The last days of October provide numerous opportunities to don your scariest garb, beg for candy, paint sugar skulls, and act like a fool. Sometimes it’s even for a good cause. And because Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, the party goes on all weekend. Here’s a roundup featuring just a few of this season’s creepiest, kookiest, and ookiest opportunities for monstrous mischief.
Elmwood Cemetery’s annual Spirits with the Spirits party goes down Friday, October 30th, at 7 p.m., and allows visitors to raise glasses and make grave toasts in Memphis’ most scenic city of the dead. Tickets are $70, and the dress code is black-and-white casual, though costumes and characters are welcome (elmwoodcemetery.org). And speaking of the dead, Latino Memphis’ Day of the Dead Fiesta is also being held Friday. The fund-raising party features performances by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Opera Memphis, New Ballet Ensemble, and Mariachi Guadalajara, as well as Dominican DJ Giovanni Rodriguez and Colombian singer Marcela Pinilla and her band (7-11:30 p.m., at downtown’s Cadre Building. $70. Latinomemphis.com).
Costumed fun for the whole family starts early on Saturday with an opportunity to make Midtown a cleaner place. The Mad Sweep of Madison Avenue starts at 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 31st at Clean Memphis, 1859 Madison. Participants will pick up supplies and clear debris along the avenue from Cleveland to Cooper. The party starts at noon. Winners of the costume contest will receive gift bags valued at over $50 each, containing prizes from local Madison businesses. That leaves plenty of time to get ready for Mud Island’s annual Halloween on the Island, with games and trick-or-treating from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Admission is $5 per person.
Things heat up when the Halloween sun goes down. You can put on your “Million Dollar Boots” and take in the hip-hop stylings of Lord T & Eloise at the Sinners for Saints Ball, a benefit for the Church Health Center at Stop 345 (9 p.m.-3 a.m. Stop 345. $40). Or you can drop in on the Halloween Bash at Minglewood Hall, “A Scary Good Time,” featuring FreeWorld and benefiting Transformations Autism Treatment Center (9 p.m.-1 a.m. $25. halloweenbashmemphis.com).