49 festivals run in October, and 16 of them are on Halloween night
October is the busiest month left in our catalog. Its last two days are the busiest dates on it, and nine days in between have nothing on at all.
October is the busiest month left on the festival calendar we track. We count 49 festivals that run at least one day of it. 38 are in the US. The other 11 are spread over nine countries, from Incheon to Giza to Medellín.
That number is the whole month. The more useful thing is where in the month it falls.
Four weekends carry it
49 festivals over 31 days sounds like something every night. It isn't. Nine days of October have no festival running at all: the 6th and 7th, the 12th to the 14th, the 20th, and the 27th to the 29th. The rest pile onto weekends.
Festivals running on each day of October 2026
The first weekend is the heavy one before Halloween. On Saturday 3 October, 14 festivals are running at once, among them Austin City Limits' first weekend, EDC Korea, Wakaan in the Ozarks and Submersion in New Jersey. The middle of the month is thin by comparison. From the 15th to the 21st there are never more than three on the same day.
Halloween is the busiest night left
Then the month ends with its biggest two days. On both 30 and 31 October, 16 festivals are running. Across the 152 upcoming festivals in our catalog, no other date reaches 16. The next busiest are 3 October and New Year's Eve, at 14 each. Some New Year's lineups are still being announced, so that gap could close. Right now, Halloween has it.
Counting both days, 18 festivals share that weekend. The biggest bills are Hocus Pocus in Miami with 101 named acts and Escape Psycho Circus in San Bernardino with 92. SCREAM Edmonton and BOO Seattle are next. Haunted Fest alone accounts for six of the 18, in six different cities, starting with Haunted Fest Atlanta.
That many festivals on two days means the same DJs get stretched across them. 57 names are on two or more Halloween-weekend bills. Five are on three: Jamie Jones, Franky Rizardo, Indira Paganotto and Yanamaste each play Hocus Pocus, Escape and Factory 93 in Alameda, and Odd Mob plays Hocus Pocus, Freaky Deaky in Austin and SCREAM Edmonton.
Who's working the month
Add up every October lineup and you get 2,183 slots, filled by 1,689 different names. Most of them, 1,352, play just one October festival.
At the other end, the busiest name in October is 999999999, on seven bills in five countries. Hershe, Mary Droppinz and Levity are on six each. Levity's six include both Austin City Limits weekends, which makes the point about how these get counted: two weekends, two festivals.
November, for comparison, has 27 festivals in our catalog so far. Further-out months always look thinner than they end up, because lineups and dates are still landing. But with a month to go, October is almost twice as full.
What to do with it
If you're going to anything on 30 or 31 October, check your lineup against the others that night. A DJ you want to see may be playing a few hours away as well, which is a second chance if your festival's set clashes with someone else. Every festival above has its full lineup in the app, and following an artist shows you every date we have for them.
If you're free on a quiet week, there are nine days this month when nothing is on at all.
Tickets
Ticket links below are affiliate links.
Hocus Pocus, Wakaan and Submersion aren't in our ticket feed, so there's no link for them here.
- Austin City Limits, weekend one — tickets via Ticketmaster
- EDC Korea — tickets via Front Gate
- Escape Psycho Circus — tickets via Front Gate
- BOO Seattle — tickets via Front Gate
- Haunted Fest Atlanta — tickets via Universe
Counts are from the Electric State festival catalog on 29 September 2026: every upcoming festival whose dates touch October, whatever the size of its bill. A festival counts on every day from its start to its end date. Lineups have placeholders like "Lineup TBA" removed and names matched regardless of capitalisation. Country is read from each festival's listed city.
Electric State is free on the App Store, on Google Play, and at electricstate.app — lineups, dates and the artist pages this post is computed from.
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