It’s that time of year again: Halloween. The time when the leaves crunch under your feet and the wind has a deathly cold chill. It’s at this moment that the Haunted Harbour comes to life.
For five years, organizers had the idea to turn the harbour pavilion into a haunted house. Then in 2024, someone messaged them and asked if they wanted to do it, and the rest is history.
“The guy, Devin Hannam from Grey Noise Entertainment, instantly became our trusted partner and we built something beautifully spooky. It was on short notice, so we had to improvise our materials and props to build something. Free tarps from work were used to line the walls of the pavilion and bungee cords to do the inside. With Devin being a producer at his local recording studio, he beautifully handled the music. The first Haunt had three sections each with their own theme,” said organizers. “The first year we had almost two hours worth of people waiting in line and we had over 400 lbs of food donated to the Meaford Food Bank. The people loved the creepy dolls, the spooky scarecrows and the clowns. We heard people talking about it for days. We were already brainstorming ideas for year two while dismantling the walls and packing away the props.”
This year, clowns and the ghosts fill the haunt, with an added mini-event, ‘The Great Pumpkin Carve’, which allows avid carvers or Halloween fanatics to come to the harbour with a pumpkin, and carve it as a big happy family. The moonlight market once again returns this year to accompany the haunt.
“As far as fun goes, this is it for us. It does come with its difficulties though, which is a short two-hour window in which we can operate. Months of planning and hard work have to be set up the day of the event and hope the visions match the end result. We do it for fun, that is our main goal. To provide Meaford with another annual event to look forward to. The screams and laughs make it all worth it, as we often think up ideas for next year,” said organizers.
Meaford Haunt plans on doing many Halloween events throughout the month of October, as well as unleashing their Christmas chaos called ‘The Meaford Grinch’, who can often be seen walking the streets, shovelling snow, or bugging the local shops.
The Great Pumpkin Carve: 1 – 2 p.m.
Moonlight Market: 3 – 9 p.m.
The Haunt: 7 – 9 p.m.
October 24, 2026, all at the Meaford Harbour Rotary Pavilion.
