Denver Halloween Events 2026: The Complete Metro Calendar
Halloween 2026 lands on a Saturday — the first since 2020 and the last until 2037 — and the Denver metro is treating it accordingly. The season opens September 11 and runs nearly two months, ending with everything converging on one enormous Saturday night. Here’s the whole calendar: the haunts, the parades, the family nights, the bar crawls, and the big October 31 parties, organized so you can build your season in one sitting.
The season at a glance
| Window | What’s running |
|---|---|
| Sept 11 → | The haunts open: Frightmare Compound (Sept 11), Magic of the Jack O’Lanterns (Sept 18), Elitch Fright Fest (Sept 26) |
| Mid-October | The traditions peak: Broadway Halloween Parade (Oct 17), Glow at the Gardens (Oct 15–18, 21–24), Victorian Horrors, Ghosts in the Gardens |
| Late October | Día de los Muertos (Oct 24), Broadway Bar Crawl (Oct 24), BOO-lesque (Oct 23–31), Nightmare Before Christmas with the Symphony (Oct 29–31) |
| Sat, Oct 31 | Everything at once: the big 21+ parties, bar crawls, family daytime events, and closing night for most haunts and patches |
Haunted houses & season-long attractions
| Dates | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Sept 11–Nov 7 | The Frightmare Compound — Colorado’s oldest haunted house, plus escape rooms, a monster museum, and a coffin simulator. New for 2026: Frightmare Town and a 1950s trailer-park scene. | Westminster |
| Sept 18–Nov 1 | Magic of the Jack O’Lanterns — thousands of hand-carved pumpkins in glowing large-scale displays. The south metro’s signature glow event. | Hudson Gardens, Littleton |
| Sept 26–Nov 1 | Elitch Gardens Fright Fest — family-friendly by day, Fright By Night with haunted houses and roaming creatures after 6 PM. | Elitch Gardens, Denver |
| Season runs Oct 31 | Haunted Field of Screams — a 40-acre haunted cornfield backing the infamous Riverdale Road. Check the schedule for season nights; open on Halloween. | Thornton |
| Through Oct 31 | Terror in the Corn — haunted corn maze and outdoor scare trail; closes Halloween night. | Erie |
| Ongoing | Cheesman Park Ghost Tour — a 90-minute walking tour of the park built on Denver’s first cemetery. | Cheesman Park, Denver |
October traditions, shows & culture
| Dates | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 9–10, 20, 28–31 | Ghosts in the Gardens — self-guided after-dark storytelling on the haunted history of the grounds once called “The Boneyard.” Ages 12+. | Denver Botanic Gardens |
| Oct 11 | Witches’ Tea — tea service, themed cocktails, and live opera inspired by Shakespeare’s witches. | Ellie Caulkins Opera House |
| Oct 15–18 & 21–24 | Glow at the Gardens — the 10th year of Denver’s illuminated pumpkin celebration. Sells out weeks in advance every year. | Denver Botanic Gardens |
| Oct 15–17, 22–24, 29–31 | Victorian Horrors — local actors perform gothic tales by long-dead authors inside the Molly Brown House. | Molly Brown House Museum |
| Oct 17 | Broadway Halloween Parade — the 7th annual procession of spooky floats, funky bands, and hearses. Free to watch, costumes welcome. | 1st & Broadway, Denver |
| Oct 23–31 | BOO-lesque — the Clocktower’s annual Halloween burlesque and variety run. | Clocktower Cabaret |
| Oct 24 | Día de los Muertos — the traditional celebration honoring ancestors and loved ones who have passed. | Civic Center Park |
| Oct 28 | Spirits + Songs — Opera Colorado’s family Halloween celebration with crafts, performances, and a backstage tour. | Ellie Caulkins Opera House |
| Oct 29 | Candlelight: A Haunted Evening of Halloween Classics — Halloween music by candlelight. | Kirk of Highland |
| Oct 29–31 | The Nightmare Before Christmas with the Colorado Symphony — the full film with Danny Elfman’s score played live. The Oct 31 show is a matinee, so it stacks with an evening plan. | Boettcher Concert Hall |
Halloween night: Saturday, October 31
