Not every October night has to be about being frightened. Some people simply want to walk somewhere beautiful with the person they came with and feel the season without a chainsaw in it.
More than five thousand pumpkins, every one of them carved by hand, lit from the inside and set along a walking path. Portraits, scenes, whole sculptures, an ambient soundtrack underneath and nothing waiting to jump out at you. It sits on a wide-open fairground under the fall sky rather than in a parking lot, and entry runs in timed intervals so it never turns into a shuffling crowd. It lands in the week before Halloween and it is gone in four nights.
The Fairplex in Pomona, an evening in late October.
Take the kid who counts down to Halloween all year, and take the adult who is tired of being frightened for fun.