If your idea of a Halloween weekend is less jump scares and more Victorian gloom, this one's for you. The Seward House is running a specialty tour on Victorian death rites and mourning culture, the Friday night before Halloween, 6:30–7:30 PM. (There's also an earlier date on October 22.)

A grown-up Halloween night on Canandaigua Lake. Hotel Canandaigua is throwing a Halloween Bash with live music from Boogie Shoes, a costume contest, food, and a cash bar.

If Halloween isn’t Halloween to you without getting genuinely scared, this is the one. Fright Nights bills itself as CNY’s largest warehouse full of fear: five haunted attractions under one roof in Syracuse, including the Monster Movie Matinee and the Devil’s Dungeon Slide. It’s open every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through Halloween night, and an all-five-houses ticket runs about $35.

Personally—I’m not a haunted house girly but I’ll hold your stuff while you go through!

Crawl With Us is taking over Syracuse bars on Halloween night itself. Check in between 4 and 6 PM, hit the bars from 4 to 10, catch the mid party from 7 to 9, and wrap up at the after party from 10 to midnight.

Your ticket covers:

There are photographers along the route, so plan the costume accordingly. It’s 21+ with a valid ID, and if the event gets cancelled you get a full refund. Please Uber or Lyft.

Ready to do the Time Warp again? The Smith Opera House in Geneva is screening The Rocky Horror Picture Show at 9 PM, with a live shadow cast acting it out in front of the screen. Costumes are strongly encouraged, and knowing your audience participation lines is basically expected. The Smith does ask that you skip the water spraying.

Prison City’s Halloween party this year is themed around Grimm fairy tales, and the North Street Barn is getting turned into a dark forest for the night: witches, wolves, poisoned apples, ravens, the whole storybook. Expect live music and dancing to Name Brand Covers, themed cocktails and eats, and their annual costume contest.

It runs 6–10 PM at The Barn at 251 North Street. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door, so buy ahead.

Beak & Skiff’s 6th annual Halloween Bash runs 6:30–10:30 PM, and they’re calling it their biggest one yet. A $30 ticket gets you one drink and a seasonal buffet, plus access to their new Apple Grove Adventure Park if you show up early.

DJ Ease One is in the Tasting Room and the Steven Cali Band is playing the Apple Barn all night. The costume contest pays out: $500 cash for first place, with gift cards for second through fifth. Gemini Tattoo Studio is also doing a first-come, first-served flash tattoo pop-up.

This one is 21+, no exceptions.

Experience Cortland’s annual oddities market is back at The Vault (35 Main Street), a historic bank turned event space, from 11 AM to 5 PM. The vendor list is exactly what you want: Crown City Curiosities, From the Dirt Craftworks, Fata Morgana Collage, All My Friends Books, Erron Hill Pottery, Press Gurwitz Perfumerie, and more.

There’s also tarot from Serendipitea Tarot, tastings from Dragonfyre Distillery, and Area 51 running gothic role-playing games you can try. And across the street, Sacred Art Studio is doing a Halloween flash tattoo event the same day. Make a whole afternoon of it.

The Seward House has been running its October Haunted History series since 2011. Costumed guides walk you around the Seward House grounds and the dark streets of downtown Auburn with stories of Victorian funeral practices, Seward family ghost lore, and true crime from “History’s Hometown.”

Tours run Friday through Sunday, October 23–25, at 6 PM and 7 PM each night. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for kids 12 and under. Registration is required and tickets aren’t on sale yet, so keep an eye on their calendar.

Trick-or-treating at the ballpark. The Auburn Doubledays and the City of Auburn Parks & Recreation Department are hosting the 6th annual Home Run Halloween at Falcon Park from 2–5 PM, with a rain date of Sunday, October 18. Local businesses and organizations set up decorated tables around the park and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters.

Marcellus Together moved Boo Fest to the Saturday before Halloween this year, 2–5 PM in the village. There’s trick-or-treating along Main Street with local businesses, a pumpkin word puzzle, mini pumpkin decorating, and a few surprises.

[Your take: small-village trick-or-treating is the best kind of trick-or-treating]

The zoo calls this one “kooky not spooky”: a daytime Halloween with trick-or-treat stations, creepy-crawly animal encounters, keeper chats, games, and a costume parade. Costumes are encouraged for all ages (adults included, which I fully support). It’s been included with zoo admission or membership, so no extra ticket.

More than 400 carved jack-o’-lanterns and 500 luminaria along two wooded trails at Beaver Lake Nature Center, plus face painting, fortune telling, magic shows, and storytelling. Tickets are $35 per vehicle, which is a very good deal if you pack the car.

A not-so-scary half-mile walk on a paved path at Long Branch Park, lit up with LED displays and themed zones like Witch’s Way, the Ghost Barnyard, and a Skeleton Graveyard.

This is somewhere I grew up going every year! I watched this little farm market “grow up” so it holds a really special spot in my heart! This is worth the drive for the teepees if nothing else.

Powers Farm Market leans all the way into Halloween. Their Halloween hayrides come with special effects and spooky surprises (ghosts, witches, skeletons, graveyards), and the famous teepees are filled with jack-o’-lanterns, giggling ghosts, and bats. Both are billed as family-friendly, though the farm does say to use your judgment with little kids.

Daytime hayrides run $9.75 Monday–Thursday and $10.75 Friday–Sunday. Night rides are Friday and Saturday from dusk to 9 PM for $16.25, and they run every night the week leading up to Halloween, which makes this a solid Halloween weekend pick. Grab a hand-dipped candied apple or some fried cakes on your way out.

Downtown Canandaigua’s 41st annual fall festival has a farmers market, pumpkin decorating, a magic show, horse-drawn wagon rides, a kids’ costume parade and contest, and a Monster Mash Dance-Off.

(October 24 is officially the busiest Saturday of spooky season.)

All month long

Thursday, October 8

Saturday, October 17

Sunday, October 18

Thursday, October 22

Friday, October 23

Saturday, October 24 (the big one)

Sunday, October 25

Friday, October 30

Saturday, October 31 (Halloween!)