New Orleans Halloween Events, What's Actually Happening

New Orleans Halloween Events, What's Actually Happening

The anchor of Halloween 2026 in New Orleans is the Krewe of Boo parade on Saturday, October 24 at 6:30 p.m., rolling from Elysian Fields Avenue through the French Quarter, past Jackson Square, down Canal Street and into the Warehouse District. Around it sits a weekend of ticketed events, a family-friendly market haunt, and a city that treats October 31 as a second, smaller costume holiday. The ghost tours, honestly, mostly run their normal nightly schedules.

The Krewe of Boo has been New Orleans' official Halloween parade since 2007, and it works exactly like a Mardi Gras parade transplanted to October: themed floats, marching bands, costumed riders and throws, just with skulls and skeletons where a Mardi Gras krewe would have doubloons. The route starts on Elysian Fields Avenue, moves through the French Quarter, passes Jackson Square, continues along Canal Street and ends in the Warehouse District. The krewe's own site, kreweofboo.com, carries the route map, membership details and the ticketed viewing parties.

What follows the parade matters as much as the parade. The Monster Mash afterparty, typically at Generations Hall, runs into the night, and balcony viewing parties along the route sell open-bar tickets that go early in October. If you are planning the trip around the parade rather than around October 31 itself, you are planning it the way locals do.

The walking tours deserve an honest sentence here, because October marketing can mislead. The "Voodoo and Vampire Themes" walk from The Witches Brew Tour Company is the most-reviewed walking tour on the roster, 4.5 across 3,221 reviews, from $33 for 1.5 to 2 hours, and it departs nightly year-round. It is not a Halloween-exclusive product dressed up as one; it is the same route, the same stories and the same meeting point at 311 Exchange Pl, just with bigger crowds and a booking window that tightens in October. The listing carries a "Likely to sell out" flag, and in late October that flag is doing real work.

For a fuller rundown of the city's after-dark options beyond Halloween week itself, the things to do in New Orleans at night guide covers the full evening landscape, and the haunted hotels guide covers where to sleep if you want the atmosphere to continue after the tour ends.

When Is The Krewe Of Boo Parade In 2026?

Saturday, October 24, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. The route starts on Elysian Fields Avenue, rolls through the French Quarter past Jackson Square, continues down Canal Street and finishes in the Warehouse District. This is the city's official Halloween parade, an annual tradition since 2007, and it is the single largest scheduled Halloween event on the New Orleans calendar.

The parade is a genuine Mardi Gras-style operation, not a neighborhood procession. Expect floats built around spooky themes, costumed riders, marching bands and throws, and expect the French Quarter to be dense from late afternoon onward. If you want a balcony or a reserved spot, the krewe sells VIP viewing packages, and the post-parade Monster Mash costume party is a ticketed event at a Warehouse District venue rather than a free street party.

The timing is worth noticing for trip planning. The parade lands on the weekend before Halloween, not on Halloween itself, which means the city gets two waves of visitors: parade weekend around October 24, and the costume-and-bar crowd around Friday, October 30 and Saturday, October 31. Hotel pricing and tour availability reflect both waves. A visitor who books the week between them often gets the decorations, the atmosphere and the smaller crowds without the peak pricing.

One thing the parade is not: a ghost tour. The krewe's page is the authority on the parade; the tour listings are the authority on the walks. Keeping the two separate is what makes an October plan work, because parade night itself is loud, crowded and genuinely bad for hearing a guide tell a story on a street corner.

The "Voodoo and Vampire Themes" walk is the natural fit for the nights around the parade. It runs nightly, from $33, and the operator's listing flags it as likely to sell out, which in late October is a planning fact rather than marketing color.

Booking it for the Friday or Sunday flanking the parade, rather than parade night itself, is the move most visitors miss: you get the decorated Quarter at full tilt while still being able to hear the guide over the crowd.

What Else Is Happening That Weekend?

The Krewe of Boo weekend runs a full slate: a Friday Royal Luncheon and second line through the French Quarter, a Saturday morning Zombie Run through the Quarter ending on Frenchmen Street, the Boo Carré Halloween Haunt at the French Market on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the parade at 6:30 p.m., and the Monster Mash afterparty. On October 31 itself, Voodoofest on Dumaine runs 1 to 7 p.m. in the French Quarter.

The Friday events are the insider end of the weekend. The Royal Luncheon, historically at Galatoire's, and the second line through the French Quarter to Pat O'Brien's are krewe traditions, and the Captain's Party closes the evening. Saturday starts early with the New Orleans Zombie Run, a costumed two-mile run and walk that starts in the Warehouse District at 9 a.m. and finishes on Frenchmen Street, which is as close as New Orleans gets to an official costume 5K, minus about a mile.

