Beech Bend brings Halloween fun to October

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Beech Bend Park is extending its season into October for the first time by adding Halloween attractions, fall decorations, rides and family activities throughout the park.

General Manager Charlotte Gonzalez said the event gives families a new way to experience Beech Bend, with activities ranging from pumpkin painting and trick-or-treating to a haunted trail after dark.

Park transforms for fall

“This is our very first October event ever, so we are so excited,” Gonzalez said. “We have got beautiful decorations all over the park. We’ve literally strung 400 pumpkins with lights in them…over 300 skeletons.”

The park also features mums, straw bales and cornstalks.

Gonzalez said the team had just four full days to make the switch from the summer season to the October event.

“It was a gigantic project for us,” she said. “Our team, we worked a lot of hours, a lot of blood, sweat and tears, as they say, in that week to get everything ready for an opening.”

Halloween activities for all ages

Beech Bend’s rides remain open during the event.

Booville, designed for younger children, includes pumpkin painting, face painting, glitter tattoos, pumpkin bowling, games and a bonfire for wiener roasting and s’mores.

The park also has a trick-or-treat trail, magic shows and other scheduled entertainment.

After dark on Friday and Saturday nights, guests can take on a haunted trail with about a dozen scares and different scenes. A boarding pass system gives visitors a scheduled time to enter instead of waiting in a long line.

During the daytime Saturday and Sunday, Beech Bend offers a family-friendly hayride that travels behind the campground and includes views of the Barren River.

A first for Beech Bend

Gonzalez said the park had considered a Halloween event for years before deciding to try it this season.

“A lot of parks do different things during Halloween,” she said. “So we decided to put our toe in the water this year and tried doing a Halloween event.”

She said the response has been positive so far, including one family that went through the haunted trail three times during opening weekend.

Family memories remain at the center

For Gonzalez, watching families enjoy the park is personal. She grew up visiting Beech Bend and later brought her own children there.

“We, as families need to laugh together, cry together sometimes, but the laughing moments and the memories you make when you’re out doing things together, when you’re not on a phone or a screen of some kind, it’s just, it’s priceless,” Gonzalez said. “There’s nothing better than that as a family.”

October hours

Beech Bend is open Fridays from 5 to 10 p.m., Saturdays from 12:30 to 9:30 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 6 p.m. through October 31.

Rides are included with admission, and tickets can be purchased online or at the gate.