Halloween

Halloween is a seasonal event in Pokémon GO that takes place in the latter half of October to celebrate real-world Halloween.

2016 Event
The Halloween 2016 event took place from October through November, 2016.

Features
Trainers received double candy for catching, hatching and transfer of Pokémon. The required Buddy distance was a quarter of its regular amount, which means that Pokémon received candy four times faster.

Featured Pokémon
Following Kanto-region, Ghost and "spooky"-themed Pokémon had increased spawn rate in the wild:

2017 Event
The Halloween 2017 event took place from October through November, 2017.

Features
Similarly to the year-before event, double amount of candies was awarded for catching, hatching, and transfer of Pokémon. Buddy Pokémon found Candy twice as fast.

Moreover, a free Mimikyu’s Disguise Hat became accessible from the Wardrobe.

Featured Pokémon
5 select Ghost-type Pokémon from the Hoenn region were released to be caught in wild and hatched from eggs: Sableye, Shuppet, Banette, Duskull, and Dusclops.

There was also Pikachu family members wearing a witch hat, temporally available to obtain through catching in wild (Pikachu and Raichu), hatching from eggs (Pichu) and evolution from one to another.

Following Pokémon had increased spawn rate in the wild:

Moreover, these Shiny Pokémon were released.

Additionally, there was possibility to hatch Pichu wearing witch hat from 2-km Eggs.

Shop special offer
Special boxes, featuring items such as Raid Passes and Super Incubators, were available from the in-game shop.

2018 Event
The Halloween 2018 event took place from October through November, 2018.

Features
Ghost-type and Dark-type Pokémon originally discovered in the Sinnoh region, such as Drifloon and Stunky, could be seen more frequently in the wild. The Renegade Pokémon, Giratina, made its first appearance in Raid Battles as a Raid Boss until November.

Unlike the two previous Halloween events, rather than receiving double Candy for all game actions including quarter Buddy distance, the only task where Candy was doubled was catching Pokémon.

Featured Pokémon
Following Pokémon have increased spawn rates in the wild:

Moreover, the following Shiny Pokémon became available: Additionally, Spiritomb is available exclusively for completing Special Research tasks series.

The following Raid Bosses were available for a time of this event.

Shop special offer
The following offers were available from the shop from the start of the event.

Field Research event tasks
There were several Field Research tasks exclusively available only for the time of Halloween 2018. There was a possibility to encounter shiny variants of Sableye as the reward for these tasks.

Special research tasks
There is a three-part Special Research quest called A Spooky Message.

Avatar style items

 * Gengar backpack
 * Gengar shirt
 * Gengar hat
 * Drifloon hat
 * Drifblim shirt
 * Mismagius hat
 * Spiritomb shirt

Promotional pictures
Following promotional pictures were published by creators of the game across their social media channels.

Trivia

 * Halloween event in 2016 was the first in-game event in the game history.
 * During the Halloween event of 2017 there were several Shiny Pokémon released:
 * On October, 2017 - Shiny Sableye began appearing on the first day of the Halloween event of 2017.
 * On October, 2017 - Shiny Duskull and its family Pokémon began to appear six days into the event.
 * On October, 2017 - Shiny Shuppet and its family Pokémon began to appear 11 days into the event.
 * During the Halloween event in 2017, there were shiny forms of Gastly family members added to game data, although they weren't released to be caught in gameplay.
 * Shiny variants of family members of both Gastly and Misdreavus families were highly anticipated by players to appear during Halloween event in 2017 and later 2018, however neither of these Pokémon's Shiny form were released then.
 * However, shiny variants of Gastly and its evolved forms were released on Gengar Day, and shiny forms of Misdreavus and Mismagius got released on December, 2018 with new Field Research Tasks for that month.
 * Halloween event is the first and so far only event to have three editions, as it happened each year since the game release.