Halloween lands on a Saturday this year, and Asheville is treating that like the gift it is.

The whole weekend, Thursday through Sunday, reads like one long costume change — so here is your guide, sorted from family-friendly to full freaky.

Start with the kids.

Thursday evening brings a Halloween climb for ages six to twelve at the Montford community center, an early, gentle scare with an adult along.

Out west, the Eliada corn maze and fall festival runs its final weekend — the last call for pumpkins, hayrides and getting lost on purpose before November takes over.

Saturday morning, the Wicked Spooky 5K takes off from the Funkatorium on Coxe Avenue, with a kids' Creepy Crawly Climb right before the main run.

Costumes on runners are not just allowed — they are basically the point.

Now the grown-ups.

Thursday night, the Grove Park Inn throws its Pink Lady Party — tarot readings, themed cocktails, dueling pianos and a costume contest, all winking at the hotel's most famous resident ghost.

Friday and Saturday, a downtown Hollerween takes over with live country music, Appalachian ghost stories and Halloween food and drink specials.

Saturday night is the main event everywhere at once.

A Halloween party fills the Century Room downtown, a vampire masquerade takes an Irish pub, a goth prom claims the South Slope, and a costumed bar crawl winds through Biltmore and Banks avenues.

If your costume has a jacket option, this is the year to bring it.

Check the sky before you commit to the costume — forecasters now call for a mild Halloween near seventy, with rain moving in late Saturday night and a wet Sunday behind it.

Trick-or-treaters should be fine through the evening, though a poncho within reach never hurt anyone.

Music fans have their own three-night haunting.

A major bluegrass act has taken up residence downtown for a Halloween run Thursday through Saturday, and costumed crowds around the venue have become a seasonal spectacle of their own.

One more for the calendar before the candy wears off.

A community blood drive sets up Friday at the downtown library — a quietly heroic way to balance out the sugar.

However you play it, this is Asheville at its most Asheville: mountain weather, live music, a ghost story in every direction.

A quick word to the planners among us: the marquee parties tend to sell out by Friday afternoon, so decide early rather than at the door.

Parking downtown will be its usual Halloween self, which is to say mythical — ride-shares and patience are the real costumes of the night.

And porch-light etiquette still applies: light on means candy, light off means the show is over.

Wear the costume.

Bring the jacket.

And save us a fun-size Snickers.