The last full weekend before Halloween is a crowded one on Long Island. A wooden boat goes up in flames on the Great South Bay, two haunted attractions enter their final nights, a farm in South Huntington throws its biggest day of the season, and a military chorale sings beside a lighthouse on the North Fork. Here is what is happening Friday, October 23 through Sunday, October 25, with the details that make each one worth the drive.

Friday: a boat burns in West Sayville

The Long Island Maritime Museum holds its 36th annual Halloween Boat Burning on Friday from 5 to 9:30 p.m. at 88 West Avenue in West Sayville. Each October the museum picks a wooden boat whose sailing days are over, tows it onto the waterfront grounds, and burns it in front of the crowd after dark. Admission is $5, and the fire itself is the finale of the evening. It is one of the stranger traditions on the Island, and it only happens once a year.

Friday through Sunday: Terror Carts at Belmont Lake

Terrifying Trails runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at Belmont Lake State Park in North Babylon. The haunted attraction from I-CON, the Long Island science fiction organization, puts visitors in staff-driven Terror Carts and sends them down the park's dark paths, so nobody walks the woods on foot. It is an outdoor, weather-dependent event; if the organizers cancel a night, that ticket is honored on a later weekend. The attraction continues October 30 and 31 before closing for the season.

Friday and Saturday nights, plus a kids' daytime: Gateway's Haunted Playhouse

Gateway's Haunted Playhouse at 215 South Country Road in Bellport runs Friday and Saturday from 7 to 11:30 p.m., two of the haunt's last evening dates of 2026. For children, the Not So Scary daytime version runs Saturday and Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. This is the year Gateway brought back Mr. Tickles, the clown it retired a decade ago, now with his own 3-D funhouse, and the whole production closes November 1.

Saturday: ELIJA Farm's Fall Festival in South Huntington

ELIJA Farm, the ten-acre nonprofit farm on Foxhurst Road in South Huntington, holds its Fall Festival on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. General admission is $20, and the day is built around a pumpkin patch and the farm itself. ELIJA, the autism organization behind the farm, puts every dollar raised back into the farm and the programs it runs, so the admission is doing something beyond buying a pumpkin.

Saturday and Sunday: the Freeport Gem, Mineral and Jewelry Show

The Freeport Gem, Mineral and Jewelry Show fills the Freeport Recreation Center on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. It is the last of promoter Kaleidoscope Gem Shows' three Long Island dates this year, with dealers selling finished jewelry, loose stones, minerals, crystals and fossils. The timing, a little more than eight weeks before the holidays, is not an accident.

Sunday: the Coast Guard sings beside Horton Point Lighthouse

The Cadet Chorale of the United States Coast Guard Academy crosses Long Island Sound to sing a free outdoor concert on the grounds of Horton Point Lighthouse, 3575 Lighthouse Road in Southold, on Sunday from 1 to 2:30 p.m. The Southold Historical Museum hosts, and the lighthouse grounds above the Sound supply the setting. Bring a chair or a blanket.

Sunday: Sag Harbor's Ragamuffin Parade

Sag Harbor's annual Ragamuffin Parade steps off Sunday at 1 p.m., sending costumed children down Main Street in a Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce tradition. If the costume needs a second outing, the village's Pumpkin Trail follows on Halloween itself, when the business district opens its doors to trick-or-treaters from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Before you go

Outdoor events this time of year live and die by the forecast, and haunted attractions can sell out on their final weekends. Check each organizer's page the day you go for tickets, parking and any weather calls.

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