What to Know
- "Midsummer Scream," the huge Halloween expo, will haunt the Long Beach Convention Center Aug. 15, 16, and 17
- "Creep It Real OC" will be back at the Heritage Museum in Santa Ana from Sept. 12-14
- The "Spooky Swap Meet" just wrapped over the final weekend of April, but the chance to explore the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose is still happening over select May dates
- Street Food Cinema will screen two eek-fun films at Heritage Square Museum as May begins, with other Halloween-y touches strewn about the scenic park
The weather at the end of October in Southern California? It can have distinctively August-like overtones, with hot afternoons, temperate evenings, and Santa Ana winds that are quite warm, to err on the side of understatement.
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WATCH HEREBut the end of April? It's a sweater-centered time of year that often offers what we hope to find, weather-wise, around Halloween: Cool nights, cloudy mornings, and a gloom that is just this side of murky, if not a touch monstrous.
It is, in fact, a grand month to honor a quirky calendar moment that has gained spooky steam in recent years: Halfway to Halloween.
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SIGN UP The offbeat observance, which lightly haunts our worlds around the end of April and beginning of May, has flowered into something rather special in the community that venerates a certain October holiday.
And while Halloween is indeed still six months away, you can find phantom-tastic fun afoot as April concludes, or at least a few festive touchstones that speak to the staples of autumn.
"Midsummer Scream," the mega Halloween and horror convention, unveiled its 2025 poster a little earlier in April — a ghoul is bringing the eeks, as is a classic haunted house — while tickets for "Creep It Real OC," set to spook-up the Heritage Museum in Santa Ana in September, just went on sale.
The Scene
Want to find new things to do in Los Angeles? The Scene's lifestyle stories have you covered. Here's your go-to source on where the fun is across SoCal and for the weekend.
The "Spooky Swap Meet," a popular shop-around happening, just graced the grounds of Heritage Square Museum over the final weekend of April, but something else is headed to the Arroyo Parkway-close destination May 2 and 3: A Street Food Cinema pop-up filled with fright flicks and charming chills.
And in San Jose?
Flashlight experiences are still flickering at the Winchester Mystery House on select dates. If you miss the "Halfway to Halloween" tours, stay alert: There's a Friday the 13th coming up in June, and the Victorian attraction always does something spectrally special.
You won't have to wait long for Halloween-themed happenings to make their presence known: The theme park spectaculars usually start making big fall announcements in May and June, with the earliest Halloween happenings alighting on the SoCal schedule in July and August.
