Halloween in New York City
Halloween 2026 falls on Saturday, October 31. Listings below cover October 15 through November 2.
Halloween in New York is not one night. It is a two-week run of costume shows, tribute sets and late parties, with the Village parade dropped in the middle of it. Here is what is on, and how to do the parade without regretting it.
In Manhattan 8 listings
Fri Oct 23The Rocky Horror Picture Show with the NYC ShadowcastCity Winery›Fri Oct 30The Rocky Horror Picture ShowThe Town Hall›Sat Oct 31Robert Glasper X Halloween with Derrick Hodge & Chris DaveBlue Note›Sat Oct 31The Rocky Horror Halloween ShowMercury Lounge›Sat Oct 31Thriller: 80s Disco Halloween NightMercury Lounge›Sat Oct 31Project91 Presents The Rooftop at Pier 17 HalloweenThe Rooftop at Pier 17›Sat Oct 31CLUB 1BD HalloweenTerminal 5›Sat Oct 319AM Banger: Halloween at 9AMTerminal 5›In Brooklyn 5 listings
Thu Oct 29Out & Abt - Halloween EditionElsewhere›Sat Oct 31South House vs Naija House - Halloween EditionBrooklyn Steel›Sat Oct 31Elsewhere HalloweenElsewhere›Sat Oct 31Reggae Fest Halloween at Brooklyn Paramount $5000 Costume ContestBrooklyn Paramount›Sun Nov 1Elsewhere Halloween - Major League DJz, SAIDAH, D Stone + moreElsewhere›Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island 3 listings
Further out, and usually easier to get a ticket to.
Sat Oct 24The Rocky Horror Picture Show Movie Screening with The Flesh Junkies Live!St. George Theatre›Fri Oct 30NEW YORK NIGHT TRAIN 21ST ANNUAL HAUNTED HOPKnockdown Center›Sat Oct 31Horse Meat Disco New York HalloweenKnockdown Center›The Village Halloween Parade
The parade is the only Halloween event in New York that everyone has heard of, and the only one most people get wrong. It is not a spectator parade with a grandstand. Anyone in costume can march in it, free, and that is the point of it.
2026 is the 53rd edition, on Saturday, October 31, stepping off at 7pm. The route runs north up Sixth Avenue from Canal Street to 15th Street. This year's theme is "Body & Soul," and the organizers published no rulebook for interpreting it.
If you want to march: line up at Canal Street and Sixth Avenue between 6:30pm and 9pm, in costume. Street clothes are not allowed on the route, and marchers are released in timed groups, so joining at 8:30 is a perfectly good plan and a much shorter wait. Take the subway. Meet your friends a block or two off the route and walk in together, because finding anyone on Sixth Avenue at 7pm on Halloween is not realistic.
Parade details confirmed 2026-10-24 against Time Out New York and Hoodline, which agree. Confirm with the parade's own site before you go; we do not run it.
Where the music actually is
Halloween weekend is the single best night of the year for a cover set, and New York rooms know it. The pattern repeats every year: the small Brooklyn rooms book tribute bills where a local band plays one album in costume, the mid-size Manhattan rooms book a regular touring show and let the crowd do the costumes, and the dance venues run until 4am. Williamsburg and Bushwick are the centre of it. If the parade is your night, pick a show south of 14th Street or in Brooklyn, because getting across Sixth Avenue after 7pm is slow.
When Halloween lands midweek, which it does not in 2026, the city moves the parties to the weekend on both sides and the actual night gets quiet. Worth knowing in advance.
The free and the strange
Beyond the parade: the Greenwich Village dog parade in Tompkins Square happens the weekend before, every year, and is genuinely one of the best free things in the city. Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn runs evening programming in late October. Neither is a concert, and both are better than most ticketed Halloween events.
Those two are annual fixtures rather than confirmed 2026 dates. Check their own listings.
Halloween 2027
October 15 through november 2. The listings and everything above land on this same page when the time comes, so there is nothing new to find and nothing to bookmark again.
Running something for halloween in New York that is not here? Send it over. Every submission is read by hand, and if we list you we would love a link back.