Things to Do in Phoenix This Weekend

If you’re looking for things to do in Phoenix this weekend, the honest answer depends on who’s asking and which night they mean. During haunt season, that question splits into four smaller ones. What’s good Friday night. What’s good Saturday during the day. What’s good Saturday night. What’s good for the slower pace of Sunday. This guide is built around those four slots instead of a list of one-off events, so it holds up whichever weekend you’re reading it on. For the full year-round rundown, our Phoenix guide covers every month, not just the haunt season.

Friday Night: A Date, or the Week’s First Scare#

Friday is the night most locals use to get ahead of the weekend crowd. During haunt season it’s also one of the two nights the Valley’s attractions run their longest hours. That makes it a natural fit for a scary date night rather than dinner and a movie again. If the calendar happens to land on the first Friday of the month, downtown’s First Friday art walk turns Roosevelt Row into a gallery-and-food-truck crawl worth building the whole night around on its own. Either way, confirm the current hours before you go. Haunt nights extend as October closes in on Halloween. First Friday is only a once-a-month event. The Friday plan changes shape depending on the week.

Saturday Daytime: Farms, Festivals, and Family Mode#

Saturday morning and afternoon belong to the daytime side of the season. That’s also the half built for families with young kids. The Valley’s pumpkin patches, at farms like Schnepf Farms in Queen Creek and Vertuccio Farms in Mesa, run Thursday through Sunday through most of October. Their corn mazes run alongside them, with wagon rides and pick-your-own fields that work for younger kids in a way the built haunts don’t. That matters here specifically. Scarizona’s own three haunts are genuinely intense and not recommended for anyone under 12. A family with younger kids gets a better Saturday out of a farm than a gravel-lot scare. Save the museums, hikes, and other daytime staples from our Phoenix guide for the weekends between haunt visits. Confirm each farm’s current hours and admission on its own site before you load the car.

Saturday Night: Friends, Groups, and the Main Event#

If the weekend has one anchor night, it’s Saturday. During haunt season that anchor is usually a haunted house. It’s the night the East Valley’s attractions run their longest hours of the week. That’s exactly why a friend group plans around it rather than a weeknight. Scarizona runs three haunts on one timed-entry ticket in Mesa, with free parking and an award-winning cast staffing an outdoor, post-apocalyptic set. If your group wants to weigh it against the rest of the metro first, our haunted house guide breaks down how the Valley’s options compare. A few minutes of local ghost lore on the drive over does more for the mood than anything you can do once you’re standing in line. Buy ahead of time where you can. Saturday slots sell out faster than weeknights the closer the calendar gets to Halloween.

Sunday: The Slower Half#

Sunday is built for coming down. Most of the season’s haunts run their shortest hours of the week on Sunday. That makes it a better fit for an early scare than a late one. It also works well for an unhurried daytime outing, skipping the haunt that week entirely. Sunday is also a reasonable backup night if Friday or Saturday sold out, since it tends to have more open timed-entry slots left as the week winds down. The season approaches its final weekend at the end of October, including the single-night Blackout close on November 1. Around then, the whole week’s hours tend to run longer across the board, so check the current schedule rather than assuming a normal Sunday. If you’re planning past this weekend, our year-round Phoenix guide ranks the rest of the calendar.

Picking Your Weekend#

Start with who’s coming, and the right slot picks itself: a date on Friday, a family at a farm Saturday morning, a friend group at a haunt Saturday night, a quieter plan Sunday. Whatever night you land on, confirm the exact hours on the venue’s own site first, since they shift week to week this time of year. If the scare is the plan, grab your tickets and pick your night before the weekend sells out.