Two nights this October, cars will line up on Wedgewood Drive waiting for their turn through the trees, while a few blocks away, families will be setting up lawn chairs at the Commons for a concert that costs nothing to attend. Both events call themselves Halloween in Castle Hills. Neither one is the other, and mixing them up means showing up with cash for the free one or without a ticket for the one that requires it.
The Ticket You Buy on Wedgewood Drive
McGimsey Scout Park sits at 10810 Wedgewood, a 140-acre property that Scouting America's Alamo Area Council uses for Cub Scout day camps, leader training, and troop camping throughout the year. Every October it becomes something else entirely: a drive-thru Haunted Forest, run entirely by the Scouts as one of their signature public fundraisers.
The format has stayed consistent since it started. You buy a ticket per vehicle, not per person, and that ticket is good for a single pass through the woods. The council pitches it as flexible on scare level: leave your headlights on and it plays as a lighthearted family drive, or dim them and let the vignettes do their work. In 2025, the event ran one night, October 22, from 6 to 9 p.m., at $20 a carload.
This year it runs twice. The Alamo Area Council's calendar listing has it scheduled for October 19, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., and again October 26, from 6 to 9:30 p.m.
The Scout Park's Two-Night Event
That's a change from one night to two, according to the calendar.
McGimsey isn't a standalone attraction the council built for October. It's one of three properties, alongside Bear Creek Scout Reservation and Mays Family Scout Ranch, that make up more than 1,500 acres the Alamo Area Council manages across a 13-county service area covering more than 16,000 youth and 2,400 volunteer adults. The Haunted Forest is a fundraiser layered onto working camp infrastructure.
The Free One Happens a Few Blocks Away, Run by the City
Castle Hills itself is a small, incorporated home-rule city, just 2.5 square miles, established in 1951 and sitting entirely inside the San Antonio metro. It runs its own calendar of civic events separately from anything the Scouts organize, and every fall that calendar includes a Trunk-or-Treat and Concert in the Commons.
The City of Castle Hills' own event calendar shows this isn't a one-off. The same event, under the same name, appears in October 2022, October 2024, and again on October 25, 2025, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. It's free, it happens at the Commons, and it pairs the trunk-or-treat with live music, a format the city has repeated for at least four consecutive years.
The event is a joint effort with the Castle Hills Community Organization, a group incorporated back in 1992 and open to any resident or business owner in the city. CHCO is the same organization behind the neighborhood's Movie Nights, its Concerts in the Commons throughout the year, and its annual Easter Egg Hunt. The Halloween trunk-or-treat is one piece of a broader calendar this volunteer group has run for more than three decades.
A Third Event That Isn't Either of These
There's a third fall tradition in Castle Hills that gets folded into the same conversation and shouldn't be. National Night Out is co-sponsored locally by the Castle Hills Police Department, with corporate backing from groups like Nextdoor, ADT, and Ring, and its purpose is distinct: strengthening police-community partnerships and neighborhood crime awareness, not trick-or-treating. It's traditionally held earlier in October than the Trunk-or-Treat, on the first Tuesday of the month per the national program's own scheduling, rather than the Saturday the city and CHCO pick for their Commons event.
If you're new enough to Castle Hills that these three run together in your head, that's understandable. They all happen within the same few autumn weeks, inside a city that's only 2.5 square miles wide. But they're organized by three different groups for three different reasons, and the calendar dates don't overlap for that reason.
The Fall Calendar, Side by Side
- Haunted Forest at McGimsey Scout Park — 10810 Wedgewood. Run by Scouting America's Alamo Area Council. Two nights in 2026: October 19 (6 to 8:30 p.m.) and October 26 (6 to 9:30 p.m.). Ticketed per vehicle, roughly $20 a carload based on 2025 pricing.
- Trunk-or-Treat and Concert in the Commons — The Commons, run jointly by the City of Castle Hills and the Castle Hills Community Organization. Held annually on a late-October Saturday, historically running from about 5:30 to 9 p.m. Free to attend. Check the city's calendar closer to the date, since the exact 2026 date wasn't posted at the time of writing.
- National Night Out — Coordinated with the Castle Hills Police Department, typically the first Tuesday in October. Focused on police-community connection rather than trick-or-treating, though many households treat it as part of the same season.
What Three Organizers in 2.5 Square Miles Actually Means
None of this changes what Castle Hills is on a map. But it says something about how the city functions day to day. A national scouting nonprofit runs a fundraiser on parkland inside the city limits. A volunteer community organization runs a free civic tradition every fall, and the police department holds a separate evening for the same season, with its own purpose.
That's three institutions, each with a different mission, each showing up in the same handful of October weeks, inside a city small enough to walk across. It's not a coincidence that a place this size supports all three. It's evidence of a level of local participation that shows up in small, specific ways rather than in any single flashy event, which tends to be the more accurate read on a neighborhood than a single festival ever is.
If you already live in Castle Hills, none of this changes your address. It just means you now know which event is ticketed and which is free, and why the ticket line at Wedgewood and the free concert at the Commons were never competing for the same crowd.
If you're weighing whether a neighborhood like this fits how you actually spend your weekends, that's a conversation worth having before you make any decision about a move. Aden Stiles has spent years working in and around Castle Hills and is glad to talk through what daily life here looks like beyond the listing photos. Let's Connect.
