South Coast Halloween weekend, Oct. 23 to 25: Fairhaven's costume parade, a Victorian mourning night and two haunted attractions

FAIRHAVEN Children and adults in costume will march around Livesey Park in Fairhaven on Saturday, Oct. 24, at the North Fairhaven Improvement Association's Halloween Horribles Parade, a free event the town's tourism listing calls a Fairhaven tradition since 1950.

The parade is one of five Halloween picks below for Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, in Fairhaven, Wareham, Fall River and Acushnet. Alongside it are a half-hour library craft session for tweens and teens in Wareham, an evening of Victorian mourning customs at the Lizzie Borden House in Fall River and two haunted attractions where live performers do the scaring.

Our weekend guide for the same three days already lists times and prices for Boo at the Zoo at Buttonwood Park Zoo, Gremlin's Ghoul-A-Palooza at Battleship Cove and the Marion police Trunk or Treat at Silvershell Beach, so those events are not repeated here.

How we chose

We looked for Halloween and fall events in the 15 towns South Coast 360 covers that take place Oct. 23, 24 or 25, 2026, and are open to the public. Each listing below comes from the organizer's own web page or the town's posted listing, read Tuesday, Oct. 20. We left out events we could not confirm on an organizer's or town's own page, including several trunk or treats that appeared only in other news roundups. Times and prices can change after we read them, and no organizer paid to be included or knew about this story.

Community events

• Halloween Horribles Parade, Fairhaven Livesey Park, 25 Morgan St. Saturday, Oct. 24, 5 to 7 p.m., with a rain date of Sunday, Oct. 25. The listing invites children and adults of all ages to march around the park in costume. Costumes are judged, with prizes in several categories and age groups. Treat bags and hot chocolate are handed out free, and the listing says the event is free and open to all.
• Halloween crafts for tweens and teens, Wareham Wareham Free Library, 59 Marion Road. Friday, Oct. 23, 2:15 to 2:45 p.m., for ages 11 to 18. The library's listing offers four easy projects, a ghost banner, a twig spider web, a pumpkin stress ball and a 3-D Halloween card, and a treat bag to take home. No registration is needed, costumes are welcome, and the listing names no fee.

History after dark

• In Mourning: A Victorian Funeral, Fall River Lizzie Borden House. Sunday, Oct. 25, 6 to 7 p.m., the last of four October Sundays. Guides in costume take guests through Victorian funeral rituals, mourning dress and the superstitions around death, and each guest gets funeral cake and mulled cider, according to the house's event page. Tickets are $20 a person, and two add-ons can be booked with a ticket: a $5 visit to the basement for what the page calls the darker side of Victorian funeral customs, and a $20 tintype-style mourning portrait made from a modern photo. The house's website also lists outdoor ghost walking tours of Fall River every night, booked through the same site.

Haunted attractions

• Factory of Terror, Fall River 120 Pearl St. Friday, Oct. 23, from 7 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 24, and Sunday, Oct. 25, from 5 p.m. The last entry is 9:30 p.m. each night, according to the 2026 calendar on its website. The haunted house is set inside a factory more than 125 years old, the site says. Bought online, general admission is $13 to $30 and a VIP pass is $37 to $50, depending on the date, and the site says tickets at the door cost $5 more. Guests arrive in a timed 15-minute window and are asked to sign a waiver before they come, and tickets are nonrefundable. The site says the attraction uses flashing lights, fog, loud noises and live actors, calls it best suited for older kids, teens and adults, and asks parents to use discretion with younger children.
• Dark New England Haunted Trail, Acushnet 934 Main St., which the attraction lists as its new location. Its ticket page includes Friday, Oct. 23, Saturday, Oct. 24, and Sunday, Oct. 25, among its open nights. The outdoor trail has live-action scares from a cast of characters, animatronics, strobe lights, fog and dimly lit stretches, and the organizers warn of high-intensity jump scares. General admission is $30 and VIP admission is $45, plus a per-ticket service fee and a 3% online transaction fee listed on the ticket page. The trail runs weather permitting, which the organizers say means it opens unless it is pouring rain, and they ask visitors to wear sturdy shoes with closed toes. The ticket page gives no hours for each night, but it has a form for contacting the organizers, so families can ask before they go.

Before you go

The Fairhaven parade listing is on Discover Fairhaven, the town's tourism website, which now carries a notice that the town's Office of Tourism, Community and Economic Development was eliminated effective July 1 and that the site will no longer be maintained. The listing sends questions to the North Fairhaven Improvement Association by email, so families can confirm with the association, especially if rain threatens Saturday. Factory of Terror can be reached at 774-415-0153, and the Lizzie Borden House at 508-675-7333.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.