Branded The Halloween City, Eureka Springs announces October events

Eureka Springs, branded itself The Halloween City, has a number of Halloween-themed events on tap for October, including ghost tours, haunted theatrical shows, zombie parade, cemetery tours, séances and haunted hotels, according to a press release from Arkansas Parks & Tourism.

Intrigue Theater will present its Halloween show Oct. 28 at the Eureka Springs Auditorium. Illusionist Sean-Paul and medium Juliane Fay provide a Victorian-era experience of “magic and mystery” and “traditional mentalist performances” that will end in a witch trial hanging, according to the press release.

In addition to the Halloween show, Intrigue Theater will give performances each Wednesday through Saturday in October in its regular location at 80 Mountain St.

Sean-Paul said in the press release, Eureka Springs’ Halloween offerings are “a little more on the sophisticated side. … It’s ghost tours and haunted shows, not just a bunch of dark rooms with people jumping out at you.”

Also on Oct. 28, the sixth-annual Eureka Springs Zombie Crawl parade is scheduled for 6 p.m. downtown. The parade will follow Spring Street from the Eureka Springs Public Library to the Basin Park Hotel. The parade will be followed by a Thriller Flash Mob Dance and Dance of the Dead 21-and-up costume party hosted by Upstairs at Grotto on Spring Street.

Halloween night, Sean-Paul and Fay will host Séance at the Crescent Hotel, a three-course dinner that Sean-Paul said will include “paranormal experiments between entrees and a final one after dinner.”

Throughout the month, the city offers a range of Halloween-themed events.

“It’s our goal that people don’t think about us just that one weekend in October. They can come and have a great Halloween experience all month. We have so much inherent Halloween stuff,” Sean-Paul said in the release.

The Eureka Springs Historical Museum will present town cemetery walking tours called Voices of the Silent City, where Eureka Springs residents replay historical events, portraying individuals buried in the cemetery. The tours will be offered 5:30-8:30 p.m. on Oct. 19, 20, 21, 27 and 28.

The Crescent Hotel, built in 1886 and branded “America’s Most Haunted Hotel,” will offer an extended ghost tour on Halloween night, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Tours will be given nightly throughout October, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Tours are 75 minutes and start at the top floor of the building and work their way down to the basement, which houses the morgue from when it was a cancer hospital.

The Basin Park Hotel in downtown Eureka Springs is expanding its Basin Spirit Tours through the month of October. Tours are given at 8 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and in October the hotel will add 6 p.m. tours on Fridays and Saturdays.

The guided “ghost hunt” starts on the roof of the eight-story hotel and proceeds in stages to an underground cave, according to the press release. It ends with a ghost story told by candlelight, and a “sample of spirits of a different kind” for those 21 years of age and older.

Haunted Eureka Springs Tours involve both a shuttle bus and some walking to explore more of the town’s haunted locations. It takes places every night of October. Sign up for the 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. tour.

Arkansas Parks & Tourism also pointed to other Halloween-themed entertainment, including the new attraction Escape Room 13, Flickering Tales — a program offered Thursday through Sunday in May through October at the Crescent Hotel and featuring “genuine Ozark stories of witches, monsters, spook lights and ghosts —“ and two plays: “Not Really a Door,” a two-woman play performed at the Crescent Hotel and described as a “supernatural comedy-thriller,” and “ANNA,” a “haunting theatrical tale” set in the 1940s and presented at the Melonlight Theater.