Finns do not do Halloween. They do pyhäinpäivä, All Saints’ Day, and in 2026 the two land on the same Saturday, 31 October. So on the same evening that Helsinki’s clubs are full of costumes, thousands of families are lighting candles at Hietaniemi cemetery and the shops are on Sunday hours. If you want to watch one city hold two completely different celebrations at once, Halloween in Helsinki 2026 is the weekend to do it.
I went through everything Halloween in Helsinki 2026 has to offer that is already announced. Good news: unlike Tallinn, Helsinki has most of its Halloween calendar confirmed already in September. Here are the five worth your time, plus a few extras for people who want more.
1. Halloweenpuisto at Puotila Manor
2 October to 1 November 2026. Weekdays 15:00 to 21:30, weekends 12:00 to 21:30. Adults €14, children 2 to 17 €10, family €39 (cheaper on Mondays and Tuesdays). Confirmed, tickets on sale.
More than a thousand carved pumpkin lanterns in the park of an old manor house, lit up after dark. No actors, no jump scares, and the organisers say it out loud: nothing frightening here. There is a pumpkin patch, harvest installations and a fire show at 19:00 from Wednesday to Sunday. This is where you go if you want the beauty of Halloween rather than the horror. Puotila metro station is right next to it and the whole thing is wheelchair accessible.
My advice: go on a weekday after dark, around 18:00. During weekends and the Helsinki autumn break from 12 to 16 October the fire show runs daily, but so do the crowds.
Info and tickets: halloweenpuisto.fi. Puotilantie 7.
2. Heureka Halloween: adults on Friday, everyone on Saturday
Friday 30 October 2026, 19:00 to midnight (18+), and Saturday 31 October, family day. Saturday on a normal Heureka ticket (up to €26), Friday on a separate ticket, €18 in 2024. Confirmed.
Heureka is the science centre in Tikkurila, Vantaa, 15 minutes by train from Helsinki central station, and on Halloween Friday it opens every exhibition in the evening for adults only, with a bar running through the building and costumes encouraged. A science centre in the dark with a drink in your hand is a better idea than it sounds. On Saturday the same building belongs to families, on the normal ticket. The detailed 2026 programme goes online in the autumn.
Info: heureka.fi. Tiedepuisto 1, Vantaa.
3. TRAUMA: a horror show in the old Meilahti hospital
23 and 24 October 2026. Day shifts 17:30 to 21:00 from €45, night shifts at 22:00 and 22:30 from €50. Strictly 18+. Confirmed, booking open.
This is Helsinki’s most serious Halloween. After Dark Helsinki and the escape-room company PakoMielle stage a 45-minute hospital-themed horror performance in the corridors of the old Meilahti hospital, in groups of five. Strobe lights, fog, darkness, tight spaces, strong smells, violent scenes, and the actors may touch you. Alcohol and drug free, and not without reason. If you did Foobia Küla in Tallinn and want more, this is more.
Info and booking: pakomielle.fi. Tukholmankatu 10.
4. Helsinki Halloween Run in Kalasatama
Saturday 24 October 2026. Kids’ 500 m at 17:45, 1 km at 18:00, adults’ 5 and 10 km at 18:15. 5 km €40 to 55, 10 km €45 to 60, kids €12 to 20. Confirmed, registration open.
An evening city run in the dark, in costume, between the new blocks of Kalasatama. There is timing, but nobody takes it seriously: the costume contest matters more than the clock, every child gets a medal and there are drink stations on the route. A good option if you are travelling with someone who cannot stand Halloween but can stand running.
Registration: halloweenrun.fi.
5. Viaporin Kekri on Suomenlinna
Saturday 31 October 2026. Most of the programme is free; in 2025 guided tours cost €17, museums €10, concerts €3 to 25. Date confirmed, programme to follow.
If you read only one item on this list, read this one. Kekri is the old Finnish harvest and remembrance feast, older than Christmas and older than Halloween, with masked visitors and food set out for those who are no longer here. Suomenlinna turns it into one evening: light and fire installations on the fortress walls, music, ghost stories on guided tours, films, museums open late and local food. Fifteen minutes by ferry from the Market Square. Dark, windy, sea all around. This is the Helsinki Halloween that was not borrowed from America.
