Halloween in Palm Springs: What to Expect

Halloween in Palm Springs is a street party on Arenas Road, and it is one of the bigger nights of the year downtown.

The thing worth knowing before you plan around it: it is not a city event. It is independently produced, and the city runs an entirely separate programme of its own.

The Arenas Road party

The downtown Halloween block party takes over the Arenas District and runs from about 4 to 10 p.m. Entry is free with a suggested $10 donation to LGBTQ+ charities. There are VIP tickets sold separately.

The costume contest is the centrepiece, with over $2,000 in prizes. Registration opens at 6 p.m. and closes at 7:15, so if you have built something and want it judged, that is the window you are working to.

It runs on Halloween night and, in recent years, on the night before as well.

It is produced by Hocker Productions, not by the City of Palm Springs. The city appears among the sponsors but does not run it, which matters if you are trying to find official information — the city’s own events pages will not list it.

The city’s version is a different thing entirely

Palm Springs Parks and Recreation runs its own family Halloween programme across October, which in recent years has included a movie in the park, a floating pumpkin patch at the swim centre, a festival of frights, a Halloween carnival, and a haunted-circus edition of VillageFest.

Two audiences, two programmes, same month. If you are bringing children, the city programme is the one you want, and Arenas after dark is not.

More: VillageFest

What the weather does

End of October averages a high around 91 and a low in the mid sixties. By Halloween the evenings are comfortable, which is the whole reason an outdoor street party works here at the end of the month and would not work at the start of it.

Worth remembering that the all-time October record is 117, set on the first of the month. October cools off fast, but it starts hot.

Crowds and getting out

Downtown Palm Springs fills up. Palm Canyon and the streets around Arenas get closed or congested, parking goes early, and the walk back to the car is the part people underestimate.

Park well north or south of downtown and walk in. The same advice applies to every big downtown night here — Pride, the Festival of Lights Parade, New Year’s Eve.

The rest of the month

Halloween closes October, and October is the month the valley switches back on: the canyons return to seven days a week on the 2nd, The Living Desert goes back to 8 to 5 on the 1st, and the four-day October edition of Modernism Week runs earlier in the month.

More guides

• October in Palm Springs
• November in Palm Springs
• Things to do in Palm Springs this weekend
• Knott’s Scary Farm discount tickets
• Best happy hours in the valley

Weather figures are NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals for Palm Springs International Airport. Event details change every year; check the organiser before you go.