Michigan Travel · Bay City
Things to do in Bay City this Halloween weekend: Spooktacular and a haunted ship
BAY CITY, Mich. — Bay City’s mid-October Halloween weekend stacks a free family night at the Dow Bay Area Family YMCA against peak evenings aboard the haunted USS Edson attraction on the riverfront.
The YMCA’s Halloween Spooktacular runs Saturday, Oct. 17, from 6 to 8 p.m. at 225 Washington Ave. and the YMCA Uptown Park, according to the Dow Bay Area Family YMCA. The event is free; children must be pre-registered. Organizers ask guests to bring a personal care item for the Care Closet. Planned activities include trunk-or-treat, a photobooth, balloon animals, arts and crafts, games, haunted locker rooms, snacks, a live DJ and prizes.
On the water, the Edson Incident haunted attraction lists peak dates of Oct. 16 and 17 among its late-October nights, with tickets at $25 for those peak times, according to the attraction’s site. Early October dates were priced at $20. Sunday, Oct. 25, offers a low-scare afternoon session from noon to 4 p.m. for $10 and a full-scare evening from 7 to 10 p.m. for $15. The attraction uses the USS Edson destroyer museum ship and asks drivers to search “USS Edson” in maps and choose a toll-free route across Bay City’s free bridges.
Families who want a less intense Saturday option can still catch the Delta College Planetarium’s Monster Light Show at 2 and 7 p.m. on remaining October Saturdays, a series The Mitten Daily previewed earlier this month. Rocky Horror shadow-cast screenings at the Historic Masonic Temple follow later in the month, on Oct. 23–24 and Oct. 31, per the temple’s event listing.
For the Spooktacular, contact the YMCA at 989-895-8596 or see the event page for registration details. Edson tickets and night-by-night pricing are posted at edsonincident.com.
Sources:
Dow Bay Area Family YMCA, Halloween Spooktacular event page, https://www.ymcabaycity.org/spooktacular/
The Edson Incident, dates and ticket prices, https://edsonincident.com/
Delta College, Monster Light Show announcement, https://www.delta.edu/news/2026-monster-lights-planetrium-pr.html
Historic Masonic Temple of Bay City, Rocky Horror Halloween Spooktacular listing, https://www.hmtbc.org/event-details-registration/the-rocky-horror-picture-show-halloween-spooktacular
Photo: WeaponizingArchitecture, “Midland Street Commercial District.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), cropped and color-adjusted; derivative under the same ShareAlike license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Midland_Street_Commercial_District.jpg
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