Heritage Square Museum Halloween Activities

2024 Dates & Hours: As of September, there was no listing for the museum’s annual Halloween tours, but there were other seasonal events.

- Booze, Bites & Frights: Outdoor film screenings on October 11-12 and 18-19. Get more info on our page for Street Food Cinema.
- Magic Market on October 6.
- Spook-a-Nanny/Bob Baker Marionette Theater on October 16.
- Sancta Susanna: A Horror Opera – October 24 & 25@ 7:30. Source/Filter presents the West Coast Premiere of Paul Hindemith’s rarely-performed opera, with a new English libretto by Britta Sterling and Rae Shrum and fully immersive staging inside Heritage Square Museum’s historic Lincoln Avenue Church. Tickets $15-50.
- Terrifying True Stories: October 26-27 @ 7pm, 8pm, 9pm. Immerse yourself in terrifying true stories told by candlelight in an abandoned church and four other haunting structures, where the chilling tales come to life all around you. Tickets $30 (plus fees).
- Badlands Haunted Hootenanny on September 28t. Spooky shops, live music, line dancing, mechanical bull, food, brews, scare zone, and more.
- Sister Midnight Film Festival: November 7-10. Short films and artwork exploring the surreal and the ethereal.

Location: Heritage Square Museum – 3800 Homer Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031

Heritage Square Museum does a wonderful job of exploiting the October season for history rather than horror. Its non-scary event takes visitors into the past, with recreations of Victorian funerals and seances and well-informed character-guides eager to explain the customs surrounding death and dying.: www.heritagesquare.org

Quick Take: Heritage Square Museum does a fine job of exploiting the October season for history rather than horror. Its various museum tours explore the history Halloween and spiritualism, with recreations of Victorian funerals and seances led by well-informed character-guides eager to explain the customs surrounding death and dying. Into the mix, Heritage Square Museum frequently includes films screenings and sometimes hosts immersive plays in its Victorian mansions.

Heritage Square Museum Archive: Check out articles about events at Heritage Square Museum…

Heritage Square Museum Halloween History

For many years, Heritage Square Museum invited visitor to attend their annual Halloween & Mourning Tours, usually presented on the final weekend of October. Guests explored the museum’s Victorian-era houses, where they found themselves immersed in the traditions of death and mourning as they were practiced 100 years ago, explained by costumed characters.

The Halloween & Mourning Tours were a living history program that put guests in the middle of a superstitious Victorian-era where death was never far behind. There were opportunities to witness a funeral procession, visit a fortune teller, learn about mourning attire, and even participate in a seance!

Heritage Square Museum also offered an annual Halloween and Mourning Movie Night in October, screening a classic horror film outdoors, and for a time, Heritage Square Museum hosted Safe Haven Trick-or-Treating on Halloween evening. Eventually this latter event was phased out in favor of presenting a more kid-friendly version of the Halloween and Mourning Tours on Sunday, when children from 2 to 12 could play period games, make 19th century harvest crafts, trick or treat, and listen to scary tales.

During the 2020 pandemic, Heritage Square Museum presented Oh, What a Beautiful Mourning, which was a scaled-down, outdoor version of its Halloween & Mourning Tour. 2021 resurrected the event, this time called Oh, What a Beautiful Mourning…Cults in Los Angeles. For 2022, the title was changed to Outdoor Mourning Faire.

Heritage Square Museum continues to host third-party events with spooky or supernatural themes, sometimes during Halloween and sometimes off-season. Notable examples include Cemetery Lane Trick or Treating, Heritage Scare, The Assassination of Edgar Allan Poe, and Witch!

Heritage Square is a year-round living history museum, focusing on Los Angeles during its first 100 years. Tours of the eight historic structures preserved at the location are given regularly throughout the year.