Celebrate Halloween with chills and thrills tailored to the grown-up crowd with Halloween activities for adults from frightfully fun games to fun beverages that raise your spirits. These enchanting ideas will make your Halloween night as bewitching as it gets.

Plan A Halloween Game Night

Start the evening with spine-tingling games that combine fun with mystery and suspense. Plan a game night with suspenseful board games like Betrayal at House on the Hill or Dead of Winter are great for teens and older.

For those who love a good mystery, consider hosting a murder mystery party. You can host a party where guests arrive dressed as their assigned characters, and everyone works together to solve the crime.

We love the Hunt A Killer series and have solved two of their mysteries. Participants work together to solve a mystery, but there is no dressing up or pre-planning is required from guests. You could theme your party around the mystery theme and coordinate food and decor to match.

Spooky story prompts on a Halloween background with a haunted house and lights

Tell Ghost Stories Around a Fire

Telling ghost stories around the fire is a time-honored tradition that fits perfectly into the Halloween theme.

Don’t think you can’t do this if you don’t have a roaring bonfire. You can use an outdoor fire pit, an indoor fireplace, or even just set up a small tabletop fire pit (these are so cool!). Arrange comfy seating around the fire. Provide cozy blankets for warmth if you are outside during a chilly night.

You could string up fairy lights or use Halloween luminaries for extra ambiance. Some subtle, eerie background music or sound effects adds a fun layer of suspense.

Next, decide on the ghost stories. You could source classic ghost stories from literature, like Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and poems or contemporary horror short stories. Or you can create your own ghost stories using our free spooky story prompts. The whole group can get involved with a round-robin style of storytelling, where each person adds to the story in turn, creating a uniquely collaborative and unpredictable tale.

Like these ideas? Save it for later!

Halloween Activities for Adults

Pin For Later

Serve Food and Drinks to Trick-or-Treaters

One of the best parts of Halloween is that the entire neighborhood is out and about for the evening. Make your house one that no one will forget by serving food and drinks to adults taking their kids trick-or-treating.

Make a wickedly big batch of chili and set up a Walking Taco Bar with small bags of Doritos or corn chips plus all the toppings.

Elevate the night with devilishly delicious cocktails to go. Set up a Bloody Mary Bar where guests can customize their drinks with hot sauces, olives, celery, and bacon for an extra touch. For beer lovers, try a pitcher of Pumpkin Beermosas for a rustic, autumnal feel.

St. Augustine, Florida – December 28, 2022: Sign advertising the Ghosts and Gravestones for tourists

Visit or Make Your Own Haunted House

Spend the evening together at a Haunted House in your area. You can check Groupon for a discount coupon, too. These are usually good for weekdays not on Halloween. Also, check around your area for cemetery or haunted tours. These are really fun for Halloween.

If you’re up for the challenge, transform your home, backyard or garage into a haunted house. You can use themes like a Witch’s Den, Vampire’s Lair, Zombie Graveyard, Mad Scientist’s Lab, or a Ghoul’s Banquet. Use low lighting, fog machines, spooky music, and strategically placed props for a chilling atmosphere. We did this one year in our tiny urban backyard, and it was so fun. Check out Easy Small Backyard Ideas for Halloween for ideas!

Keep calm and scare on doormat at a backyard gate

Host a Pumpkin Carving Contest

Gather a bunch of pumpkins of shapes and sizes and pumpkin carving tools and see who can carve the best Jack-O-Lantern. If carving seems too messy, consider a pumpkin painting contest instead.

At the end of the party, have a lighting ceremony where a tea light or LED candle illuminates everyone’s pumpkin. This will showcase everyone’s hard work and add a magical touch to the end of the event.

Check out even more ideas for crafts, decor, and more below!

Remember, Halloween is all about letting your imagination run wild. Get creative and you’ll have a night that’s truly out of this world. Happy haunting!

Halloween Activities for Adults

Halloween isn't just for kids! This list of Halloween acitvities for adults is full of ideas for moms, dads, and anyone over 18 to have extra fun on October 31st and all month long.