The first costumes in the water on Saturday will belong to grown-ups. At 9 a.m. on Oct. 31, SUP Shack Santa Cruz takes witches and wizards out on paddleboards in the Santa Cruz Harbor. Registration is mandatory and walk-ups will be turned away. Prizes go to the best costumes, and the listing on Visit Santa Cruz County warns that "witches have been known to melt if wet." The booking calendar shows a 90-minute holiday tour starting at 9 a.m. for $53.50, or $16.05 for a harbor permit if you bring your own board.
That's the earliest of about half a dozen separate Halloween events in the city that day. In a weekday year they'd be spread across an after-school rush. This year Oct. 31 is a Saturday, so they line up into a full day, and the shape of that day is simple. One cluster is at the beach and one is downtown. Both are running from 3 to 6 p.m. Most households will get the most out of the day by picking a cluster for those three hours and saving the other for before or after.
Saturday, in the Order It Happens
All times come from each organizer's own 2026 page or the Santa Cruz Sentinel's Oct. 19 Halloween roundup.
- 9 a.m. to noon: Harbor Witches SUP paddle, Santa Cruz Harbor. Registration required.
- 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.: Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Halloween, 400 Beach St.
- 2 p.m.: Downtown trick-or-treat begins on Pacific Avenue.
- 3 to 6 p.m.: Trick-or-treating on the Santa Cruz Wharf, 21 Municipal Wharf, kicked off by a Thrill the World performance at 3 p.m.
- 4 to 10 p.m.: Halloween party at Abbott Square Market, 118 Cooper St., with the dog costume contest at 5.
- 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.: The Vampire Ball at Chaminade Resort & Spa, 21 and over.
By 3 p.m., the Boardwalk, Pacific Avenue and the Wharf are all going at once, and Abbott Square joins at 4. That afternoon stretch is the window to plan around.
The Beach Cluster: Boardwalk and Wharf
The Boardwalk has the longest window of anything on the list, and that gives you room to plan. Its Halloween page, posted Oct. 15, runs the day from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Entry is free. Trick-or-treaters need the $12 package, which comes with a collectible candy bag and a $10 MyBoardwalk card. Anyone not collecting candy can skip it. The package depends on how much candy is on hand, so the Boardwalk says buying ahead guarantees one and day-of sales may be limited. Kids in costume can pose at the photo-op banner at the Main Entrance to enter the costume contest, which awards MyBoardwalk Cards. The Fright Walk runs that day too. The Sentinel adds the Haunted Castle ride to the list. It also points out that the Boardwalk and the Wharf both appear in "The Lost Boys," the 1987 vampire film that used Santa Cruz as its fictional Santa Carla.
An 11 a.m. start lets you do the Boardwalk in the morning and early afternoon and then head to the Wharf when it opens at 3. The City's official listing confirms free trick-or-treating at Wharf businesses on Saturday, Oct. 31, from 3 to 6 p.m., run through Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation. The Thrill the World flash mob performs at Wharf Commons at 3.
The Wharf also has the last three days of a promotion that started Oct. 19. "13 Days of Halloween on the Wharf" runs through Oct. 31. It includes a Great Pumpkin scavenger hunt, a photo booth on the Wharf stage, and specials at Marini's Candies, Socksmith and Stagnaro Bros. For the hunt, kids look for pumpkins hidden in Wharf businesses. Five in a row on the scorecard earns a themed prize, which you can pick up at Bonnie's Gifts, Surf City Surf Shop, Noland's or Marini's Candies. The scorecard can be downloaded from the City's page. If you start it Thursday or Friday, Saturday's trick-or-treat route becomes a chance to finish the card.
The Downtown Cluster: Pacific Avenue and Abbott Square
Downtown starts earlier and goes later. Trick-or-treating on Pacific Avenue begins at 2 p.m. The Santa Cruz Police Department and the City close the street to cars, and kids look for signs in the windows of participating businesses. The Sentinel calls it "one of the largest and earliest trick-or-treating events on Halloween" in the county, with Pacific Avenue partly closed. Visit Santa Cruz County gives the location as Pacific Avenue and Cooper Street.