Info: suomenlinna.fi.
Tours and experiences in Helsinki
Halloween in Helsinki 2026: if five is not enough
Helsinki City Museum ghost walk. Friday 30 October 2026 at 16:00 and 17:00, €13, in Finnish only. Starts in the attic of the Sederholm House at Aleksanterinkatu 16 and ends at Restaurant Kappeli. The grey lady of City Hall, the seven ghosts of the Swedish Theatre. Sold out in previous years. Tickets.
Linnanmäki Carnival of Light. 9 to 18 October 2026, wristband €43 to 53, entrance €25. The amusement park after dark, lit up, during the autumn break. Not Halloween-themed, but it is what Helsinki families actually do in October. Linnanmäki’s own horror festival, iik!week, ends on 4 October.
Teurastamo Halloween. The old slaughterhouse in Kalasatama does Halloween on the first weekend of November every year: horror walk-throughs, escape rooms, fire shows, street food and a bonfire, free entry to the area, a €40 attractions wristband in 2025. If the pattern holds, 6 and 7 November 2026. Not yet announced.
Pyhäinpäivä and the candles at Hietaniemi
And then the other celebration. Pyhäinpäivä is a public holiday in Finland, a quiet one, and in the evening families go to the cemetery to light candles. Hietaniemi cemetery, a walk from the centre of Helsinki, is covered in small lights at dusk on 31 October. It is not a tourist attraction and you should not treat it like one, but if you go quietly with your camera in your pocket, this is the moment that makes late October in Helsinki worth it. You do not need a costume for this one.
Practical
- Weather: 3 to 8 °C in late October, damp and windy, no snow yet. On Suomenlinna the wind is twice as strong as in town.
- Darkness: the clocks go back on 25 October, and in Halloween week it is dark from about half past four.
- Helsinki autumn break: 12 to 16 October 2026, earlier than in Estonia. Halloweenpuisto and the Carnival of Light are packed then.
- 31 October is a public holiday: shops on Sunday hours, public transport on Sunday timetables.
- From Tallinn: ferry in the morning, back in the evening; my day-trip guide works in both directions. And Halloween in Tallinn has its own article.
Ferry tickets and hotels are cheaper when booked early, especially when 31 October falls on a Saturday, as it does this year.
You do not need to buy a full costume for one evening, and hauling one onto a ferry is even less fun. If you want to be on theme without sweating in a mask all night, the Estonian sock shop chain Sokisahtel has a whole range of Halloween socks: skeletons, ghosts and pumpkins, in kids’ sizes and as a gift box too. They fit in a pocket, and in Helsinki in late October warm socks are needed anyway.
If Halloween takes you across the gulf, or you are heading back to Tallinn afterwards, I have the best museums in Tallinn lined up for November. For a family that visits often, the Estonian museum card pays for itself quickly, and if Helsinki prices have emptied the wallet, the list of free museums in Tallinn is surprisingly long.
If you are planning more than one stop, read these next: Direct Flights From Tallinn: 9 City Breaks for Autumn 2026, Helsinki Christmas Market 2026: Dates, Prices and Hours and Tartu Museums 2026: Top 8, Day Trip Route & Tickets. From the same series: Estonian Museums: Complete Guide by City (2026) and Free Museums in Tartu 2026: Tips, Dates, and Routes.
Read also
- Most Visited Museums in Estonia 2026: The Real Numbers
- International Museum Day and Tallinn Museum Sunday 2026
- Museums Open on Monday in Tallinn and Tartu (2026)
Halloween in Helsinki 2026: what I would pick
A weekday evening among the pumpkins at Halloweenpuisto, Friday at Heureka with a drink, and on Saturday first the candles at Hietaniemi and then the ferry to Suomenlinna for kekri. That way one weekend gets you both celebrations, and only one of them is borrowed.
Information checked on 18 September 2026. Where it says “2025”, those are last year’s prices and the organiser has not yet announced the 2026 edition. I will update this article as programmes are published.
Disclosure: this article may contain affiliate links. If you book or buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend what we believe in.
