Halloween is arguably the best holiday. It offers more candy than Easter, more sexy costumes than Valentine’s Day, more independence than Independence Day, and more gift giving than Christmas (albeit tiny, saccharine ones). Only Thanksgiving is scarier.
Our traditions would be strange to an alien: Carving gourds into slowly rotting porch sculptures, seeking ways to deliberately scare and traumatize ourselves, buying and distributing 300,000 tons of overpriced chocolate for the primary benefit of corporate overlords, and knocking on the doors of neighbors and strangers many of us generally avoid 364 days of the year.
Luckily, Halloween is not truly defined by its bizarre traditions. More than any other holiday, Halloween is what you make it. You can be anyone, and there are so many events to choose from, you could be out in costume from Friday to Tuesday. So to make things a little easier to figure out, we picked the best Halloween events happening in and around Ulster County and parsed them into categories for families, fans of the stage and screen, and adult partiers. Cue the maniacal laughter.
Family-friendly frights
Parents know that while most of the year it’s a struggle to find fun events for kids and adults to enjoy equally together, Halloween inverts this rule. There’s way more to do than any family can squeeze in on a Tuesday school night, even with a sugar rush fueling the festivities. Luckily, there are some great Halloween events on the weekend for all ages.
The Kingston Farmers’ Market is encouraging costumes for all attendees (including pets) on Saturday, starting at 9am. Bring the kids with their trick-or-treat bags to visit each vendor and get an early start on their candy collection (with perhaps an organic fruit or two thrown in). Also in Kingston on Saturday morning (10am), Seed Song Farm hosts a “family fun” weekend with pumpkin and flower picking, hay rides, live music, farm animals, a crop maze, and refreshments (including the always-essential apple cider donuts).
Kingston continues its Saturday celebrations with the MyKingstonKids Halloween Fest starting at 3pm at the YMCA (preceded by a Halloween parade down Broadway at 2pm). Expect live music, music, dancing, carnival games, trick or treating, vendors, food, and of course, adorable costumes.
To escape the city for a folksier, woodsier take on the holiday, head to Ashokan Center at Sunday at 10am in costume (preferably one that’s warm) for a full day of family fun including a spooky, historic scavenger hunt, a parade and costume contest, live reptile show, live music and trail exploration.
For some low-key, non-weekend activities, Monday brings the Halloween Story Time at Esopus Library (10:30am), Halloween Crafternoon at Saugerties Public Library (3:30pm), followed by a Halloween party at 6:30pm. Or check out Boo at the Zoo on Friday in Kingston at Forsyth Park, with costumes encouraged, snacks provided, and a 6:30pm showing of Hocus Pocus.
Oh, that’s not heart-pumping enough for you? Check out Ulstercorps’ 13th annual Zombie Escape at Fifth Lake Hudson Valley (formerly Williams Lake) on Saturday (rain date Sunday). Walk or run through a wooded route that includes tunnels and caves while passing zombies and other scary surprises. There’s a free 1K walk for kids, as well as a 2K walk for all ages and a 5K run.
For pre-teens and teenagers that like a dash of pink with their bloody crimson splatters, the New Paltz Youth Center will be hosting “Barbie’s Screamhouse” on Monday and Tuesday at 6pm. Ages 10 and up will enjoy (or run screaming from) an immersive experience built by the Youth Center community, themed around what is by far the most popular two-hour toy advertisement in history, Barbie.
The Woodstock Chamber of Arts and Commerce and The Secret City have joined forces for the iconic Woodstock Halloween celebration, set for 5pm on Tuesday on the Village Green. This venerable event features a costume parade led by the Rock Academy drumline, a homemade costume contest, free candy from local merchants, and special appearances by the Rosendale Improvement Association Brass Band, Social Club, and Center for Creative Education’s Energy Dancers performing a flash mob to “Thriller”. If this is your family’s first few years in the area and you’ve never experienced a Woodstock trick-or-treat, go see what the locals are always raving about.
