Halloween in Austin Is Saturday: Sixth Street Closes to Cars, Pumpkin Nights Takes Its Final Night, and the Day Starts at Zilker
From a 9 a.m. bird walk and monarch releases at Zilker Botanical Garden to a car-free Sixth Street and the last night of Pumpkin Nights, here is the whole of Austin's Halloween, Saturday, October 31.
Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, and Austin is running it from morning to last call. The day side starts at Zilker Botanical Garden, where the Roots & Wings Festival's Halloween program runs 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. — a bird walk at 9, a pollinator walk at 10, monarch releases at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., kids' tree climbs from 10 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. and guided nature walks on the hour, according to the festival guide read by this desk. Garden admission applies; the garden is at 2220 Barton Springs Road. Families also get the Hill Country Galleria's Halloween Treat Trail, where kids in costume collect from the promenade's shops.
The afternoon belongs to the historic side of spooky: the Texas Capitol's 'Rest in Peace' Halloween Tour trades in true crime and ghost tales under the rotunda. As twilight falls, Pumpkin Nights Austin — the glowing trail of hand-carved gourds and fire dancers — takes its final night of the season, and the rooftop set gets the LINE Austin's Park & Scream at P6 over Lady Bird Lake and the Fairmont Austin's Haunted Rooftop Party.
Then Sixth Street takes over. The street party closes Sixth Street completely to vehicle traffic from Brazos Street to the I-35 frontage road starting late afternoon, and the organized crawls run inside it: the 6th Sense crawl works 11 East 6th Street bars on one wristband from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. (21 and up, tickets online only), and the Austin Halloween Bar Crawl starts at 3 p.m. at Coyote Ugly Saloon at 501 East 6th Street.
The practical word for the night is transport. Rideshares bottleneck hard around 5th and 7th Streets once the closure is in, so the guide's advice is the desk's too: ride CapMetro, or put the car in the Austin Convention Center garage early and walk in. However you go, Saturday night downtown belongs to the costumes.
