Your October 2026 Gulf Coast Events Guide: Shrimp Festival, Halloween Season, and What's New

Fresh update (October 2, 2026): I just published the newest roundup, What's Happening on the Gulf Coast: Mid-October Through Halloween 2026, with the latest dates and details straight from this week. What follows below is still the best big-picture overview of the whole month if you want the October calendar at a glance.

We have hit the best stretch of the year down here, and I am not saying that lightly. The summer crowds are gone, the water is still warm enough to swim in, the humidity has backed way off, and the next few weeks are the coast's open secret: the National Shrimp Festival, the whole Halloween season kicking off at OWA, big concerts at The Wharf, and more new restaurants opening than I can keep straight. If you have been thinking about visiting, relocating, or investing on the Alabama Gulf Coast, this is the window that sells it. Here is your honest rundown of the best Orange Beach events, Gulf Shores festivals, and Baldwin County things to do from right now through the end of October, plus what is new around town that is actually worth knowing.

This Weekend: Jeep Fest, the Harvest Moon Festival, and a Big Foley Opening

The Gulf of America Jeep Fest is running right now through Sunday, September 27 at The Hangout in Gulf Shores: 50-plus vendors, trail rides, live music, and a couple hundred built Wranglers lined up on the beach. If you like custom rigs up close with the Gulf behind them, this is your weekend. It is exactly the kind of thing that makes a late-September trip to the coast worth it, and it tells you a lot about the family-friendly energy you get in Gulf Shores once school is back in session.

The same weekend, the Harvest Moon Festival returns to the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo on Saturday, September 26 (and again October 3). It is a low-key fall festival right at the zoo: games, treats, animals, and hay-bale energy without the summer chaos. If you are relocating with kids, this is a perfect outing to show them what community life here actually feels like. And over in Foley, OWA's Primal Fear haunted attraction opens its 2026 season Friday and Saturday, September 25 and 26, so if you like a good scare, the season officially starts tonight.

One more piece of genuinely big news for locals: BJ's Wholesale Club opens in Foley today, September 25, at 3275 Palm Beach Way, its second Alabama location. That is a real shift for how a lot of Baldwin County families shop, and it is another sign of how fast this county is growing.

First Week of October: Jazz, Art Walk, Weird Al, and Alligators & Ale

October kicks off with a few things worth planning around:

• Under the Stars Jazz Concert featuring Gino Rosaria and David Jones, Thursday, October 1 at the Coastal Arts Center of Orange Beach. Live jazz under a coastal October sky.
• Pumpkins on Parade takes over Downtown OWA in Foley starting October 1 for the whole month: a pumpkin-carving competition with local business displays and QR-code voting, plus family events all month long.
• Fairhope First Friday Art Walk on Friday, October 2 downtown from 6 to 8 PM, hosted by the Eastern Shore Art Center. Art, food, live music, and that walkable bluff atmosphere that makes Fairhope special. One of the best free nights on the coast.
• Weird Al Yankovic at The Wharf Amphitheater on Saturday, October 3 at 8:00 PM. Weird Al at a beachfront amphitheater is exactly the kind of unexpected, fun energy that makes living here worth it.
• Fairhope's 12th Annual Alligators & Ale Music Fest & BBQ on Saturday, October 3: music, barbecue, and the Eastern Shore gathering people around food and a stage.
• Ultimate Garth, a Garth Brooks tribute, plays the OWA Theater on Saturday, October 3 if country is more your speed.
• Foley keeps the momentum going with the Tacos & Tequila Festival on Sunday, October 4, one of those small-town food festivals that shows why Foley keeps drawing new families.

And for the spooky crowd, the Haunted Forest: Pirates of the Cursed Forest runs October 2 through 17 at the Baldwin County Heritage Museum, a trail walk with props and scares without the lines of a commercial haunt.

The National Shrimp Festival: Mark It Down, October 8-11

Set the calendar reminder now. The 53rd Annual National Shrimp Festival runs Thursday through Sunday, October 8 through 11 at Gulf Shores Main Public Beach, at the corner of Highway 59 and East Beach Boulevard. Admission is free, and the place draws around 300,000 people over four days. You get Gulf shrimp fixed every way you can imagine, two stages of live music, hundreds of arts and crafts vendors, sand sculpture contests, and a 5K and 10K. Hours run 10 AM to 10 PM Thursday through Saturday and 10 AM to 5 PM on Sunday. It is the biggest crowd of the fall and, honestly, one of the best weekends of the year to be on the coast. If you are an investor watching short-term rental demand, that October weekend fills Gulf Shores up, and that is data worth knowing.

If you would rather run than eat (or both), the Shrimp Festival 5K Run is Saturday, October 10 starting from the Orange Beach Sportsplex and Backcountry Trail. And at The Wharf, Game Day on the Green at Portside on Main on Saturday, October 10 is a good spot to catch football with the marina behind you. The same evening, the Fall Music Series in Fairhope brings The FreeRadicals back to town at 6:00 PM. Low-key live music, good food, and the Eastern Shore doing what it does best.

