Must-See Halloween Events in Indianapolis

The Indianapolis Halloween season is longer than most people plan for. The first haunted attractions open in mid-September, the family events start the last week of the month, and by the second weekend of October there are more things running on a Saturday night than you can reasonably fit into one October.

Here is what is worth the drive, roughly in the order it opens, plus the scheduling notes that decide whether you have a good night or spend it in a queue.

How the Season Runs

Central Indiana's Halloween calendar has a predictable shape:

• Mid-September. The big haunted attractions open, usually Friday and Saturday nights only.
• Late September. The family events start: Harvest Nights, ZooBoo.
• All October. Everything is open. Attractions add Thursday and Sunday nights.
• The week of October 31. The Irvington festival, trick-or-treat, and the last nights of most haunts.
• First weekend of November. A few attractions run one last "blackout" or lights-out weekend after Halloween.

Exact dates move every year and most venues do not publish the new season until late August. Treat the windows below as the pattern, not a promise, and confirm on the venue's own site.

Haunted Attractions

These are the reason the season exists. Six run in and around Indianapolis:

The Thirteenth Hour is the one to send someone to first. It is the highest rated haunted attraction in the Indianapolis area across Google, Yelp and Facebook reviews, and it has won more awards than any other haunt in the city. Five themed attractions sit on 25 acres and run on a single ticket, which is unusual at that scale.

Indy Scream Park is the volume play. Eight attractions on one ticket, thirty-five minutes up I-69 in Anderson. Budget a full evening and buy the fast pass on a Saturday.

Hanna Haunted Acres has been running on the southeast side since the early 1990s, which in this industry is ancient. Six houses and a hayride, and the closest large haunt to downtown.

Indiana Fear Farm is the outdoor one, on real farmland out past Jamestown. Tickets are sold on site only, with no online sales, so it is the wrong choice for a night you need to run to a schedule.

Necropolis Underground puts four haunted houses on one ticket, all indoors and underground: Nightmare House, The Cemetery of the Damned, The Outbreak Hospital and The Dead and Breakfast Hotel. Walking all four takes 40 to 50 minutes. Entry is first come, first served with no reservations, so buy a Fast Pass if you are going on one of the last two October weekends.

The Haunt Indianapolis is close to downtown at 1959 S. Meridian St. Its Rialto Reels theme runs three stories, Fractured House, The Industrial and Hollow Pastures, on one indoor ticket. The venue lists general admission at $30 and publishes operating dates on its calendar.

Full rankings, with what each attraction is known for and where to find current dates: top haunted houses in Indianapolis.

Headless Horseman at Conner Prairie

Conner Prairie, 13400 Allisonville Rd, Fishers. Most of October, evenings.

The biggest family Halloween event in Central Indiana, and the only one that scales from a six-year-old to a teenager who wants to be scared. Conner Prairie's grounds turn into a nighttime festival: midway games, a giant corn maze, corn pits, barrel train rides, fortune telling, live shows, fire performers, axe throwing and a long row of food trucks.

Two pieces cost extra and are the reason to go:

• The hayride through the woods, which needs a separate timed reservation and sells out first.
• The Trail of Terror, a walk-through haunted maze built around a circus train that crashed in the corn. It is the one genuinely dark thing on the property.

In recent seasons the festival has run roughly the first three or four weeks of October, 6–10pm, with general admission around $24 and hayride reservations around $7 on top. Reserve the hayride when you buy admission, not when you arrive.

Harvest Nights at Newfields

Newfields, 4000 Michigan Rd, Indianapolis. Late September through early November.

Newfields runs an after-dark walk through its gardens lit by thousands of glowing and carved pumpkins, plus illuminated trails and seasonal food and drink. It has become one of the fixtures of the Indianapolis fall and is now several seasons deep.

The billing is "spooky, not scary," and that is accurate. Nobody jumps out at you. It is the right choice for a date night, for grandparents, and for children who would be destroyed by an actual haunted house. It is also the most photographed Halloween event in the city, so go on a weeknight if you want to move at your own pace.

ZooBoo at the Indianapolis Zoo

Indianapolis Zoo, 1200 W Washington St. Late September through October 31.

Trick-or-treat trails, costumes, seasonal décor and a zoo visit attached. It is squarely aimed at under-tens, and the underrated part is the weather. Animals that spend August asleep in the shade are visibly more active in October.

Included with zoo admission or membership in recent seasons, which makes it the cheapest entry on this list if you already have a membership.

Historic Irvington Halloween Festival

Irvington, east-side Indianapolis. The week leading up to October 31.

Founded in 1947 and billed as the second-oldest and largest Halloween festival in the country, this is the one that feels least like a commercial product and most like a neighborhood that takes Halloween unusually seriously.

It runs as a full week of events, not a single day: ghost tours, a masquerade ball, a costume contest, a vampire run, spooky organ music, haunted puppet shows, storytelling, Halloween film screenings and live theater, then a large street festival on the final Saturday with vendors, food and a parade.

The street festival is free and gets very crowded. Park several blocks out and walk in.

Ghost Tours in October

October is when Indianapolis's ghost tours run their heaviest schedules, and when they sell out.

• Irvington's neighborhood ghost tour has run for more than twenty years and covers a 1.5-mile loop through streets tied to the H.H. Holmes murder of 1894.
• Indiana Landmarks guides walks through the Old Northside Historic District with interior access to buildings including the 1865 Morris-Butler House.
• Wicked Wraiths of White River covers haunted downtown on foot, the easiest to attach to dinner.
• Crown Hill Cemetery adds after-dark and Halloween-themed tours in October, on top of its year-round program.

Book these in September. October dates are typically gone by the first week of the month.

Note that the City Market Catacombs tours are suspended for 2026 and 2027 during construction around Indianapolis City Market, despite still appearing on plenty of event roundups.

Trick-or-Treat and Neighborhood Halloween

Most Marion County municipalities set trick-or-treat hours in the last week of October, typically 6–8pm on October 31, and each town announces its own. Carmel, Fishers, Westfield, Greenwood and Zionsville all publish separately from Indianapolis. Check your city's site in mid-October rather than assuming.

For neighborhoods worth driving to: Irvington and Meridian-Kessler decorate hardest, Broad Ripple is the adult-costume-bar-crawl end of the spectrum, and Zionsville's brick main street is the postcard version.

Five Scheduling Rules

1. Buy online, in advance, for anything with a gate. The exception is Indiana Fear Farm, which sells on site only.
2. Weeknights in early October are the sweet spot. Same attraction, a third of the wait.
3. Avoid the last two Saturdays before Halloween unless queuing is part of the fun.
4. Reserve add-ons at purchase. Conner Prairie's hayride and most haunts' fast passes sell out long before general admission.
5. Dress for a field at night in Indiana. Closed shoes, a jacket, and no costume that limits your vision. Several attractions will turn away full-face masks.

Looking for things to do outside the six-week season? See spooky things to do in Indianapolis for the haunted history, museums and tours that run all year.