On Halloween Saturday the Mid Cape Splits by the Clock, and One Stop Serves Stale Aspic

HALLOWEEN · BARNSTABLE, DENNIS, YARMOUTH

If there's a costume hanging in your house this week, the Saturday negotiation has probably already started, and it's about the clock more than the candy.

Halloween lands on a Saturday this year. Across Barnstable, Dennis and Yarmouth, the organizers' own listings sort the day into three shifts: a noon crowd on fields and bandstands, a 4 PM crowd on the sidewalks, and a 7:30 crowd at events built for grown-ups. A fourth group won't wait, and goes out Friday.

Most households will pick one shift. With the right times you could do two. You also need to know that one free stop runs on two clocks at once.

Friday's head start and the details on each stop are below.

The head start is in Cotuit. The Cotuit Center for the Arts bills Friday's Art & Souls Masquerade Ball: Monster Mash as its 25th annual, 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM, with DJ Ian Lee. The listing promises "STILL ONLY $10 Admission" and a costume contest with prizes for Scariest, Funniest and Best Group.

Across town, Cape Cod Beer on Phinney's Lane in Hyannis listed its Halloween party for Friday from 6 PM to 9 PM, with the band Just Like That and prizes for costumes, as of Oct. 27.

Saturday's daylight crowd has the most room to spread out. In South Dennis, Halloweenpalooza takes over Johnny Kelley Field from noon to 4 PM. The Friends of Dennis Recreation list a cornhole tournament, a magician, face painting, balloon animals, a candy haunt for kids, live music and food trucks. Admission is free. The page's dress code is three words: "Come in costume." For the adults, beer and wine are $5 each, cash only.

In Barnstable Village, the Halloween parade and Dance for Candy runs from 1 PM to 3 PM at the bandstand behind the Courthouse on Main Street. The ArtsBarnstable listing has a costume parade, a DJ, candy, and a table for face painting and temporary tattoos. It also notes that times can change.

Cotuit's daylight option charges at the door. The Cahoon Museum's Fall Festival, 1 PM to 3 PM on Route 28, offers hands-on fall crafts for all ages. Admission is $17 for adults and $5 for children, and members get in free. The museum pitches it as the afternoon before trick-or-treating.

The earliest start is indoors in Dennis Port. The Dennis Public Library's Halloween LEGO Challenge runs 11 AM to 12:30 PM on Hall Street, with library-supplied bricks and a small prize each for first and second place. The creations stay on display for the week.

At 4 PM the Mid Cape moves to the sidewalks. The Hyannis Main Street BID lists its Safe Trick or Treat for Saturday from 4 PM to 6 PM.

Yarmouth Port's version takes up the whole Common, and its two organizers post two different windows. The Edward Gorey House at 8 Strawberry Lane calls the evening Haunted Halloween on the Common. It's free from 4 PM to 7:30 PM, after regular paid admission from 11 to 4, with Gorey tarot readings. The partners it names are the Captain Bangs Hallet House, the Winslow Crocker House, Thacher Hall, the Chapter House Inn, the Yarmouth Port Library and the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth.

Thacher Hall's page, on Route 6A, lists trick-or-treating around the Common from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM. The Yarmouth Port Library reads a spooky story there at 5. It's free, and no registration is needed. If you want every door on the Common open at once, aim for the two hours where the windows overlap.

The Gorey House listing goes further than the others. It invites you to make the house "your destination for frights, delights, and grievous bodily harm." Costumed visitors get candy and "remarkably stale aspic." Then comes the fine print: "The House is not liable for any calamities you may experience."

No other stop on this list is serving aspic.

Over in West Dennis, the library's Halloween Hullabaloo & Open House runs from 5 PM to 7 PM. It lists games, crafts, music, prizes, trick-or-treating and a scavenger hunt, and invites all ages, with costumes encouraged.

After 7, the kids' events give way to the grown-ups' list. At the Cultural Center of Cape Cod in South Yarmouth, the Rip It Ups Halloween Dance Party runs 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM. Tickets are $30, or $25 for members. On costumes, the listing hedges in the friendliest possible way: "totally welcome but not required."

Cape Cinema in Dennis Village shows The Rocky Horror Picture Show at 7:30 PM. It's rated R and ticketed, and the page opens with "Fasten your garter belt and time warp again." Neptune's lists Funktapuss's Funktatious Halloween Party for 7 PM at $12.19.

One more Saturday thread runs back to Route 6A. If your house argues about roads the way it argues about costumes, CMC already sorted that one.

Noon, 4 PM or 7:30. Tell us which clock your house picked, and whether anyone on the Common took the aspic.