Winter Carnival committee members vote on the theme for the 2024 event. This year, the theme will be a spooky, creepy celebration of hauntings and spirits. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — BOO! The 2024 Winter Carnival theme will be a spine-tingling time, but the Carnival committee just doesn’t know what to call it yet.

The creepy theme is going by several names right now — Haunted Carnival, Spirited Carnival or Spooky Carnival — the committee still has to hash out the exact phrasing.

Organizers don’t want the theme to be scary in an evil way. Carnival is a family event and they don’t want kids going home to have nightmares. They want it to be fun.

Haunted Carnival has been pitched for several years but has always rejected because people thought it could be too intense for kids.

DJ Fowler has been a big proponent of the chilling idea and said she doesn’t believe it will frighten the youngsters.

“Kids love Halloween,” she said.

Even children can be lovers of the dark and macabre.

At the theme pitch meeting last month, Ice Palace builder and designer Chris Grimone said on the night volunteers knocked down the Ice Palace, a group stuck around and discussed theme ideas in the dark of the night. He said they talked about something like a “Spirited Carnival,” which would be less about frights, and more about fun.

After the Winter Carnival meeting came to a close on Tuesday, committee members set to work at the Elk’s Lodge bar, discussing costumes, floats, music, Ice Palace designs — all the trappings of Carnival — and figuring out how they were going to twist each one into something hair-raising.

It was a tight vote at the theme meeting Tuesday night, with the eerie theme coming to a tie in the final two voting round against a last-minute suggestion from newly elected committee Chair Rob Russell that gained some quick traction.

Inspired by a cosmic event set to pass over this area on April 8, 2024 — two months after Carnival — Russell pitched the idea of a solar eclipse-themed Carnival. He said after Grimone’s Roman theme came in just before the deadline last year, he did not want to set a precedent for pitching new ideas at the voting meeting.

But he wanted to give the eclipse theme its due, as it is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

There were 29 people voting at the meeting. The votes for Haunted Carnival or Eclipse Carnival came in — 14 to 14.

Diana Gill never raised her hand. Grilled by committee members for why she didn’t vote, Gill admitted, “I don’t know which one I like better.”

There was more deliberation on the two themes.

In the end, Russell’s 11th hour idea couldn’t eclipse the draw of the unnerving and unnatural.

Russell sparked more discussion with the idea that the theme could be titled “Fiesta del Sol” — a party of the sun.

Fiesta was set to be the theme for the 2018 Winter Carnival until opposition from community members concerned about its cultural implications got the name changed to “Adirondack Festival.”

The Fiesta theme has come up at every subsequent Carnival theme meeting and has always been controversial every year it is discussed.

There was a lot of healthy and at times heated debate on Tuesday. In the end, the eclipse theme that was in the running did not carry fiesta in the title.

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Other themes and statistics

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Six themes were made finalists out of more than 50 theme ideas that were pitched and discussed at a March theme meeting.

Other finalist theme ideas included Music Legends/Jukebox Heroes, Buggin’ Out, Wizards and Dragons, British Invasion and Dance Party.

The Carnival theme selection process is open to the public, so anyone who attended the meeting had a vote.

The Enterprise held a straw poll on the six themes and received 1,414 responses. This poll is not scientific, and its results represent only the opinions of internet users who have chosen to participate.

Music Legends and Jukebox Heroes got the most votes, with 27% of the total tally. Haunted/Spirited Carnival came in a close second with 25% of the vote. Wizards and Dragons got 11% of the vote. British Invasion got 9%. Buggin’ Out got 8%. Dance Party got 7%. And 13% of respondents were not satisfied with any of the choices and voted for “something else.”

A poll on Winter Carnival social media netted similar results. With 558 voters, Haunted Carnival got 32% of the vote, Music Legends got 23%, Wizards and Dragons got 19%, Dance Party got 11%, British Invasion got 8% and Buggin’ Out got 7%.