Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival
October 12-14
Downtown New Orleans, Central Business District
Lafayette Square (St. Charles Avenue at Poydras Street) is the home for this free blues festival. Two stages plus food and craft booths, including some of the best barbecue in the South. Get your blues on with these performers: Keb Mo, Otis Clay, Latimore, Lil Buck Sinegal, Luther Kent and more. Take the historic streetcar from our front door to Lafayette Square for the full New Orleans experience.
New Orleans Film Festival
October 11-18
Various venues
Voodoo Music Experience
October 26-28
City Park
You can also take the streetcar to City Park for the Voodoo Music Experience with headliners that include Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Green Day, Green Day, Marcia Ball, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Irma Thomas, Grand Victorian favorite Paul Sanchez (formerly of Cowboy Mouth), and the burlesque dancers from Fleur de Tease
Halloween in New Orleans
October 2012
Haunted Tours and Spiritual Shops
You might want to start with one of the many haunted tours through the French Quarter or some other spooky part of the city. There are haunted houses Uptown, in the Garden District and elsewhere, if you know where to go or are with someone who does. And then, of course, there are the world-famous cemeteries where the dearly departed are buried in tombs aboveground. Hundreds of stories abound in which the ghosts of these “Cities of the Dead” make their presence known, some of which have actually been documented and visually captured.
While prowling around the French Quarter there are a number of Voodoo shops you can check out to learn a little more about the history behind these centuries-old spiritual practices. You might even learn a few spells and mystical incantations. There are even shops catering specifically to vampires, believe it or not. Some of the shops plan special events for Halloween, so make sure you stop by and get in on the action. You can read about them online byclicking here.