New Paltz’s Halloween festivities will, for the second year, center on the grounds of Historic Huguenot Street. On Saturday and Sunday at 10am and 4pm respectively, Historic Huguenot Street hosts its third annual Halloween craft fair and scavenger hunt. Children can engage in three spooky crafts, a landmark district scavenger hunt, and receive Halloween treats. On Halloween night, trick-or-treating on historic Huguenot Street returns from 3:30pm to 5:30pm. At 6pm, a parade will begin at the New Paltz Middle School parking lot and make its way down Main Street, veering right onto North Front Street at the Elting Memorial Library. It will then cross Route 32 with the support of the New Paltz Police Department and continue past the iconic Jean Hasbrouck House. Participants will be invited to collect candy bars, apples and popcorn, while enjoying live music, fun Halloween-themed photo opportunities, juggling performances and more.
Gardiner holds its Halloween parade on Friday, beginning at 3:30pm at the Gardiner Reformed Church. A “haunted library” follows at Gardiner Library at 4:30pm with themes like Barbie’s doll hospital and Harry Potter. Costumes are encouraged, and attendees will be treated to local apples, Stewart’s chocolate milk, and candy.
The Village of Saugerties Fire Department is hosting a children’s Halloween parade on Friday, starting at 5:30pm in the municipal parking lot behind Mirabella’s, and proceeding up Partition Street to the fire department for costume contests and activities. For those who seek to put the “trick” in “trick or treat”, keep in mind the town board mandated an 8pm curfew for trick-or-treaters on October 31 to prevent potential vandalism and ensure children return home in a timely manner.
Saugerties continues its Halloween celebration Saturday at the Saugerties Farmers’ Market. At 11:30am there will be a costume contest for children 12 and under in categories like cutest, scariest, and most creative, as well as a best costumed pet segment. Attendees can win Giovanni Zorlozo’s carved pumpkin and all children will receive gift bags from Lucy Garrison. Christina Brady, a market sponsor, will showcase art techniques and sell hand-painted items. Kids can craft movie monster figures with Anita Barbour, enjoy live music by Dorraine Scofield, and savor a plethora of local farm foods and products.
And who could forget Headless Horseman, one of the nation’s premiere haunted hayride attractions in our own backyard in Ulster Park? Numerous attractions await including movie-set-grade haunted houses, corn mazes and walking trails, open all Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in October.
Scary stories and on-screen screams
Every story has a setting, and Halloween is naturally the best time and place for a scary one. On Thursday, laugh as you are horrified at the WNUF Halloween Special (2013) at the Avalon Lounge in Catskill, 7pm. The film is delightfully unhinged, posing War of the Worlds-style as a real television broadcast (including commercials) from the 80s, taped off the TV onto VHS. A cheesy newscast devolves into a found-footage horror plot involving a haunted house.
Also happening Thursday at 8pm is Whispering Bone 2023: An Evening of Ghost Stories, which promises “giant gray worms, a tell-tale heart, and rats that can speak”. The Park Theater in Hudson will host a talented cast reading works by Poe, M.R. James and others for this 13th annual event.
On Friday at 7pm, the Halloween-friendly-named Graveside Variety in Woodstock (Amanda Palmer’s newish music venue) will host Spooky & Gay, coming Upstate directly from an off-Broadway run of queer horror storytelling, cabaret and stand up comedy.
Of course, you can’t beat the quintessential Halloween movie event: Rocky Horror Picture Show. The film is timeless not just for its bombastic soundtrack, but for its deep message of acceptance and embracing of all that is weird and different. It’ll be playing at a variety of venues and times: Friday and Saturday at Rosendale Theater at 7pm, Friday at Dutchess County Community College in Poughkeepsie at 11pm, and Saturday at Paramount Hudson Valley Theater in Peekskill at 9pm. For a less scary, funnier, more modern take on the same dressed-up theme, Hedwig and the Angry Inch plays Thursday at Upstate Films Orpheum Theatre in Saugerties at 8pm.
For a scare grounded in local history, consider heading to the D&H Canal Historical Society for Haunted High Falls: Tales from the Canal, at 7:30 on Friday. Be guided by a spirit through theatrical scenes telling the grim story of canal construction in the 1800s.
Shot in historic buildings around Van Cortlandt Manor, the spirit of Sleepy Hollow is channeled in The Unsilent Picture (2018), a short silent movie made in modern times. It’s playing at the Saugerties Orpheum Theatre on Sunday at 2pm, and on hand will be director Alex Harvey and foley artist Leslie Bloome.