Right after the Shrimp Festival closes, the Flora-Bama hosts its Annual Oktoberfest on Sunday, October 11 on the Alabama/Florida line: complimentary German food, live polka music, and a stein-hoisting contest. They run extra Oktoberfest dates later in the month too, on October 24 and 31. It is a fitting way to close out that whole stretch. In Fairhope, the Mobile Bay Makers Market sets up at American Legion Post 199 on October 11 and again October 25 with local artisans, farmers, and makers, plus the Fairhope Farmers Market keeps rolling Thursdays from 2 to 6 PM behind the Public Library all fall. You do not have to be a millionaire to live at the beach, but you do have to know where the good weekly market finds are. That is part of the lifestyle.

Late October: Halloween Season for Kids and Grownups

If October is the coast's best month, the last two weeks are the payoff. Here is what is worth planning:

• Haunted Hustle 5K, Monster Dash, and Wicked Walk on Saturday, October 17 at Gulf Place Town Green and Public Beach in Gulf Shores. Costumes encouraged, the beach as your finish line. A fun one for the whole crew.
• OWA's Primal Fear runs October 16-17 and then nightly from October 22 through Halloween, with Little Creatures' Ball on Friday, October 30 and Wag-O-Ween for the dogs on Saturday, October 31.
• The Parrot Heads in Paradise "Meeting of the Minds" takes over the coast October 21 through 25, headquartered at The Hangout with events at LuLu's, the Flora-Bama, and more. It draws a few thousand people and is a fun, harmless way to watch the off-season economy work.
• Pirate Family Fun Night & Fall Market on Friday, October 23 in Gulf Shores, and Trek or Treat on Saturday, October 24 for little ones in their costumes.
• Foley Hometown Halloween on Thursday, October 29, the annual family event that closes down downtown Foley streets with games, prizes, and a costume contest from about 5:30 to 8 PM. This is the definition of a Baldwin County small-town night, and I mean that as a compliment.
• Treats on the Trail at Gulf State Park on Friday, October 30, a family-friendly trick-or-treat on the trails that beats parking-lot candy hunting.
• Halloween itself: OWA's Wag-O-Ween (October 31), the Flora-Bama's Annual Halloween Costume Contest, and the Flora-Bama Oktoberfest finale all land on Saturday, October 31. There is a difference between vacationing somewhere and actually living there, and an October 31 on the Gulf Coast is a great way to see the community side of that difference.

What's New Around Town: Restaurants, Retail, and Growth

The coast keeps adding good spots, and a few are worth knowing about whether you live here or you are thinking about moving:

• BJ's Wholesale Club opened in Foley at 3275 Palm Beach Way on September 25, the second Alabama location. Big deal for county shoppers.
• Shake Shack is coming to Tanger Outlets Foley as part of a new roughly 20,000-square-foot dining district that could hold up to eight restaurant concepts. Foley's retail keeps stacking up: Victoria's Secret just opened at Tanger, Pandora is on the way, Cook Out is open on the main strip, Waffles R Wild opened its second location, and Portabella's reopened.
• In Orange Beach and Gulf Shores: CoastAL (the Flora-Bama family's new bar, restaurant, and retail complex at the south end of the island), Old Salt Tavern, Tap & Still, Paradise Pizza, the Mediterranean Sandwich Shop, Nami Sushi, and Jimmy Buffett's Last Mango Bar & Chill at The Wharf. There is also a new pickleball center coming to Orange Beach, so the courts crowd has something to look forward to.
• In Fairhope: Atticus (elevated French downtown), Little Bird, Kingfisher Seafood, and Pearl have all landed in the past year or so, and Culver's opened on Labor Day with lines that have been real. A new Chick-Fil-A is under construction in Plantation Pointe. Retail follows rooftops, and Fairhope keeps adding both.

Road Work That Matters If You're Commuting or Relocating

A few things are moving on the roads and infrastructure front, and this one is the biggie: full construction on the I-10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project starts October 1, 2026. The financial closing on the $3.2 billion Phase One program was completed this month, and the project includes the new cable-stayed bridge plus restriping that makes I-10 a six-lane corridor. Anyone who commutes between Baldwin County and Mobile for work, or plans to, needs to know this construction era is beginning. It is a pain in the short term and a huge upgrade in the long term, and I would rather tell you the truth about it than sell you a fantasy commute.

Also moving: the county awarded more than $12 million in Local Government Recovery Infrastructure Program grants this month for 10 water, sewer, drainage, and roadway projects across the county, including elevation of Jubilee Point Road in Orange Beach. After the storms of recent years, drainage money matters to anyone buying property here. The James Road extension in Foley keeps progressing, the Loxley connector (a roughly $16 million link between US 31 and AL 59) is moving forward, Canal Road widening is headed toward construction, and ALDOT has paving underway on the US-90 resurfacing project. And a fun fact for the airport crowd: Gulf Shores International Airport is now Alabama's third-busiest airport. That is the kind of number that quietly matters for resale demand.

