The weather is cooler. The air is crisp, and mischief is afoot. Fall is here, and that means harvest festivals, haunted houses, hayrides and more. This year, there is an extra-special event downtown to celebrate the season. Bud Light presents the Fayetteville Dogwood Fall Festival Thursday, Oct. 19, from 7– 9 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 20 from 5–10 p.m.; and Saturday, Oct. 21 from 3– 11 p.m. at Festival Park.

“We are doing a new haunted house this year called Dogwood’s Dark Dream that will run Thursday, Friday and Saturday,” said Sarah Suggs, marketing and events coordinator for the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival Organization, Inc. “Some of our more classic elements that have been with us since the beginning of our fall festival are Historic Hauntings and hayrides.”

Suggs added that Historic Hauntings is a guided walking tour through the cemetery, and it is not intended to be super scary but is more of an interesting, informative tour.   

There are several other elements of the event, one of the popular ones being Bands ’N Brew. “Friday, we will have 20 Ride as our headlining act at 8:30 p.m., and that is a Zac Brown tribute band,” Suggs said. “And we have local country band Avner Clark before that. Then Saturday we have the local band Cool Heat at 3:30 p.m., Rivermist beginning at 6 p.m., and we end the night with our headlining act SkyDog at 8:30 p.m.” Rivermist won Best Local Musician/Band for this year’s Best of Fayetteville awards.  

Forty food trucks will be on-site along with the craft beer festival featuring 10 craft beers and favorite domestics starting Saturday at 3 p.m. Some of the food trucks will be local, and the others are from surrounding areas.

This year’s festival also features a new children’s area called KidZone. “Kids will have access to the entire area that will have two inflatables, a climbing wall, a barrel train and mini golf,” Suggs said. “The kids’ area will be in Linear Park across the street.”

The Fayetteville Dogwood Fall Festival is a community fundraiser in which the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival Organization partners with other nonprofit agencies. The agencies loan their volunteer force to the festival to create a fun-filled event for the community. The festival, in turn, gives back some of the proceeds to these nonprofit agencies.

The cost for the Dogwood’s Dark Dream haunted house is $10, hayrides are $5, Historic Hauntings is $10 and KidZone is $10. For more information, call (910) 323-1934.