Chinatown Halloween Festival on Waverly Place: SF's Halloween Parade Near Me Swap

San Francisco's Chinatown has no Halloween parade, but it does have the next best thing for anyone searching halloween parade near me with kids: a lion dance leading the crowd down Waverly Place. The 12th annual Chinatown Halloween Festival runs from 11 am to 3 pm on Saturday, October 31, 2026, on the block of Waverly Place between Sacramento and Washington Streets. It is free, it has a costume contest with real prizes, and the first 100 children through Trick-or-Treat Lane get a treat.

The festival is organized by the Community Youth Center of San Francisco, the nonprofit known locally as CYC, whose Chinatown office sits at 830 Sacramento Street, a few steps from the top of Waverly Place. The city's Office of Economic and Workforce Development sponsors it, and the partners are the Chinatown Merchants United Association, the lion dance group LionDanceMe and Self-Help for the Elderly, which explains why grandparents turn out in costume almost as often as the kids.

Halloween is the last of three block parties CYC holds on Waverly Place each year, following the Chinatown Springtime Festival and Craving Chinatown. Its pumpkins are donated by Arata's Pumpkin Farm, Clancy's Pumpkins and Christmas Trees, and Sloat Garden Center, so the pumpkin patch on the alley is the real thing rather than plastic props.

The festival began in 2015. Funcheap listed the 2017 edition as the third annual, when it ran from 11 am to 5 pm and included a haunted house inside the clubhouse of the Willie Woo Woo Wong Playground at 830 Sacramento Street, with family fun packs for $2 and $5. By 2021, the seventh year, Local News Matters covered it as a festival held on Waverly Place and at the playground clubhouse, pitched as a way to lift spirits in the neighborhood.

Waverly Place suits the event. The one-block alley between Sacramento and Washington is known for its painted balconies and the historic temples on its upper floors, and it is narrow enough that a single lion dance fills it wall to wall. In the 2022 edition, more than 30 merchants handed out discount coupon books, and the event still works partly as a reason to walk the neighborhood's shops.

The headline act is LionDanceMe performing a traditional lion dance. Lion dances usually move through a crowd rather than stay on a stage, so this is the closest Chinatown gets to a parade: the lion works its way down the alley, the drum leads, and costumed kids trail behind. Small children can be startled by the cymbals, so stand toward the Washington Street end if you want to watch from a little distance first.

Elsewhere on the block, every child can pick out a pumpkin to take home from the patch, and there are arts and crafts tables and VR games for older kids. Trick-or-Treat Lane is limited: only the first 100 children get a treat, which means arriving close to 11 am if candy is the main goal.

The costume contest is the most organized part of the day. There are four categories, ages 0 to 11, ages 12 to 17, ages 18 and up, and families or groups, and the top three in each category win a $50 Chinatown dining gift certificate. That makes it one of the few Halloween contests in the city where a teenager or a grandparent has a fair shot, since they are not judged against toddlers.

Pre-registration closes on Wednesday, October 28, and the first 50 people who pre-register get a free goodie bag. Registration is through CYC, and the organizers list the Chinatown office line, as the contact. Because families and groups have their own category, a coordinated group costume is worth the effort here.

Two short blocks away, the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory at 56 Ross Alley has been folding fortune cookies by hand since 1962. Its visit page lists Saturday hours of 9 am to 7 pm, and you can watch the workers fold warm discs off the press in a room barely wider than the alley. Custom fortune cookies, with your own messages inside, start at $25.00 for a pack of 50, which makes an easy Halloween party favor.

Ross Alley runs between Washington and Jackson Streets, just across Washington from the north end of Waverly Place, so the walk from the festival is short. The workroom is tiny, so visitors take turns at the doorway; plan a few minutes there rather than a long stop.

The Chinese Historical Society of America museum at 965 Clay Street is open Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10 am to 5 pm, so it is open on Halloween. It sits in the former Chinatown YWCA building designed by Julia Morgan, and its exhibits trace the Chinese American experience from the Gold Rush onward. It is about a three-block walk uphill from Waverly Place along Clay.

Eating standing up on the sidewalk is normal here, and it keeps a family on schedule between the lion dance and the contest.

The easiest way in is the Central Subway. Chinatown–Rose Pak Station sits at Stockton and Washington Streets, one block from the Washington Street end of Waverly Place, with a direct ride from Union Square and Market Street. On the surface, the 30 Stockton and 45 Union/Stockton buses both run up Stockton through Chinatown; the 30 runs from 6 am to midnight on weekends.

Driving into Chinatown on a Saturday is slow, and parking on the hill streets is scarce. With a stroller, the subway is the clear winner, because you skip the steep climb up Clay or Sacramento from the Financial District.

Event: 12th annual Chinatown Halloween Festival, Saturday, October 31, 2026, 11 am to 3 pm. Where: Waverly Place between Sacramento and Washington Streets, San Francisco, CA 94108. Cost: free. Organizer: Community Youth Center of San Francisco, 830 Sacramento Street. Costume contest pre-registration closes October 28; prizes are $50 Chinatown dining gift certificates. Transit: Chinatown–Rose Pak Station on the Central Subway; Muni 30 and 45.

Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for a dim sum lunch near Waverly Place or another San Francisco Halloween event to fill the evening.