Prizes for puppies and parties on Main Streets
Both Concord and Nashua will celebrate Halloween with downtown celebrations this weekend.
A large section of Main Street will be closed down on Friday, Oct. 23, from Hills Ave. to Loudon Road for Intown Concord’s Halloween Howl. Many downtown businesses will remain open, and children and their families are encouraged to visit them to trick-or-treat.
There will be other, larger activities going on at the same time, said Berit Brown of Intown Concord. She said this year’s Halloween Howl will lean heavily on treats.
“We have some awesome food trucks coming this year,” she said, “which will be a lot of fun. We have Wicked Tasty, Kona Ice, Teenie Wienies, Nothing Bundt Cakes, and Nice Ice Baby. So there will be a really great variety of more dinner options and some sweet treats. We also will have trunk-or-treat back this year. It’s actually going to be the biggest trunk-or-treat we’ve ever had. It will be on South Main Street right by the [Concord Food] Co-op and we’ll have 20 different trunks [from] a combination of sponsors and downtown businesses. There will be some kind of get-zombified trunks. We have some that are handing out free little goodies. Some of them are teaching dances. I will say I think one of the funny ones this year is that Hood is doing the trick-or-treat and they’re handing out chocolate milk … It will be a really great interactive trunk-or-treat this year — we’ll have a people’s choice award for the best-decorated trunk. And so you’ll be able to vote on that online after Halloween Howl.”
Other activities will include live music in Bicentennial Square with Wandering Souls, Ghostly Games by the Concord Parks and Recreation Department, a costume contest with DJ Nazzy, a pumpkin carving contest and more.
“There’s a cheerleading group who’s going to come and they’ll lead some free activities and they’ll be in their cheerleading costumes, so that will be kind of fun,” Brown said.
On Saturday the Downtown Nashua Association will stage the second annual Main Street Monster Mash. Nashua, too, will close down a section of its Main Street for pedestrian traffic during the late morning and early afternoon, said Downtown Nashua’s director, Alyssa O’Mara. “There will be trick-or-treating up and down Main Street at a bunch of different restaurants and retail spaces,” she said. This will be the second year of Main Street Monster Mash, she said, and that last year’s event was very encouraging.
“It went better than we could have expected. We were hopeful because it was the first time in probably, I want to say almost 20 years, that they had done trick-or-treating downtown, like its own event. So we were hopeful maybe 100 families would show up, and we had at least 500 families show up. We actually, people were running out of candy, so myself and my volunteers were running up and down the street. … So we are pre-buying extra candy this year so that we won’t run out.”
“We partner with the Humane Society for Greater Nashua,” O’Mara said, “and we do what we call a Howl-o-ween parade, h-o-w-l. It is a puppy parade that goes up and down East and West Pearl Street with prizes for the best puppy costumes.”
“And then our other partner is the Actorsingers theater organization in Nashua,” O’Mara said. “They have a production coming up and this is the second year in a row that they are doing ‘Thriller’ flash mobs for us, so people can watch or join in … they have two performances at 11:30 and at 12:30 where they’ll be doing a flash mob of ‘Thriller.’”
O’Mara was impressed by last year’s costumes.
“I have seen some good costumes over the years,” she said, “but last year people really brought it. My favorite was a couple that dressed as chefs and they had their baby in a giant lobster pot dressed as a lobster. That pot was on wheels. They were wheeling their baby around in a lobster pot. It was great.”
Downtown celebrations
Intown Concord’s Halloween Howl will take place Friday, Oct. 23, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. along Main Street in downtown Concord. Visit intownconcord.org/halloween-howl-2026.
The Downtown Nashua Association’s Main Street Monster Mash will take place Saturday, Oct. 24, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. along Main Street in downtown Nashua. Visit downtownnashua.org/main-street-monster-mash.
Both events are free and open to the public.
Featured photo: Courtesy photo.