A Free Halloween Festival Takes Over Slayter Creek Park
On the afternoon of October 17, the grass at Slayter Creek Park on West Rosamond Parkway will fill with costumed kids, the smell of food truck smoke, and the particular organized chaos that comes with more than a hundred vendors setting up under October skies. That is the scene the Greater Anna Chamber of Commerce puts together each fall for the Boo Bash, now one of the most reliably attended community events on Anna’s calendar.
Admission is free, which matters in a city that has grown as fast as Anna has. When a family can walk through a festival gate without reaching for a wallet, attendance tends to reflect the actual size of a community rather than just the portion of it willing to pay. This year’s event is no different — the doors are open to anyone who shows up.
What to Expect on the Day
The vendor count alone sets the scale. More than 100 vendors and food trucks are scheduled, which means the park will effectively become a temporary small-business showcase for Anna and the surrounding area. Craft vendors, artisan goods, seasonal products, and local sellers will line the grounds alongside food options that stretch well past the usual fair fare.
For families with younger children, the Kidz Zone offers inflatables, which tends to become its own gravitational center once word spreads among the under-ten crowd. The kids’ costume contest gives children a formal moment to show off whatever they have been planning since August, or since last Thursday, depending on the household.
The Chamber positions the Boo Bash on its calendar under both community events and networking, a combination that reflects how Anna has grown — a town where the chamber breakfast crowd and the face-painted toddler crowd overlap more than they might in a larger city.
Slayter Creek Park as a Gathering Place
The choice of venue is not incidental. Slayter Creek Park at 425 W. Rosamond Pkwy has become one of the primary outdoor gathering spaces in Anna, a city that has added residents at a pace that has consistently outrun its infrastructure in recent years. The park has enough open space to absorb a large crowd without feeling pinched, and its location on Rosamond Pkwy puts it within reach of most Anna neighborhoods without requiring a cross-town drive.
For events that aim to bring different parts of a fast-growing community into the same physical space, that geography matters. Anna has expanded in several directions at once, and a centrally accessible venue helps ensure that Boo Bash does not accidentally become only a west-side or east-side event.
The Chamber’s Role in Shaping Community Events
The Greater Anna Chamber of Commerce runs the Boo Bash as part of a broader calendar that includes its regular Coffee and Connections networking breakfasts — held on the first and third Thursdays of each month — and other programming aimed at connecting local businesses with residents. The Boo Bash sits at a different point on that spectrum. It is less about professional networking and more about the kind of informal community contact that happens when people share a patch of grass for an afternoon.
That dual role, serving both the business community and the broader public, is something smaller-city chambers often navigate more naturally than their counterparts in larger metros. In Anna, where many business owners live in the same neighborhoods as their customers, the line between a chamber event and a neighborhood event has always been somewhat porous.
A Reminder About the Date
The Chamber’s own event calendar lists October 17 as the confirmed date for the 2026 Boo Bash. Some aggregator sites carry an October 18 date that reflects last year’s event and has not been updated. Families planning to attend should treat Saturday, October 17 as the working date and check directly with the Greater Anna Chamber of Commerce closer to the event for any last-minute updates on hours and parking.
Getting There
Slayter Creek Park sits at 425 W. Rosamond Pkwy, Anna, TX 75409. Given the expected turnout from 100-plus vendors and their customers, arriving earlier in the afternoon is likely to make the parking situation easier. The event is free to attend, so there are no tickets to secure in advance.