That corner matters, because Abbott Square Market sits on Cooper Street and picks up as the afternoon on Pacific winds down. Its Halloween party runs from 4 to 10 p.m. Visit Santa Cruz County lists it as free, with trick-or-treating around the market, food, festive drinks, live music and costume contests. Here's the schedule:
- 4 p.m.: In-person sign-up for the dog contest opens near the stage
- 5 to 6 p.m.: Halloween dog costume contest and fashion show, capped at 20 dogs, with prizes from Woodstock's Pizza
- 8 p.m.: Adult costume contest
- Through the evening: An Afrobeats night with DJ Monk Earl Selecta 7 and The Rudians
With 20 spots and sign-ups starting at 4, owners who want a spot should be near the stage early. That timing fits neatly with downtown trick-or-treating. A household can work Pacific Avenue from 2, get to Cooper Street by 4, and be eating dinner at the market before the adult costume contest at 8. Downtown is good for a long evening in ways the Wharf isn't, because the Abbott Square party runs four hours after the Wharf's trick-or-treating ends. If downtown has changed since your last visit, our summer look at the six rooms that reopened downtown covers several places within a few blocks of the route.
Where the Listings Don't Agree
Four of these events have conflicting details depending on where you look. In each case, the organizer's own page is the one to trust.
Event | What some listings say | What the organizer or 2026 coverage says |
|---|---|---|
Haunted Harbor | Oct. 31, 3 to 6 p.m. on Visit Santa Cruz County | Saturday, Oct. 24, 3 to 6 p.m., a week earlier, per the Port District |
Boardwalk Halloween | 12 to 7 p.m. on a 2025 Visit Santa Cruz County page | 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on the Boardwalk's Oct. 15, 2026 page |
Wharf trick-or-treat | "Friday, Oct. 31" on the 13 Days promotion page | Saturday, Oct. 31, 3 to 6 p.m. on the City's event listing |
Pacific Avenue | 2 to 5 p.m. on the Downtown Association page | 2 to 7 p.m. in the Sentinel's 2026 roundup |
The Harbor date is the one most likely to trip people up. The Oct. 31 listing points to the wrong Saturday for candy and the pirate water taxi. The Santa Cruz Port District's Haunted Harbor page scheduled it for Oct. 24, with trick-or-treating at participating harbor businesses, a spooky inner-harbor water taxi, and parking in the North Harbor near X Dock. The Sentinel's roundup had the same date. On Saturday, the paddlers are the harbor's only Halloween event.
For Pacific Avenue, 2 p.m. is the start time everyone agrees on. Arriving early gets you the full afternoon whichever end time turns out to be right.
After the Candy Runs Out
Once the kids' events wind down, Saturday becomes an adults' night. The Afrobeats night keeps Abbott Square going until 10, with the adult costume contest at 8. Up the hill, the fourth annual Vampire Ball at Chaminade Resort & Spa, 1 Chaminade Lane, runs from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Tickets are $75 and include light bites and one signature cocktail. The Sentinel's Oct. 13 Quick Bites column says the night will have a vampire DJ, fire dancers, fortune tellers, a photo booth and a costume contest, and asks guests to come in "your finest attire or costume."
The next downtown event to plan for is the Downtown Santa Cruz Fall Wine Walk on Sunday, Nov. 15, from 2 to 5 p.m., featuring wines from the Santa Cruz Mountains poured inside downtown shops. Check-in is at Oswald, 121 Soquel Ave., and runs from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Ticket holders who arrive after 3:30 can't take part. General tickets are $40 through Nov. 14, and the event is 21 and over. For more on the city between events, our Santa Cruz neighborhood page is a good place to start.
Many of us at David Lyng Real Estate will be walking the same Pacific Avenue and Wharf routes on Saturday afternoon. If you end up with questions about your corner of Santa Cruz between candy stops, we're glad to talk, any day of the week.