Guide to Annual Halloween Activities in Springfield, IL

Small towns are a surprising source of Halloween entertainment. Some of the towns in the Springfield, Illinois area have Halloween parades with all of the expected participants: floats, bands, politicians, and of course lots of locals in costume. Many of the parades are held during the day because previous nighttime scheduling led to vandalism and crime. It’s a shame that the few spoil it for the many. There are still a few Halloween parades held at night, and there are a lot of other terrific Halloween activities in the Springfield area, as well.

One neat local activity is the haunted house in Rochester, a small town about four miles east of Springfield. It’s put together by volunteers from the community, and it’s a really good haunted house. They’ve been doing this for several years, and have made some great costumes and special effects. During the course of the evening, when they have people who really don’t want to be scared to death, they use flashlights to light things up and the actors are friendly rather than frightening. This is a really good local haunted house that even the kids can enjoy.

The Springfield Jaycees also put on quite a Halloween celebration. They rely on the generosity of local businessmen to donate a space for the haunted house, so the location changes each year. This makes it somewhat difficult to have a consistently good production, since some locations are better suited to making really creepy haunted houses than others. The costumes and special effects are usually pretty good, though, and it’s well worth going through.