in terror. By gaging your guests’ preferences, you can plan virtual team activities that are the ideal balance of scary silly and just plain scary. You can ask your teammates for ideas before the party, or allow the gang to vote on games and other entertainment.

37. Supply the Sugar

Your virtual office may lack a communal candy bowl, but you should still supply your staff with copious amounts of candy at Halloween. You can send your remote teammates treats like fun size candies, cupcakes, Rice Krispies treats, and brownies. Your guests are likely to enjoy the virtual party much more with the right snacks. Best of all, you won’t hear anyone argue over who stole the last mini Snickers.

38. Get into the Halloween Spirit

Halloween parties are most fun when everyone embraces the weird. There is no reason that virtual Halloween parties should be any less thrilling than in-person events. You may need to work harder to create the ambiance, but you will make Halloween fun for your remote staff. You and your virtual coworkers can get into the Halloween spirit by dressing up, decorating, and engaging in spooky themed fun together online. Your team will have the most fun if everyone embraces the spooky spirit of the holiday.

Conclusion

Virtual Halloween parties should feel like special occasions, not average meetings. By using the tips on this list, you can engage your remote employees and ensure your online event makes a big impact.

Next, check out our list of virtual Thanksgiving ideas.

Happy Halloween! 🎃👻