At 10:30 on the morning of Saturday, October 24, therapy puppies-in-training will parade through the Ridgewood Public Library in costume. At 1 p.m. the same day, a second animal parade goes through Memorial Park at Van Neste Square. By 5:30 that evening, the lights come on at a Halloween display on West End Avenue, and the first hour is set aside for younger kids.
Ridgewood doesn't have one Halloween festival. It has half a dozen hosts, each running its own event, and this year their calendars overlap on one Saturday. If you lay those separate listings side by side, you get a full day, plus a season that runs through the last Friday of the month.
Six Hosts, Six Calendars
What's easy to miss about Ridgewood in October is how spread out the Halloween calendar is. The Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce runs the Haunted Harvest. The library runs its own programs on its own schedule. Ridgewood Parks and Recreation books a ticketed evening at The Stable. West Side Presbyterian Church holds a fall festival. The Ben & Jerry's on Franklin Avenue, run by NJ Scoop Shops LLC, sets its own date. And one house on West End Avenue opens its display on its own weekly schedule.
Since nobody coordinates these, nobody publishes a single schedule. The library's dates live in a children's brochure. The Chamber's dates live on an event listing. The Halloween House shows up on two community calendars with slightly different hours. Side by side, the pieces fit together with very little overlap.
Saturday, October 24, Hour by Hour
This is the day the calendars overlap. Here it is in order:
- 10:30 to 11 a.m. Halloween Puppy Parade, Ridgewood Public Library. Therapy puppies-in-training parade in costume, and the library says visitors are welcome to dress up too. It's billed as fun for the whole dog-loving family, open to all ages, and everyone is welcome.
- 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Halloween Haunted Harvest, Memorial Park at Van Neste Square. The Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce event starts as the puppy parade ends. The listing includes a haunted graveyard, a pumpkin patch, live music, games and treats.
- 12 p.m. Kids Parade, inside the Harvest.
- 1 p.m. Pet Parade, also inside the Harvest.
- 5:30 to 9 p.m. Halloween House, West End Avenue. The exact address is on the Ridgewood Local listing. A free walkthrough with no ticket needed. From 5:30 to 6:30 is the less-scary hour.
That's three parades in under three hours, two of them for animals. The library's puppy parade spotlights therapy puppies-in-training. The Chamber's pet parade two and a half hours later is a separate event at a separate venue. A family with a dog in costume could reasonably do the morning at the library and the early afternoon at Van Neste Square.
Between the end of the Harvest at 2 p.m. and the Halloween House opening at 5:30, the schedule has a three-and-a-half-hour gap. None of the listings we found fills it, so it's open time for lunch downtown or a nap before the evening.
The 5:30 start matters for families with young children. The less-scary hour falls at dusk, which makes it the evening slot best suited to younger kids. After 6:30 the display runs at full strength until 9.
The Harvest and the Halloween House both depend on the weather. The Chamber's listing says "weather permitting," and the Halloween House listing calls itself weather dependent. Neither listing gives a rain date, so a wet forecast that Saturday could take out both the middle and the end of the day.
The Week That Builds Toward It
The 24th is the peak, but the week before it already has events spaced a few days apart. The Halloween House has also been listed on earlier October dates, which are covered below.
Friday, October 16. The current Ridgewood Local listing shows the Halloween House open Friday evenings from 6 to 9 p.m., with the same free, weather-dependent walkthrough, through October 30. The Saturday sessions on October 17 and October 24 start earlier, at 5:30, and only the Saturday listing mentions a less-scary hour. For a gentler first visit, Saturday is the better choice.
Sunday, October 18. West Side Presbyterian Church hosts a fall festival from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. with pumpkin decorating, face painting, crafts, a bouncy house and games. It's the first daytime family event on the calendar, nearly a week before the Harvest.
Wednesday, October 21. Ben & Jerry's at 104–106 Franklin Avenue holds its Halloween Scooptacular from 3 to 8 p.m., according to the Eventbrite listing. The rain date is Thursday, October 22. Of all the outdoor events this month, it's the only one with a backup date in its listing.
Friday, October 23. Ridgewood Parks and Recreation presents "A paranormal evening with Richard Moschella" at The Stable, 259 N. Maple Ave., from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $55. Every other event in this post is free or something you pay for at the counter, so this one stands out. It's an adult program, held indoors, and it runs the night before the big Saturday while the Halloween House is open its usual Friday hours. A household could split up that night, with one adult at The Stable and the kids on West End Avenue.
The Days After the Peak
The calendar doesn't stop on the 24th, though it gets quieter.
On Wednesday, October 28, the library holds Pumpkin Painting from 4 to 5 p.m., open to all ages, according to its Fall 2026 children's brochure. It's the library's second Halloween-season program, four days after the puppy parade.
On Friday, October 30, the Halloween House has its last scheduled Friday, 6 to 9 p.m. Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, but none of the listings we found include an organized event on October 31 itself. The last public date is the 30th.
There's also a new stop downtown for the in-between hours. MilkShake Factory, the Pittsburgh-based dessert shop known for handspun milkshakes and small-batch chocolates, has opened at 63 E. Ridgewood Ave. ROI-NJ reported in late September that the Ridgewood shop's grand opening was planned for October 10, part of the chain's expansion in New Jersey. The Ridgewood Blog called it the chain's first New Jersey location. ROI-NJ's report, though, names existing New Jersey shops in Jersey City, Florham Park and Somerville, so Ridgewood looks like a later stop on that rollout. For the 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. gap on the 24th, it's the newest option on the main street.
What the Listings Leave Out
Because each host publishes separately, the gaps are spread out too, and some are worth knowing before you plan the day.
The Chamber's 2026 listing names the Kids Parade and the Pet Parade but doesn't give a route. Both are listed as part of the Van Neste Square event, not as a march through downtown streets. TAPinto's coverage of the 2024 Haunted Harvest called it an annual event and mentioned a costume contest along with the same noon and 1 p.m. parades. The 2026 listing doesn't mention a contest. That may just mean the listing is brief, but it isn't confirmed.
The Halloween House dates also look different depending on where you read them. A Patch calendar listing gave Saturday, October 10, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. The newer listings on Ridgewood Local show Saturdays on October 17 and 24 and Fridays from October 16 through 30, though the calendar data embedded in the Friday listing starts on October 9. Since this is a private display and the weather decides, the listing is the place to check the latest hours before you go. All three listings agree it's free, needs no ticket and depends on the weather.
We also couldn't find a 2026 announcement for student Halloween window painting on downtown storefronts. Neither the Chamber's site nor the local news coverage we reviewed lists a date or organizer for this year. If the storefronts get painted this year, nothing has been published about it yet.
From now through October 30, the listings add up to three parades, two library programs, a church festival, a scoop-shop afternoon, a ticketed evening at The Stable, and Friday and Saturday evenings at one house on West End Avenue. The 24th is the only day that brings most of the hosts together.
If a fall in town has you thinking about what your own home on these streets is worth, My Bergen House would be glad to prepare a thoughtful, no-pressure valuation whenever the timing suits you.