Boo Carré Halloween Haunt at the French Market, on the 900 block of North Peters Street in Dutch Alley, is the family-friendly counterweight: a spooky second line, live music, free kids' activities, trick-or-treating with complimentary tote bags, a costume contest and a pie-eating contest, running 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on parade day. If the trip includes children, this and the parade are the two anchor events, and the city's broader October calendar adds options like Ghosts in the Oaks in City Park and Boo at the Zoo.

For Halloween night itself, October 31, the picture is smaller and stranger. Voodoofest on Dumaine, hosted by Voodoo Authentica at 612 Dumaine Street, runs 1 to 7 p.m. with voodoo-related information, entertainment, vendors and a closing ancestral healing ritual. Beyond that, the Quarter and Frenchmen Street do what they do, costumed, with balcony parties and street crowds.

One name to be careful with: the large music festival historically held in City Park around Halloween weekend has no confirmed return, and no official source announces one. Aggregator listings showing near-term dates for it lack any confirmation, so do not build a trip around it.

If the parade weekend is the reason for the trip, reserving the evening walks before you reserve anything else is the order of operations: the parade happens once, but the walks sell out on a rolling basis all week.

Are The Haunted Tours Different At Halloween?

Mostly no, and that is the honest answer. The walking ghost tours, cemetery tours, vampire walks and pub crawls on the New Orleans roster run nightly year-round on their normal routes and schedules. What changes in October is demand: bigger groups, earlier sell-outs, and booking windows that tighten from days to a week or more around parade weekend and Halloween night.

This is worth stating plainly because seasonal marketing blurs it. A French Quarter ghost walk in March and the same walk on October 30 are the same product: same meeting point, same stories, same duration. The "Interior Visit, 2 Hours" tour from Tour Orleans still meets at 620 Decatur St in front of Bon's New Orleans Street Food, still costs from $37, still runs 2 hours, and still carries 4.5 across 1,109 reviews. October does not unlock a special edition of it.

What October does change is the atmosphere around the tour, which is a real thing and not just marketing. The Quarter is decorated, the bars are costumed, the streets are fuller, and a story told on a corner at 9 p.m. lands differently with a crowd in skeleton makeup around it. If you want the city at its most committed to the bit, the last week of October is genuinely the time. If you want to hear the guide, midweek in early October or any other month is calmer.

The practical planning table looks like this:

The pub crawl option deserves its own note here, because Halloween and the go-cup zone overlap. The "21+ Pub Crawl, LaLaurie" tour from New Orleans Ghost Adventures runs 2 hours from $37, rated 4.5 across 2,212 reviews, visits Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar and passes the LaLaurie Mansion, and includes a complimentary drink at the last stop with other drinks at your own cost. It is strictly adults-only, 21 and up with valid government photo ID, which matters if the Halloween trip is a family one. The city's open-container allowance for plastic go-cups applies within the defined French Quarter zone, upriver of Canal Street, lakeside of Rampart Street and downriver of Esplanade Avenue, and glass is banned there; that zone-bound rule is what lets a crawl like this work at all.

For an adults-only Halloween night, that crawl plus the parade earlier in the weekend is about as concentrated as the city's spooky side gets, and the ID requirement is checked at the meeting point, so bring the real thing.

What Is The Weather Like In New Orleans At Halloween?

October is one of the two best weather windows of the New Orleans year: average highs around 81 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit, lows around 64 to 65, with the humidity of summer fading and the heat index retreating from the 100-degree range it touches in July and August. Late October nights are comfortable for a 2-hour walking tour in a costume, which is exactly why the city schedules its parade then.

The numbers come from the 1991-2020 NOAA climate normals. September still averages highs near 88 to 90 with lows in the mid 70s, which reads as summer's last stand. October is the turn: highs in the low 80s, lows in the mid 60s, noticeably drier air. November drops further, highs near 71 to 72. For an outdoor evening built around standing on street corners listening to stories, or standing on a parade route for two hours in a costume, October is the sweet spot, and the Krewe of Boo's late-October date is not an accident.

Hurricane season technically runs June 1 through November 30, so October sits inside it, and honesty requires saying so. The realistic picture is better than the calendar suggests: peak activity is mid-August through mid-October, and the 2026 season has run well below normal so far, with NOAA's August outlook putting a 75% chance on below-normal activity, 7 to 13 named storms and 0 to 2 major hurricanes, per the NOAA outlook release. The practical advice is not to avoid October, it is to check the forecast a few days out and know your tour's cancellation terms, which on this roster are free up to 24 hours before across every product.

For what to actually wear on the walking tours in that weather, the what to wear on a New Orleans ghost tour guide goes into footwear and layering in detail; the short version for October is light layers, because an 81-degree afternoon becomes a 65-degree parade night.

Which Tours Fit An October Visit Best?