What All This Means for Buyers, Sellers, and Investors

Baldwin County keeps showing up on the growth lists for a reason. The big industrial stories keep landing: Novelis' $2.5 billion aluminum plant in Bay Minette is projected to bring around 1,000 direct jobs, Foley is assembling a 121-acre industrial park near the Beach Express, and Phoenix South Point near Orange Beach, a roughly $350 million resort development with condos, waterfront villas, and restaurants, continues to take shape. Jobs follow rooftops, and rooftops follow jobs. That is how a market stays healthy over the long run.

Here is the honest read for anyone on the fence: fall is historically a great time to shop Baldwin County. There is less competition, sellers who listed in the spring and summer are often more motivated, and you can visit during the best weather of the year to see what year-round life actually looks like. Come during the Shrimp Festival if you want energy, or come the quiet week after if you want truth. Both are useful. And before you make an offer anywhere, get insurance quotes first. The beach tax is real, and the difference between two similar homes a mile apart can be shocking. Trust me, pictures lie. An insurance quote tells you the truth.

Hurricane Season Check-In: The Honest Update

Here is some genuinely good news: the Atlantic has been running far quieter than the forecasters expected, and as of this week the season had still not produced a hurricane, the latest a season has gone without one since 1914, with a strengthening El Niño helping keep things calm. Nothing is threatening the coast in the near term. That said, the season runs through late November, so do not relax all the way. Keep your insurance current, know your evacuation zone, and have a basic supply kit. Do not stress, just be ready. That is the Gulf Coast way.

People Also Ask

What is there to do in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores in October?

A lot. The National Shrimp Festival runs October 8 through 11 at Gulf Shores Public Beach, Weird Al plays The Wharf on October 3, the Haunted Hustle 5K and Wicked Walk are October 17 at Gulf Place, Pirate Family Fun Night is October 23, and Treats on the Trail at Gulf State Park is October 30. Between the Orange Beach events, the Gulf Shores festivals, and the Baldwin County things to do list, October is genuinely stacked, and the weather is the best of the year.

When is the National Shrimp Festival in 2026?

The 53rd Annual National Shrimp Festival runs Thursday through Sunday, October 8 through 11, at Gulf Shores Main Public Beach at the corner of Highway 59 and East Beach Boulevard. Admission is free, hours are 10 AM to 10 PM Thursday through Saturday and 10 AM to 5 PM Sunday, and it draws around 300,000 people over four days.

What Halloween events are happening on the Alabama Gulf Coast in 2026?

OWA in Foley runs Primal Fear on select nights from September 25 through Halloween, plus Pumpkins on Parade all month, the Little Creatures' Ball on October 30, and Wag-O-Ween on October 31. Gulf Shores has the Haunted Hustle 5K and Wicked Walk on October 17, Trek or Treat on October 24, and Treats on the Trail at Gulf State Park on October 30. Foley Hometown Halloween is October 29 downtown, and the Flora-Bama hosts its annual costume contest and Oktoberfest finale on October 31.

What is happening in Foley Alabama right now?

BJ's Wholesale Club opened September 25, Shake Shack is coming to Tanger Outlets in a new dining district, OWA's fall and Halloween season runs all month, and the Tacos & Tequila Festival is October 4. The James Road extension and a 121-acre industrial park near the Beach Express keep moving, and Foley remains one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.

What is happening in Fairhope in October?

First Friday Art Walk is October 2 from 6 to 8 PM downtown, the Alligators & Ale Music Fest & BBQ is October 3, the Fall Music Series brings The FreeRadicals back on October 10, and the Mobile Bay Makers Market is at American Legion Post 199 on October 11 and 25. The Fairhope Farmers Market runs Thursdays from 2 to 6 PM behind the Public Library all fall, and new spots like Atticus, Little Bird, and Pearl keep the dining scene interesting.

Is October a good time to visit or move to the Alabama Gulf Coast?

October might be the best month of the year. The water stays warm into early October, the humidity is gone, and the crowds are mostly locals plus the festival crowds. Hotel rates drop after the summer rush, sunsets are spectacular, and an October visit shows you the coast at its real, everyday best before the short quiet winter season settles in. If you are serious about relocating, this is the month to come see it for yourself.

That is the honest rundown for the next few weeks. October is the coast's best-kept secret: better weather, smaller crowds, and the best festivals of the year, plus a whole lot of new construction and new restaurants that tell you exactly where this market is headed. Come see it, whether you are visiting, relocating, or just curious what it is really like to live here. And if you are thinking about buying while you are here, that is what I do every day, so let's talk.

Got Questions?

If you have questions about any of these events, the housing market, or what it is like to live in Baldwin County year-round, I am happy to talk. No scripts, no pressure, just honest answers from someone who has been here since 2015 and helps people make these decisions every day.

Schedule a call with me or email me at thomas.hollis@exprealty.com.

See y'all at the beach. — Andy