Calgary has packed the last full weekend before Halloween with an unusual amount of stuff, and it spans everything from family pumpkin walks to an all-night film endurance test. Here's what's on between Friday, Oct. 23 and Sunday, Oct. 25.
Heritage Park's Ghouls' Night Out is the big family pick, running Friday and Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 3 to 7 p.m. Expect a haunted house, a Halloween maze, spooky storytelling, cookie decorating and a Halloween market inside the Historical Village — plus a chance to meet the Alberta Ghostbusters. Adults pay $24.95, kids 3 to 15 are $18.95.
Also free: Oktoberfest at the German Canadian Club on 37th Ave NE, with live music, traditional dancing, German food and a free outdoor market with car displays and family entertainment across all three days. If you'd rather carve pumpkins than eat bratwurst, Pumpkins After Dark at WinSport's Canada Olympic Park fills the site with thousands of hand-carved jack-o'-lanterns, and this is one of its last weekends before it closes on Halloween night.
For adults-only evening plans, options are oddly strong. The GRAND hosts Houdini's Legacy on Friday at 7:30 p.m., a magic night featuring a Water Cell Escape by Dayle Krall, "The Houdini Girl" — tickets from $40. On Saturday, the Lougheed House runs a Halloween murder mystery dinner ($130), where a three-course meal unfolds alongside a whodunnit set at a town hall meeting. And the Calgary Underground Film Festival takes over Globe Cinema for a 12-hour horror marathon: seven films from 7 p.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday, with a midnight costume contest and a free breakfast before the final screening. General admission is just $25, which works out to less than $3 per film.
Free options beyond Oktoberfest include Carnival of Curiosities on 17th Avenue — a Friday-and-Saturday outdoor Halloween carnival with aerialists, roaming performers and a dance party in Tomkins Park, plus trick-or-treating at over 40 businesses on Saturday. The Shawnessy Barn's Halloween market on Sunday (11 a.m. to 4 p.m.) is also free to enter. Practical bonus: the annual Calgary New and Used Ski Sale runs all weekend at the Chief Him Starlight Centre with more than 20,000 skis, snowboards, boots and accessories — $10 entry, and a smart way to get ready for the Rockies before prices climb.
If you're visiting Calgary this weekend, the events are spread across downtown, the southwest and the northeast, so pick a neighbourhood per day — 17th Ave on Friday, Heritage Park or WinSport with the family, then the ski sale on the way out of town. Most events are cheap or free, making this one of the better value weekends to be in the city.
Story via Curiocity.
