Cranberry Township Halloween Events 2026: Your October Guide

What did it cost a Cranberry family to take two young kids to the township's Great Pumpkin Festival? In 2024 the answer was $24 for residents and $28 for everyone else. Each child needed a $12 resident or $14 standard registration, which you had to buy ahead of time. Parents got in free with a registered child, and the whole event took place in the gym.

In 2026 it costs nothing. The Great Pumpkin Festival/Movie on the Lawn runs Friday, Oct. 23, at the Cranberry Township Municipal Center and the Armstrong Great Lawn, 2525 Rochester Road. It's free and rain or shine, and Cranberry Township and Giant Eagle are presenting it together.

Price is only part of the change. An event you had to register for indoors is now an evening on the lawn that anyone can walk into. That makes Oct. 23 the one night this month when the township government's own Halloween event is open to every household without a ticket. Everything else on the October calendar is smaller, ticketed, or held outside the township.

From the gym to the Armstrong Great Lawn

The township's own listings for the two years show the shift side by side.

The target age range hasn't changed, so the festival is still aimed at toddlers through early elementary kids. Who can get in and when has changed. In 2024, the Parks and Recreation Department and the Cranberry Township Public Library described it as a festival where kids could "eat, drink, and be scary, funny, cute, or creative in your Halloween costumes in the gym." In 2026 the costumes move outside, and families who didn't plan ahead can still go.

The township's listing for 2025 wasn't part of this research. So the comparison here is 2024 to 2026, not a single-year switch.

What the lawn makes room for

Being outdoors explains most of what's new this year. The 2026 program lists a pumpkin patch, pumpkin decorating, games, crafts, snacks, and a photobooth. Interactive booths come from Xfinity, Home Genius Exteriors, Moe's Southwest Grill, Big Blue Swim School, and Universal Windows Direct/The Bath Authority.

There's also a self-guided storywalk around the Armstrong Great Lawn featuring "Here a Creak, There a Shriek!" by Kelly Conroy. The township's listing names a sensory-friendly room as well. In 2024 the sensory option was its own hour before the main event. This year it runs alongside everything else.

The township calls the Halloween Movie on the Lawn "a new addition to the event," and it starts at 7 p.m. with 2019's "The Addams Family." It's new to the festival, but Cranberry has shown a Halloween movie on this lawn before. In 2025, Patch reported a separate Halloween Movie on the Lawn on Oct. 17, 2025, showing "Hotel Transylvania" at 7:30 p.m. It followed Barktoberfest, a pet-themed extension of the Town Square Market. This year the township has combined the movie and the kids' festival into one Friday evening.

You'll see two different times for the night. The listing's text says the festival runs 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., with the movie starting at 7. But the calendar entry blocks off 5:30 to 9 p.m., and no end time is printed for the film. In practice, the pumpkin patch winds down as the screen lights up, and the evening runs past dark.

The smaller events stacked around Oct. 23

With the township's biggest Halloween event set for one Friday, the rest of the month fills in with events that are smaller, ticketed, or a short drive away. Here they are in date order, between now and Nov. 1.

• Tuesday, Oct. 13, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. "Spooky Stories for Adults" at the Cranberry Public Library, Franklin Station North Meeting Room, listed for teens and adults.
• Thursday, Oct. 15, 6 to 7 p.m. Kelly Conroy Halloween Storytime at the library. Kelly Conroy is also the author named on the festival's storywalk book. Registration is required.
• Friday, Oct. 16, 6 to 8 p.m. Victory Family Church's Trunk or Treat at 21150 Route 19. It's free, with decorated trunks, games, activities, and food vendors.
• Saturday, Oct. 17, 3 p.m. Adams Township Halloween in the Park at the Community Park Pavilion, 690 Valencia Road, Mars. It has games, crafts, emergency-service vehicles, a parade, and a judged costume contest. Registration goes through the township's recreation link.
• Oct. 17 and 18, Oct. 24 and 25, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Freedom Farms Fall Festival in Valencia. The farm also advertises a Trunk or Treat but hasn't posted a date for it.
• Tuesday, Oct. 20, 6 to 7 p.m. "Cemetery Tales: Pittsburgh's Buried Art and History" at the library, for teens and adults.
• Friday, Oct. 23, 5:30 p.m. The Great Pumpkin Festival and Movie on the Lawn.
• Thursday, Oct. 29. Halloween STEAM at the library's Children's Common Area. The sensory-friendly session runs 5:30 to 6 p.m., and the regular session runs 6 to 7 p.m. for grades K through 5. The listing is marked "Registration Required," but the event detail says online registration is preferred, not required.

Two longer-running options cover the whole stretch. Fun Fore All's Trick or Treat Mini Golf at 8 Progress Avenue runs daily through Oct. 31, noon to 9 p.m. It costs $13 for adults and $10 for kids 12 and under, and players get candy. Compared with the 2024 festival ticket, a parent and one child at mini golf now cost about what two resident kids paid to get into the Great Pumpkin Festival two years ago.

Over in Wexford, the Soergel Orchards Fall Festival runs Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Nov. 1. Pumpkin and flower picking is open weekdays from noon to 5 p.m., and Friday pumpkin-patch hayrides run 5 to 7 p.m. through the end of October. Since those hayrides overlap the festival's start time on Oct. 23, families who want both will need to pick one that Friday.

Harvest Valley Farms is open Saturdays and Sundays in October from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with hayrides, a cornstalk maze, and a pumpkin patch. Its page says it is closed Oct. 31.

Halloween lands on a Saturday, and the neighbors keep their own clocks

Cranberry Township trick-or-treat is Saturday, Oct. 31, from 6 to 8 p.m., rain or shine. Households can opt out. Because it's a Saturday, there's no rush home from work and school, which isn't always the case in other years.

Most of Cranberry's immediate neighbors use the same hours. Further out, the times vary more, according to the Cranberry Eagle's 2026 trick-or-treat schedule, published Oct. 8.

Two neighbors run Halloween events on other days. Zelienople holds its Merchant Trick-or-Treat from 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 29, followed by a Halloween Parade at 6:30 p.m. Parade registration opens at 5:30 p.m. behind NexTier Bank. That's the same evening as the library's Halloween STEAM sessions. Evans City's 3 p.m. start on Oct. 31 ends before Cranberry's door-to-door hours begin.

After the pumpkins

The township's next family holiday event is Santa's First Stop, Friday, Nov. 20, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Municipal Center, 2525 Rochester Road. The 2026 listing doesn't include program details yet. The detailed activity list you may find online is from the township's November 2025 announcement, so it doesn't confirm anything for this year. What we know for 2026 is the date, the hours, and the address. It's the same address as the Great Pumpkin Festival, a month later.

If you're new to Cranberry and want help working out which township events fit your family's calendar, or what's happening a few minutes away in Mars, Adams, or Seven Fields, Chelsea Dolny is glad to share what she knows about life around Rochester Road. Let's Connect.