Derry's Delightfully Disturbing Halloween Showdown

The Offbeat League invites you to a showdown like no other: a game of Halloween costumes between the Harlem Couch Potatoes and the Derry Ballooons [sic]. It’s set in Derry, a town where time likes to take wrong turns, logic keeps forgetting where it left its car keys, and costumes have a reputation for bringing out smiles—whether they stem from happiness or an underlying sense of unease, well, that’s anyone’s guess.

The Harlem Couch Potatoes, those masters of competitive inaction, have a simple plan: do everything while doing as little as possible. Their coach, The Couch—possibly a sentient sofa, possibly an old philosopher who gave up on life beyond cushions—might attend in person or might coach remotely. After all, why move when you can stay perfectly still and still win? If The Couch opts for “smart working”, it’ll be from the comfort of its favorite upholstery, whispering strategies through the airwaves. Either way, the Harlem squad, led by the unflappable Recliner Reggie, will come prepared—as long as preparation involves perfecting the fluffiness of cushions and the art of remote-controlled snack acquisition.

On the other side, we have the Derry Ballooons [sic], born from Derry’s imagination after midnight, which means they defy not just gravity but most laws of sensibility. Harlequin, their captain, never truly walks—he floats, drifts, and sometimes manages to hover sideways. His grin is almost certainly an independent entity, one that seems to have a hidden agenda involving making opponents question everything they know about reality. And then there’s Halflequin, armed with his Pouch of Improbable Inflations™, ready to unleash balloons that seem to have their own definition of physics. In the last game against the New York Climbers, during the window cleaning challenge, a butterfly balloon made the winning move by unexpectedly cleaning a window—a moment that startled everyone, including the window itself.

But this time it’s about costumes. And in Derry, Halloween isn’t just a day; it’s a feeling—a slightly eerie, thoroughly unpredictable celebration of the absurd. The Potatoes are rumored to be dressing as “other people who are lounging”, which should surprise precisely no one, while Harlequin is reportedly working on a costume that’s both more and less than it appears—a Schrödinger’s costume, if you will. Meanwhile, Halflequin plans to dress as a “ballet dancer trapped in a funhouse mirror reflection”, whatever that means.

Will The Couch actually leave its cozy confines, or will it coach via television from Harlem’s best-kept sofa? Will Harlequin succeed in making everyone question what’s even real? Will Halflequin’s balloons transform into something spooky, physically improbable and even a winning move again? Join us in Derry to witness a game that promises to once and for all show us which side can make Halloween truly offbeat, in a place where the unexpected lurks behind every corner, and reality itself might just decide to take the night off.