Also Sunday is “Spooky Stories Around the Firepit” at Opus 40 in Saugerties. Hot cider, smores and spine-tingling storytelling will commence at 4:30pm in this imposing and in some ways foreboding venue. Tour the surrounding “haunted trails” after the story session.
If your screen-scare quota hasn’t been met come the day of Halloween, you can take in the classic Dracula (1931) at Tinker Street Cinema in Woodstock, Tuesday at 8pm. Far from a stodgy, dusty anachronism, Dracula weaves together myriad complex themes that still resonate today: fear of the other, sexuality and desire, duality of human nature, science vs. superstition, colonialism and imperialism, religion and redemption, gender roles, death and immortality, identity and transformation. Fans of early vintage films can also catch the classic Nosferatu (1922) on Saturday at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie, 7:30pm, featuring a live Wurlitzer organ player.
Ghoul’s night out
Halloween is one of those rare holidays that are as fun for adults as kids. Granted, the hangovers are worse, but Halloween allows even the most socially awkward souls a night or two of freedom to be as freaky as they wanna be.
A new Kingston venue, Big Cat, is hosting one of its first events in the Halloween spirit with its Halloweird Party on Friday at 8pm. The space is imagined as an all-inclusive dance floor, and this show will feature reactive LED lighting and a selection of energetic, hypnotic techno music.
Pearl Moon is a hot late-night spot in Woodstock, and their “Danse Macabre: Hallows Eve Dance Party” on Friday at 9pm will spin through 70s, 80s and 90s music with no cover charge and costumed cavorting encouraged.
Also Friday, drag fans can head to The Roosevelt Bar in Beacon at 9pm to witness Yas Diva: Halloween Ball, featuring the fabulous (and prolific) Andramada and Arya Dun. Bring your most dramatic looks to the runway contest and groove to beats by Zeno all night. There’s another Halloween-themed drag queen event Sunday at Stockade Tavern in Kingston (3pm). Details are slim but we know it will involve a $100 costume contest, bingo, and some of the best bartenders and cocktails in the city.
If you waited until the last minute to find a costume and all you have is a box of old clothes, you might be able to assemble a vintage look for the “All 80s Dance Party, Light Show and Costume Contest” at Keegan Ales in Kingston, 8pm on Saturday night. Of course, any costume will do, but extra points for you Hulk Hogans, Princes, Madonnas… and can I get a Samantha Foxx?
Saturday at 6pm, catch Bloodshot Bill with special guest Mary Simich for a Halloween Party at West Kill Supply in Kingston, with a costume contest to follow. Bill’s vaguely spooky homegrown, vintage-style rock n’ roll is a great tone-setter for the scary week ahead, and West Kill is the perfect pre-game prelude to later-night activities.
Saturday also sees a late-night, 18-and-up “Howloween” rager at PAKT (11pm-3am), which invites “pups, kinksters, creatures, monsters and all haunted hawties” to a night of live drag, pumpkin painting, creepy coloring, costume contests, a selfie station and a “monstrous menu” by chef Sweatermeat.
If you haven’t had enough candy and cocktails by Sunday night, sally forth to Avalon Lounge in Catskill for a “Halloween Spook-tacular” with multimedia artist Brian Dewan and internet freedom fighter Jenny Toomey, including special guests Catie Friel and Liam Singer. Avalon continues their Hallloween-themed music menu on Monday with local bands Phantom Sleeze, Worldsucks, RBNX, Icebox Cake and Of The Atlas at 7pm.
Roller skaters won’t want to miss Halohaloween at Skate Time in Accord on Monday at 7pm. The event will feature costumed skating, live music by DJs Kim Ahn and Heavy Pleasure and a Filipino snack bar takeover.
On Halloween proper, Kingstoners will be converging for the “CUNextTuesday” Halloween Party at Salt Box Bar, starting at 6pm. Salt Box is a favorite local watering hole-in-the-wall with excellent drinks, and homey, shabby-chic, classy dive atmosphere.
Darling’s in Tillson is hosting their “Karmic Karaoke” on Tuesday with a big Halloween spin, offering costume contests, a spooky selfie booth, and of course, karaoke and dancing. The venue is sprawling, the food is delectable, and the staff are friendly here, it’s no wonder Darling’s has quickly become a hub of the local area. Dress up as the singer for the song you’re performing at karaoke to become a legend among your peers and social media followers.
Join the family! 
