Halloween in San Francisco

Check Out the Frights and Sounds of the City!

Halloween may be the favorite holiday for most Bay Area residents, thanks in no small part to the annual Halloween San Francisco slate of events that are pretty much guaranteed to scare with, ahem, flair. What began as a series of semi-organized events on Market Street in and around the Castro District has now become a nearly city-wide series of fairly well-organized and monetized events, some of which are held in the ballrooms of some of the city’s swankiest hotels. If you’re looking for a Halloween that is safe for the whole family to enjoy, you’d best stick to daytime trick-or-treating. If you’re looking for more adult-oriented fare that will fright, excite and delight in equal measure, then this series of events is definitely for you.

While the lineup of Halloween San Francisco events does vary somewhat from year to year, you can count on many of the following events to choose from:

  • The Halloween Pub Crawl on Union Street and the Marina District.
  • Monster Manic at the Parc 55 Wyndham Hotel, just off Union Square.
  • Erotic Exotic at the Monroe, a club located at Broadway and Kearney .
  • The Halloween International Ball at The Fairmont Hotel on Mason Street between Sacramento and California.
  • The Haunted Hotel at W San Francisco, a hotel at Third and Howard Streets.
  • A Nightmare on Van Ness at The Regency Center at Van Ness Ave. and Sutter St.
  • The Titanic Masquerade Halloween Party Cruise at Pier 40.
  • Saints & Sinners at W San Francisco.
  • Halloween Massive at The Westin San Francisco on Third between Market and Mission.
  • The Mad Hatter’s Ball at 1015, a club located at Folsom and Harriet.
  • And many, many other events held throughout the city at bars, restaurants and other locations.

Many of these events come with cover charges that are scarier than anyone or anything you are likely to encounter at the events, but it all depends on your expense account, sense of adventure, tastes and willingness to commit to one event per evening. You can probably have just as good a time wandering around in the Castro on Halloween night watching costumed partiers walk, dance and reel from one club to another. Whatever your decision, one thing’s for sure: you will see, hear and experience a Halloween here that you will never forget.