Top Utah Fall Events & Halloween Fun This October

October in Utah is filled with stargazing nights, harvest celebrations, Viking games, ghost stories, and Halloween festivities. From Moab to Salt Lake City, the month offers something for every age and mood.

Connie Lewis

September 30, 2025

October in Utah brings a mix of crisp nights, harvest traditions, ghost stories, and Halloween mayhem. From stargazing parties and Viking festivals to cemetery tours and costume celebrations, the month is filled with ways to enjoy the season. Here is a short list of the top October events.

October 8

Star Party: The Terror of Tiamat. “According to the most ancient of legends, the stars are all that remain of the dragon Tiamat. Hanging high above the autumn skies, her ever-present silhouette was said to haunt mankind below.” (From the DNR website)

The star party will explore Ancient Babylonian contributions to the understanding of the night sky through constellations and mythologies with the aid of telescopes. Bring a blanket to sit on and meet at the Visitor Center Parking Lot at 8 pm at Dead Horse Point State Park, Moab.

October 10

Autumn Harvest Celebration. This event will be held at Provo Pioneer Village, 600 N 500 W, Provo. This is a family fun, free activity that celebrates all things autumn. Held from 5 to 8 pm with crafts, handcarts, games, music, and more. Participants are welcome to dress up.

Photo courtesy of This is the Place Website.

October 10-31

Little Haunts at This is the Place. Presented by This is the Place Heritage Park, 2601 E Sunnyside Avenue. Events include a story-telling witch, trick-or-treating, and Creature Encounters, along with the Park’s daily activities like train rides, petting corral, pony rides, take-home crafts and more. The Park is open from 10 am to 5 pm Monday through Saturday.

October 11

Biochar: Making Black Earth. Presented by Wasatch Community Gardens. The instructor will be Evan Sugden, PhD, who is a professional entomologist with years of experience. Held from 10 am to 12 pm.

October 11

Glenwood Cemetery Tribute Event. Presented by the Park City Historical Society and Museum. This annual event, hosted by the Park City Museum, will be held from 10:45 am to 12 pm, and 12:45 pm to 2 pm. Rain will move the event to October 12. Reenactors or ghosts in costume standing at gravesites will discuss life and death from the historic mining town. The tours are $25 per person and appropriate for ages 10 and older. This is a fundraiser for the cemetery. Space is limited and reservations are required here. The cemetery is located at the end of Silver King Drive, near the intersection of Silver King Drive and Three Kings Drive.

October 11

Halloween Havoc Demolition Derby. Presented by the Golden Spike Event Center at the Golden Spike Event Center in Ogden. The destruction begins at 6:30 pm and admission is $33. Tickets can be purchased at Event Tickets.

October 11

Viking Day Festival. Unleash your inner Viking at this free family friendly event at Pleasant Grove’s Downtown Park from 10 am to 5 pm with a “Glow Dance” at 7 pm. Activities include a Run Like a Viking 5K, crafts, games, and activities for all ages, axe throwing and strongman competitions, free pony rides, along with live entertainment and a root beer garden.

October 12

9th Annual Park City Shot Ski. The friendly shot ski competition with Breckenridge Ski Resort will once again attempt to break a new world record for participants taking a shot all at once. The event helps raise funds for community grants. This event is sponsored by the Park City Sunrise Rotary Club and High West Distillery. Lining up on Main Street and assuming their position of the communal shot ski, participants will simultaneously take a shot of High West whiskey. Last year 1,385 shots were poured, raising more than $50,000 for local non-profits. The event starts at 2 pm.

October 16-30

Garden After Dark: Trouble in Oz. Held at Red Butte Garden and Arboretum. It will feature immersive storytelling, atmospheric lighting, along with artistic scenes made especially for the garden’s landscape. Travel through the shadowed land of Oz filled with color, mystery, and imaginative twists. Held from 6 pm to 9 pm with the last entry at 8 pm. Tickets can be purchased in advance on the Red Butte website.

October 25

Monster Block Party. This will be held at the Regional Athletic Complex, 2280 N. Rose Park Lane. The Monster Block Party is a free Halloween festival for those of all ages. Activities include trunk or treating, face painting, inflatables, live performances, a pumpkin drop, and food trucks. Opens at 11 am.

October 31

Ghost: Biggest Halloween Night Party. Celebrate Halloween at the historic Grand building at the Utah State Fairgrounds, 155 N 1000 W, Salt Lake City. This is an indoor and outdoor venue that provides 2 stages and will feature 8 DJs throughout the night. Advance tickets can be purchased at ThePartyTix.

Feature Image: Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash.

Utah Stories

Connie Lewis

Connie has been with Utah Stories since 2013, and has enjoyed learning everything involved in producing a monthly magazine. In addition to writing, Connie performs administrative tasks, coordinates writers, photographers and editors, and oversees a million little details. Her least favorite word is ‘deadline.’ A journalism class at the University of Utah sparked Connie’s love of writing. Finding it hard to narrow her interests to just one major, journalism allowed her to explore a wide variety of topics and disciplines. When she is not writing, Connie loves spending time with her family and traveling with her dogs. “It has been a pleasure learning new things about the state I was born in and meeting the people who make Utah great,” she says. Connie plans to continue her love of learning and improving as the magazine moves onward and upward.

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To understand what Alta really looked like, you don’t begin with legend. You begin with its trash — and this time, that happened almost by accident.

Alta Ski Area was installing underground water reservoirs to support snowmaking. Because the project sits on Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest land, an archaeologist was required to monitor the excavation. No one expected the trench to produce much.

But, It did.

Artifacts began surfacing almost immediately. Enough that the Forest Service contacted the Utah State Historic Preservation Office for help. Lexi Little, who coordinates the Utah Cultural Site Stewardship Program, helped mobilize nearly 30 volunteers to assist with what quickly became a focused two-week excavation.

Winter deadlines were approaching. The pipes for the reservoirs had to go in the ground. There wasn’t time for a slow, extended dig.

“It was two weeks of digging in the dirt and helping figure out exactly what we were looking at,” Little said.

Most of the people screening soil weren’t professional archaeologists. They were trained stewards from around Utah — part of a statewide volunteer network that now approaches 500 people. They poured dirt through shaker screens, scanning for fragments that could piece together a town long buried.

“Archaeology is human trash,” Little explained. “Archaeologists are very into trash.”

Alta had left plenty behind.

https://youtu.be/hzIHzx3OGoo?si=dKcl2CEz-t6FZzYw

Victorian-style ceramics appeared first — the kind typically used in hotels. Medicine bottles followed. Ink bottles. Hand-blown glass. A porcelain doll’s foot surfaced from the soil, a small detail that shifted the mental image of the town. Families were here. Children were here. This wasn’t only a camp of miners.

The bottles helped establish time. Manufacturing details — whether glass was hand-blown or mold-made, whether a maker’s mark appeared on the base — allowed archaeologists to date many of the artifacts to the 1870s through the 1890s, when Alta was booming as a silver mining town.

“That gives you that range of dates for when Alta was really booming,” Little said.

One reusable soda bottle clearly stamped “Salt Lake City” connected the canyon to the valley economy below.

Then something unusual rolled out of a dirt pile.

A corked bottle. Intact. Liquid still inside.

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