The best October fits are the evening walks that use the city's own atmosphere: the "Voodoo and Vampire Themes" walk from $33 with the roster's biggest review pool, the "Ghost and Vampire Walk" from $21 as the highest-rated vampire-themed tour at 4.7 across 2,541 reviews, and the "Night Bus Tour, Exclusive Access" from $36, the only roster product using EMF detectors after dark. Daytime cemetery options fill the hours before the evening events begin.

The evening walks are the natural Halloween products because they run at night, when the Quarter's decorations and costumed crowds do half the work. The "Ghost and Vampire Walk" from French Quarter Phantoms is the value pick: from $21, 2 hours, meeting at the Voodoo Lounge at 718 N Rampart St, ending at Jackson Square, and carrying the strongest rating of any vampire-themed tour on the roster. The "Nightly Ghosts & Vampires Walk" walk, also from French Quarter Phantoms, is the cheapest walking ghost and vampire option, running nightly at a price shown on the live listing

The after-dark bus option is the outlier worth knowing about. The "Night Bus Tour, Exclusive Access" from Tour Orleans runs 2 hours from $36, rated 4.5 across 1,774 reviews, meets at 620 Decatur St, and uses EMF detectors, the only product on the roster with paranormal-investigation equipment. The operator states it is not suitable for children under 10, which makes it an adults-and-older-kids choice rather than a family default.

Daytime hours fill well with the cemetery products. The "Cemetery No. 1, 55 Minutes" official walking tour, the only licensed operator with official access to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, runs from $25, rated 4.5 across 4,684 reviews, and departs every 15 to 30 minutes during the day from Basin St. Station, so it slots into a parade-Saturday afternoon easily, though its "very popular" booking pace means reserving ahead in October. The "Bus Tour With Hotel Pickup" from New Orleans Native Tours, 2 hours 15 minutes from $55, is the only roster product with hotel pickup and covers St. Louis Cemetery No. 3, the French Quarter and the Garden District, a fit for visitors who want the daytime sightseeing done without walking it.

A comparison of the main October fits:

Every product on that table is free-cancellation up to 24 hours before, which in an October with weather in play is worth more than it sounds.

The hotel pickup is the quiet advantage on a packed Halloween weekend: when the Quarter is at its densest, starting the daytime sightseeing from your own lobby instead of a street corner saves an hour of logistics.

Common Questions About New Orleans Halloween Events

What Is the Best Place to Visit During Halloween?

New Orleans is one of the best Halloween destinations in the United States, and it earns it with structure rather than just atmosphere: an official city parade, the Krewe of Boo, rolling October 24 at 6:30 p.m., plus a full weekend of events and a costumed French Quarter on the 31st. Salem competes on witch-trial history, but no other American city runs a full Mardi Gras-style parade apparatus for Halloween.

Is Halloween a Good Time to Visit New Orleans?

Yes, with caveats. Weather is near the year's best, highs in the low 80s and comfortable nights, and the city is fully decorated and committed. The trade-offs are crowds and booking pressure: the walking tours sell out further ahead, hotels price higher around parade weekend and Halloween night, and the French Quarter is dense. Book tours a week or more ahead for late October.

Do the Ghost Tours Change for Halloween?

The routes, durations, prices and stories stay the same year-round. What changes is demand and atmosphere: bigger groups, earlier sell-outs, and a city in costume around the guide. If hearing the guide clearly matters more than the Halloween atmosphere, a midweek October date or a different month gives you the same tour with room to breathe.

What Is the Krewe of Boo Parade Route?

The parade starts on Elysian Fields Avenue at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 24, rolls through the French Quarter including past Jackson Square, continues down Canal Street and ends in the Warehouse District. The krewe's official site carries the current route map and viewing-party ticketing.

Is the Big Halloween Music Festival Happening?

There is no confirmed edition of the large City Park music festival historically held around Halloween weekend, and listings showing near-term dates lack official confirmation from any source. The separate, smaller Voodoofest on Dumaine, a French Quarter event at 612 Dumaine Street on October 31 from 1 to 7 p.m., is confirmed and unrelated.

Are the Halloween Events Family-Friendly?

The parade and the Boo Carré Halloween Haunt at the French Market are built for families, with the Haunt running 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on parade day with trick-or-treating and a costume contest. The pub crawls are strictly 21 and up with photo ID, and the after-dark EMF bus tour is not suitable for children under 10 per the operator. Most evening ghost walks are open to all ages, though the content is spooky by design.

The through-line of an October trip to New Orleans is that the city gives you a real, scheduled event calendar and a year-round haunted tour industry, and the best plan uses both without confusing them. The Krewe of Boo weekend is the party; the walks are the stories; and New Orleans Haunted Tours covers the full roster of both, from the cheapest $18 crawl to the official cemetery access, for whichever October nights you end up with.