The night everything runs at once. Two full-scale 21+ productions, a budget masquerade, the bar crawls, the family daytime events, and closing night for most of the haunts — all on one Saturday, with clocks falling back at 2 AM to make it a 25-hour night. The complete hour-by-hour breakdown, including the honest comparison between the big parties, lives in our Halloween Night Guide; here’s the roster:
| Time | Event | Where | Ages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morning | Longmont Halloween Parade — free, no registration | Longmont | All ages |
| Morning | Trick or Trot 5K/10K — costumed run | Piney Creek Hollow Park, Centennial | All ages |
| Daytime | Boos & Brews Halloween 5K — beer at the finish line | Number Thirty Eight, RiNo | 21+ to drink |
| Daytime | Samhain Market — witchy wares, readers, dark art, and mystical finds | 1111 Broadway, Denver | All ages |
| Daytime | Munchkin Masquerade — trick-or-treating on Pearl Street for ages 12 and under | Pearl Street Mall, Boulder | Kids |
| Afternoon | Nightmare Before Christmas with the Symphony (matinee) | Boettcher Concert Hall | All ages |
| 4 PM–10 PM | Official Halloween Bar Crawl — wristband access to participating downtown bars; a separate Zombie Crawl bar crawl runs Oct 31–Nov 1 | Downtown Denver | 21+ |
| Evening | Closing/late nights at the haunts: Frightmare, Field of Screams, Terror in the Corn, Fright Fest — plus final day at Anderson Farms and Maize in the City | Metro-wide | Varies |
| 8 PM–1 AM | Paranormal Palace — the hotel takeover: Haunted Forest ballroom, 41 balcony rooms over the dance floor, $2,500 costume contest, rooms upstairs | DoubleTree by Hilton DTC, Greenwood Village | 21+ |
| 9 PM–2 AM | DarknessCon: Dark Harvest Masquerade Ball — the ~$10 ticket of the night | Castle Event Center, Thornton | 18+ |
| 9 PM–3 AM | Coloween — open-bar party at an indoor inflatable park | Bounce Empire, Lafayette | 21+ |
For families
The family season’s anchors: Glow at the Gardens (Oct 15–18 and 21–24 — buy early, it sells out weeks ahead), Magic of the Jack O’Lanterns at Hudson Gardens all season, the free Broadway Halloween Parade on Oct 17, Día de los Muertos at Civic Center Park on Oct 24, Spirits + Songs at the opera house Oct 28, and the Symphony’s Nightmare Before Christmas Oct 29–31. On Halloween itself: Boulder’s Munchkin Masquerade, Longmont’s parade, and neighborhood trick-or-treating from sunset (about 5:59 PM) to 8-ish. Olde Town Arvada’s Trick or Treat Street runs Friday the 30th. Boo at the Zoo hadn’t posted 2026 dates at our last update — see the pending list below.
Not yet announced for 2026
These Denver traditions are expected but hadn’t published 2026 dates when we last checked, so we won’t guess at them: 13th Floor Haunted House (attractions for the season are announced — Legend of the 13th Floor, Twilight of the Damned, The Blood Shed — but dates are TBA; it typically runs early September through early November), Boo at the Zoo at the Denver Zoo, Reinke Brothers Haunted Mansion in Littleton, City of the Dead, and the Chatfield Farms corn maze. We’ll move each one into the calendar above the day its dates go live.
If you’re here for Halloween night itself
You just read the whole season — but if what you actually want is the night, Saturday, October 31 is ours. Paranormal Palace takes over the entire DoubleTree DTC: an 8,000 sq ft Haunted Forest ballroom, a multi-level atrium ringed by 41 balcony rooms over the dance floor, three DJs, 20+ performers, and Colorado’s largest costume contest at $2,500. And unlike every other event on this page, it ends with an elevator ride, not a surge-priced curb — book a room upstairs and the night doesn’t end when we do. Compare it honestly against everything above in our five-test party scorecard, study the contest, or just:
The Palace closes at 1. Your room doesn’t.
How this page works: every date above was checked against the organizer’s own website or the official Visit Denver events calendar. Events without confirmed 2026 dates sit in the pending list instead of the calendar — we’d rather be incomplete than wrong. We re-verify as the season approaches. Spot an error or run an event we missed? Tell us and we’ll fix it within the week.