Walk down Main Street on a normal Second Saturday and you know the rhythm. Shops stay open late, a few galleries put wine out, somebody's playing guitar near Court Street, and by 7 p.m. everyone's found a place to eat before heading home. It's the same pattern every month, and that's the point. Old Town runs on that predictability.
This October breaks the pattern. For three Saturdays running, Old Town has something different going on, back to back to back, which hasn't happened here before in quite this way. If you live in Bay St. Louis and you're used to picking one fall weekend to get out and do something downtown, you're going to need to pick three.
Three Saturdays, Not One
Here's the lineup, and the dates matter because they land exactly a week apart:
- October 10 – the regular Second Saturday Art Walk, running Downtown through the Depot District with shops, live music, and the usual evening crowd
- October 17 – the Seventh Annual BOO in the Bay Parade, a Halloween parade through Old Town
- October 24 – the 14th Annual Witches Walk, the costume street party that's become the town's biggest single day of foot traffic each fall
None of these are new inventions. Second Saturdays have been a monthly fixture for years. Witches Walk has been building since it was a handful of friends dressing up together, and this year marks its 14th run. BOO in the Bay is younger, now in its seventh year, and still finding its footing as a parade rather than a party. What's new is that this year, for the first time, all three land in the same three-week stretch without a single open Saturday between them.
The Old Event and the New One
The gap between these two Halloween events tells you something about how Old Town's calendar actually grows. Witches Walk started small, organized by a handful of locals who dressed up and walked around for fun, and it's been run by the Old Town Merchants Association long enough to become a fixture with its own registration deadlines and merchandise. Organizers describe it as the "Gulf Coast's biggest costume party," and by this point that's less marketing than a description of what actually happens on Main Street that day. Pre-registration for 2026 runs through September 30 at eighteen dollars, with in-person sign-up available the weekend of the event for a higher fee while supplies last.
BOO in the Bay is the newer arrival, a parade rather than a street party, and its seventh year puts it roughly half the age of Witches Walk. Two events with different histories, run by different organizers, converging onto the same three-block stretch of Old Town in the same month isn't something anyone planned centrally. It's what happens when a small downtown accumulates enough separate traditions that they eventually start bumping into each other on the calendar. For someone who lives here, that convergence is the actual news. It's not that Bay St. Louis got a new festival. It's that the festivals it already had finally stopped leaving room between them.
Somewhere New to Eat Between Them
If you're stringing together three Saturdays downtown, you're also going to want somewhere to eat that isn't the same three restaurants you've been rotating through since spring. Two additions from earlier this year change that math.
The more talked-about one is Boonies on the Bayou, which relocated into a stilt-built spot on MS-603 at the start of the year, run by chef Ricky Herring and his wife Mikayla Capps. The backstory is worth knowing because it explains why it landed here at all. The couple had been running a barbecue residency out of a bar in Pearl River, and when that bar stopped allowing children last fall, the family-style crowd Boonies had built its name on no longer had anywhere to sit. They found a permanent home instead, on Highway 603 a couple of minutes off I-10. It's not inside the Old Town footprint, so it's a short drive rather than a walk from the parade route, but it's the kind of family-friendly stop that makes sense to book ahead of a Saturday built around a kids' Halloween parade.
Closer to the action, Field's Crab Shack took over a space in Old Town that had been running as an upscale sushi restaurant, and turned it into a straightforward seafood spot. For anyone doing all three Saturdays on foot, that's the more useful addition: a new sit-down option inside the same blocks where the art walk, the parade, and the costume party are all happening.
If You're Planning Your October Around This
A few things worth knowing if you're mapping out which Saturday to show up for what. Witches Walk's pre-registration window closes September 30, so if you want the discounted rate and guaranteed registration, that's not a decision you can put off until the week of the event. Parking in Old Town is limited on a normal Second Saturday, and three consecutive weekends of increased foot traffic through the same few blocks of Court Street, Main Street, and Blaize Avenue means the usual spots will fill earlier than you're used to, especially on the 24th. If you're only picking one Saturday, Witches Walk is the one with the longest track record and the biggest crowd. If you've got kids who want a parade instead of a street party, the 17th is built for that. And if you just want the town at its normal pace with a little more art and music than usual, the 10th is still exactly what Second Saturday has always been.
None of this required a new event to get invented. It just required the calendar to stop leaving gaps. That's a small thing, but it's the kind of small thing that only shows up if you're paying attention to this particular three blocks of this particular town, month over month, which is exactly what living here does for you that a quick visit doesn't.
If you're already planning your October around Old Town, you already know what makes this place worth staying in. And if you've been thinking about what your Bay St. Louis home is worth in a market that keeps adding reasons to stick around, Jonathan Griffin and the Coast of MS Homes team can put together a free home valuation whenever you're ready to look at the numbers.
