The Speakeasy. Photos by Sarah Gonzales

Halloween is a holiday tailor-made for San Franciscans.  It’s a celebration that gives adults a perfectly good excuse to wear costumes and go to several nights of parties, with the added bonus of making the conservatives nervous.

Just because SF has the lowest percentage of kids of any major U.S. city, doesn’t stop us from taking advantage of this very weird, and very interpretive holiday.  Is Halloween about celebrating the dead? With candles in graveyards?  Is it about trick-or-treating and causing mischief?  Is it about going to several different costume parties and getting weird with your friends?  The answer is simply, ‘yes’ to all three.  Luckily, we know about all the great parties happening in the city this time of year.  Enjoy…

Terror Vault – The San Francisco Mint

Peaches Christ along with 100 artists is back with a new haunted house of horrors this Halloween at the SF Mint.  If you’re into very creative and very immersive ways to scare the shit out yourself, this is definitely the place to be.  The terror vault takes you on a tour of live-action actors of evil, you’ll trounce through vaults, murder scenes, and disgusting machinations that will make you want to hold your breath and scream at the same time.  Event producers Non Plus Ultra hired a hundred Bay Area artists to create the Terror Vault and it’s easy to see why.  The sets, costumes, prosthetics and play-acting are inspired, engulfing, and at times both fun and terrifying.  The tour can last about 40 minutes, but the nightmares may last a lifetime…If you’re like me, you’ll want a drink for courage, luckily the Mint has a full 1920’s inspired bar, as well as a Ghoulish Cafe run by Christopher Fry’s culinary team complete with a fortune teller, the Mint is a one-stop shop of horrors this year.

Into The Dark Returns:  ‘Terror Vault’
October 10 — November 10, 2019
The San Francisco Mint
Ages 21+ Friday & Saturday, 18+ all other days
Tickets

Photo: Sarah Gonzalez

The Speakeasy: All Hallows’ Eve

Get out your flapper dresses and seersucker suits because fictional club owners Sal and Eloise, along with the wonderful Speakeasy cast, will turn their little gin joint into a haunted house party for the ages. From seances and tarot card readings, magic acts and parlor games, tap-dancing skeletons and vaudeville performances, audiences can expect to celebrate the season in grand Jazz Age fashion.   This is a cool, immersive, time machine to prohibition-era fun.

October 25 – November 2, 2019
The Palace Theater, 644 Broadway
Tickets

SPACE COWBOYS PRESENT: HAUNTED HOEDOWN

Putting a costume on, getting weird, and dancing to a Space Cowboy DJ has been an SF and Burning Man tradition for more than a decade.  The Space Cowboys are taking over The Great Northern this year, so you know there are going to be good beats, artful decor, as well as fun people and professional partiers there.  A.SkillZ leans toward EDM/Hip-hop mashups.

Space Cowboys Present: Haunted Hoedown with A.Skillz
Saturday, October 26
The Great Northern 119 Utah St
Tickets

Sunset Sound System Halloween Costume Boat Party 2019

If you like to party on boats, watch sunsets, and listen to good music this might be the Halloween for you.  The Hornblower ship is well equipped for a dance party, and most agree that (weather permitting) that this is an awesome place for a Sunset party.  Plus on you’re back on shore by 11pm, and there’s an after party at the Great Northern.

Sunset Sound System Halloween Costume Boat Party 2019
Sunday, October 27th, 2019
Aboard The San Francisco Belle, Pier 3
San Francisco | 5:30pm – 11pm | 21+
Tickets

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

The longest-running midnight movie of all time stars Tim Curry as the kinky yet endearing “transsexual from Transylvania” Dr. Frank N. Furter, Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick as his hapless guests Brad and Janet, Meat Loaf as motorcycle-riding rough trade and author Richard O’Brien as the hunchbacked butler Riff Raff. It’s harmless musical fun—a delightful spoof of Hollywood horror movies and Old Dark House melodramas. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was the first—and is still the best—interactive movie experience!

Clay Theatre, SF
October 25 – 31
Tickets

Doja Cat at the Midway

I can’t think of a better musical guest on Halloween than Doja Cat, I mean, she came to fame twerking in a cow onesie, rapping and harmonizing “Moooo’.  Plus the Midway has a great Soundsystem and outdoor/indoor dynamic.

HER HALLOWEED presented by Ankh Marketing & Clout SF
10/31 at The Midway SF
900 Marin Street, San Francisco
A Costume Party: best costume wins $1,000!
Tickets

Death Guild Presents : The Darkest Night

Delightful horrors & Tantaliing Terrors all night long.  If there was ever a night to go Death Guild goth it’s during Halloween week.  Death Guild is the oldest weekly goth/industrial dance night in the country, and the second oldest in the world! Every Monday, six DJs in two rooms play a mix of gothic, industrial, synthpop, noise, ambient, and weird stuff for those who love the darker side of things.

DNA LOUNGE
375 11th St, San Francisco
Monday, October 28  (And Every Monday)
Tickets

Audio Halloween:  PAUL OAKENFOLD

The legendary Paul Oakenfold headlines Audio’s Halloween October 25th.  There’s going to be some cool, old-school EDM heads at this party, plus Audio’s sound is state of the art.

Audio SF, 316 11th Street
Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 9:30 PM
Tickets

Creatures of the NightLife

This is a good safety pick on Halloween.   Because you know you already like the science museum, the planetarium, and the rainforest.  Why not do it in costume? The creatures come out at NightLife as the Academy transforms into a spine-tingling and outrageous celebration of supernatural science on the spookiest night of the year.  Live drag performance by Heklina. DJ set by Omar Perez. Costumes encouraged!

Cal Academy of sciences
Oct 31
Tickets