Michigan Travel · Detroit
Beyond Zoo Boo: a free museum party, a ballpark carnival and a Halloween concert for Detroit kids
DETROIT — Families looking past the Detroit Zoo’s Zoo Boo have three more Halloween outings in the city this month, from a free afternoon inside the Detroit Historical Museum to a costumed Saturday-morning concert at Orchestra Hall.
The museum’s Treats in the Streets runs from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 25, in the museum’s Streets of Old Detroit exhibit. Admission is free but ticketed, with a limit of 10 tickets per family, and the society recommends it for children 2 to 12.
This year’s theme borrows from a night circus. The society lists a Halloween scavenger hunt, crafts and coloring, a dance party with the local band Fangs and Twang, and a bag of treats for each young visitor on the way out. The museum is at 5401 Woodward Ave.
The museum has costume rules: nothing that promotes illegal drugs or activity, nothing derogatory or violent, and no weapons or pretend weapons of any kind. Anyone in a costume that breaks those rules will be turned away, the society says.
The night before, on Saturday, Oct. 24, the Detroit Police Athletic League holds PALoween at The Corner Ballpark, 1680 Michigan Ave. PAL says more than 1,000 children from its programs and their families turn out each year for trick-or-treating with community partners, bounce houses, face painting, crafts and a photo booth, all in a car-free area. PAL’s page did not list start times.
On Halloween itself, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra plays Spooky Spectacular! at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 31, at Orchestra Hall, 3711 Woodward Ave. The concert runs about an hour and includes a costume contest for young concertgoers. Free activities, including instrument try-outs and crafts, start at 9:30 a.m.
Zoo Boo still has two weekends left: Oct. 16–18 and 23–25, from 3 to 8:30 p.m., after the Oct. 9–11 opening weekend. Tickets run $21 to $27 for everyone age 2 and older, according to the zoo.
Updated Oct. 13, 2026: Updated the Zoo Boo weekend count after the Oct. 9–11 opening weekend; two weekends remain (Oct. 16–18 and 23–25). Museum, PALoween and DSO dates later in the month are unchanged.
Sources:
Detroit Historical Society, “Treats in the Streets”, https://www.detroithistorical.org/events/treats-streets-9
Detroit PAL, “PALoween”, https://detroitpal.org/initiatives/paloween/
Detroit Symphony Orchestra, “Spooky Spectacular! Halloween at Orchestra Hall”, https://www.dso.org/events-and-tickets/events/26-27-fall/spooky-spectacular-halloween-at-orchestra-hall
Detroit Zoo, “Zoo Boo 2026”, https://detroitzoo.org/events/zoo-boo/
Photo: Michael Barera, “Detroit Historical Museum July 2018 01,” July 6, 2018, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), cropped and color-corrected; derivative under the same ShareAlike license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Detroit_Historical_Museum_July_2018_01.jpg
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