A spirited lineup of Tonopah activities scheduled for this Halloween

Tonopah may be a small town but it has big spirit and with the spookiest time of the year now underway, there’s an entire month-long lineup of festive and frighteningly fun activities in store.

“We are bananas-town in October,” Tonopah Tourism and Events Supervisor Bethany Thompson told the Times-Bonanza last week. “We have so much going on, so many awesome things for the community to do. And all of these events are a great opportunity not only for the community, but also for tourism. We’d love for people to come out and have a blast with us.”

This coming Saturday, October 10 will kick off the seasonal activities with the Pumpkin Smash Parade. Everyone is encouraged to come dressed in their pumpkin best to hit Main Street for the procession, which will take place at 4 p.m. Participants will start lining up at the fire station at 3:45 p.m. and all are welcome to join in at no cost.

The following afternoon, the Tonopah Harvest Festival will take place at the Joe Friel Sports Complex. Sponsored by the Community Youth Advisory Council and Central Nevada Grange #23, this event will offer an array of fall-time fun, from a classic pumpkin patch and carnival games to face painting, a cake walk, barnyard animals and more. Emergency service vehicles will be on display and several area organizations will have booths at the event, as well. Tickets are $5 per person or $20 for an immediate-family ticket package. Game tickets will also be available for purchase.

“Harvest festival is coming to Tonopah!” information on the event read. “This year’s theme is ‘Let’s Be Thankful For Our Community’, so let’s show up for the volunteers, organizations and local businesses that make Tonopah special. Please help spread the word so we can make the event a success for the Community Youth Advisory Council.”

Rolling into the following weekend, the activities will continue on Friday, October 16 when Vegas Afterlife makes a trip to town to host a paranormal investigation. Owner Danielle Nicole will take attendees on a tour of two of the most haunted places in the area, the Old Tonopah Cemetery and the Mizpah Hotel. Ticket and event information can be found at VegasAfterlife.com

The evening of Saturday, October 17 is packed, starting with one of Tonopah Main Street’s quarterly booze walks, Nightmare on Main Street.

An adults-only event, the booze walk will feature several local businesses in a competition to determine who will reign as the champion of drinks as well as the most festively decorated - and it will be the participants who make that determination. Capping off the booze walk will be the Tonopah Liquor Company’s Karaoke After-party, where the winners of the Tonopah Main Street Booze Walk will be announced.

Tickets for the booze walk are $15 in advance or, if there are any remaining the day-of, $20 each. Tickets can be purchased at A-Bar-L Western Store, Crow Collective, the Tonopah Liquor Company and on EventBrite. All participants must pre-register between 3 and 4:30 p.m. before beginning the booze walk, which lasts until 7 p.m.

This year, the annual Flash Mob and Zombie Walk will also take place on Saturday, October 17, starting at 6:30 p.m. This means the main stretch of road through town will definitely be aswarm with ghouls, goblins and other creatures of the night as everyone enjoys both the booze walk and flash mob.

The Flash Mob and Zombie Walk is put together by Tabitha Reid of Hasana Dance Troupe and anyone wanting to take part can prep for the night by attending upcoming dance practices, set for Tuesday, October 13 and Thursday, October 15 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Tonopah Convention Center. For more information contact 435-862-7410.

“For the Flash Mob and Zombie Walk, people walk through town doing the ‘Thriller’ dance and they go into all of the businesses, it’s fantastic,” Thompson enthused. “And of course, the booze walk is always fun for the adults!”

This is just the first half of the month’s-worth of activities, with many more planned as Halloween approaches. These include the Downtown Spook Festival and Haunt, the Tonopah Liquor Company’s annual Halloween Costume Contest, the town’s Trunk or Treat and the annual All Hallows Eve Witches Gathering and Moon Walk. Details on each will be included in an upcoming edition of the Times-Bonanza and Goldfield News.

For more information on events in Tonopah, visit TonopahNevada.com and click on “Events Calendar” under the “Things To Do” dropdown menu.

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com