Reno's Halloween Weekend Stretches From City Plaza to Plumb Lane This Year

At 6 p.m. Friday, the lights come up on a Catrina contest at Reno City Plaza on North Virginia Street. At that point, families at Reno Public Market, down on Plumb Lane, still have an hour of trick-or-treating left between the food hall stalls. Two nights later, after the downtown celebration has been packed away, the Public Market holds a Día de los Muertos night of its own.

Reno's Halloween weekend this year plays out in order along Virginia Street. Each venue's hours begin roughly as the previous one's end, and a new Midtown kitchen is open late in the stretch between them.

The Weekend, Laid Out in Order

Look at where the hours land. On Friday, the two biggest events overlap by one hour. On Saturday they don't overlap at all: City Plaza closes at 3, and the Public Market's trick-or-treating starts at 4. Sunday belongs entirely to Plumb Lane. Outside that one Friday hour, a family could make every family-oriented session on this list.

Friday Night Starts Downtown

The downtown celebration, billed as Día de los Muertos: Believe Plaza, is produced by High Sierra Entertainment and is set up as two separate sessions instead of one long event. The listing makes a point of this. The event closes at 10 p.m. Friday and doesn't reopen until 11 a.m. Saturday.

The two sessions are aimed at different crowds. Friday night has the Catrina contest, live music and DJs, dancing and cultural performances, a community digital ofrenda, a memorial moment, and food and local vendors. Saturday morning moves the costume focus to kids with a Kids' Costume Contest. General admission is free for all ages both days. Costumes are encouraged but not required.

If you want a seat instead of standing room, there's an optional catered VIP experience in a heated tent. The two-day VIP pass is $100 per person, and an El Patrón table for eight is $750. Split across eight people, that table works out to about $94 a head, a little less than buying eight individual passes.

The Catrina contest itself is still waiting on details. As of the listing, the exact contest time, eligibility rules and registration process are "to be announced," so check the Downtown Reno Partnership event page before you plan a costume around it.

For a later night on Friday, Hydra Halloween at Dead Ringer Analog Bar on East 4th Street starts at 9 p.m. and runs to 12:30 a.m. The lineup includes Apparition, Die by the Sword, Sylph, Fuchsia, Smplmnd and Uziak, plus a $100 costume contest.

The Midtown Stop Has Ties to Plumb Lane

Between City Plaza and Plumb Lane sits the newest place on this route. Bora Mediterranean is a Turkish kitchen and bakery at 960 S. Virginia St. in Midtown, in one of the spaces Junkee used to occupy.

It also connects the two ends of this weekend. According to Edible Reno-Tahoe, Bora comes from brothers Can and Bugrahan Uzay, the same pair behind Mediterranean Bae, which opened inside Reno Public Market in 2023. The team that started at a food hall stall on Plumb Lane now has its own kitchen on Virginia Street, about halfway between the two Día de los Muertos venues.

The hours suit this weekend well. Bora serves breakfast every day starting at 8 a.m., the main menu from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and a late-night menu Friday and Saturday from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. That means it's still open when City Plaza closes at 10 on Friday, and after the Public Market's trick-or-treating ends at 7 on Saturday.

The site lists bread and lahmacun baked in the restaurant's own oven, simit, and döner carved from the spit. A few prices from the current menu:

• Iskender, a house favorite of beef and lamb, $24
• Bora Lamb Burger, $18
• Lahmacun, $9 each or two for $16
• Turkish Breakfast for Two, a spread of eggs, cheeses, olives, simit, house bread and Turkish tea, $48

If you're heading downtown for the Saturday kids' contest at 11, the Turkish Breakfast for Two makes an easy first stop on the way north.

Saturday Is the Handoff

Saturday is the day the sequence matters most, because the downtown and Plumb Lane events are timed back to back. The day falls together like this:

1. Breakfast in Midtown. Bora opens at 8 a.m.
2. Kids' Costume Contest downtown. City Plaza's Saturday session runs 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
3. Trick-or-treating at Plumb Lane. The Public Market's Halloween hours run 4 to 7 p.m., an hour after downtown wraps.
4. Late night back in Midtown. Bora's late menu starts at 9.

Halloween at Reno Public Market works like neighborhood trick-or-treating moved indoors. Kids go from vendor stall to vendor stall instead of door to door. The market's event page invites adults to pick up a drink from Honey Bar on the way through, and the event is free and open to the public both Friday and Saturday.

There are costume rules. A KUNR community calendar listing for the Saturday event says no costumes with weapons, no nudity, no political references, and no costumes that demean protected identities. Those rules come from the Saturday listing, so if you're going Friday, look over the market's own event page first.

Sunday Brings Día de los Muertos Back to Plumb Lane

After the downtown sessions end Saturday afternoon, Día de los Muertos moves south. On Sunday, November 1, from 5 to 9 p.m., Reno Public Market hosts Day of the Dead Celebration: Quinceañeras & Catrinas, which it describes as an evening of Latino culture, family and tradition through music, dance, art and cultural performances.

Its theme sets it apart from Friday's contest downtown. The Public Market is asking people with a quinceañera gown packed away in a closet to turn it into a Catrina look. A contest for the best quinceañera Catrina gown and makeup transformation offers prizes and gifts valued at more than $2,000.

So Reno has two Catrina contests this weekend, two days apart, at opposite ends of the same street. Friday's at City Plaza is open to anyone in a Catrina-inspired costume. Sunday's at the Public Market starts from a specific heirloom, the quinceañera dress. Anyone planning to enter both could wear the Friday look downtown and save the reworked gown for Sunday.

One more scheduling detail: the market's listing shows Sunday's event in Pacific Standard Time, while Friday's and Saturday's trick-or-treat hours are listed in Pacific Daylight Time. The clocks change between Saturday's trick-or-treating and Sunday's celebration, which gives everyone an extra hour of sleep before the last night of the weekend.

Where the Route Runs

Mapped out, the weekend follows Virginia Street from 30 N. Virginia St. downtown, through 960 S. Virginia St. in Midtown, to 299 E. Plumb Lane. Most of the family hours line up end to end, with a single hour of overlap Friday evening. The downtown Catrina contest's time and rules are still to be announced, and the Public Market's page holds the entry details for Sunday, so check each organizer's page before you go.

At Reno Tahoe Luxury Properties, Sonja Leonard follows how the corridor from downtown through Midtown to Plumb Lane keeps adding new places like Bora, and how that changes the homes nearby. If you live along this route and want to know what it means for your home, request your home valuation and we'll put real numbers to it.