"Same tellers, same time, NEW STORIES!" That line comes from the Davis Arts Council's listing for an October 30 storytelling night at Weber State University's Davis campus. It promises a lot for a Halloween event: the people on stage will have new material. It also points to how Layton's October is built this year. Over three weeks, a fairy tale gets acted out along a park path, a scary storytelling festival takes over Kenley Amphitheater, and two of the same featured tellers come back to Layton again before the month ends.
Most of the October calendar is spoken rather than staged. The Davis Arts Council and Layton City organize it, and Weber State's storytelling festival supplies part of the cast. Nearly all of it happens within a few hundred feet on North Wasatch Drive.
A Fairy Tale You Walk Through
The season opens on Saturday, October 10, with Active Pages: Hansel and Gretel. It isn't performed on a stage. Families walk through Layton Commons Park while the story plays out around them, and groups set off every five minutes. There are two sessions, one at 1:30 p.m. and one at 5:30 p.m. KSL's event listing gives the address as 437 N. Wasatch Dr.
The ticket rules are the main thing to plan around. Tickets are free, but everyone in your group needs one, including babies in arms and children in strollers. If you show up without tickets, the standby line is by the Vietnam Memorial Wall. Every attendee 18 or younger gets to pick a free book. So the walk is a performance, and it also sends kids home with something to read. That fits a month built around stories.
Picking the 5:30 p.m. session over the afternoon one changes the experience. The same story through the same park will feel different as the light fades, which suits a tale about two children lost in the woods.
The Bash Moves the Story Under the Bowery
Six days later the city holds its Halloween Bash, and Hansel and Gretel shows up again. Layton City's community calendar lists the Bash for Friday, October 16, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., with free admission, themed games, live music and yard games. KSL's listing for the event adds a $2 train ride with hot chocolate and a cookie. The city also invited local businesses and organizations to run Halloween activity booths for families at no cost to them. The city's rules say no sales are allowed.
The Davis Arts Council scheduled two accessible Active Pages sessions during the Bash, at 7 and 8 p.m. These versions stay in one place, use a single actor and include ASL interpretation. They happen under the plaza bowery, and you don't need tickets. If walking a park path doesn't work for someone in your family, or if the October 10 sessions fill up, the Bash gives you a second way to hear the story.
The city calendar gives the Bash location as 465 N. Wasatch Dr. KSL's listing puts it at Layton Commons Park. The two addresses are on the same block. Check with Layton City Parks and Recreation before you go so you know which entrance to use.
The Festival That Splits at Dinner
The biggest storytelling night comes the next day. Whispers in the Dark: Layton's Scary Storytelling Festival takes over Kenley Amphitheater at 403 N. Wasatch Dr. on Saturday, October 17. It's free. The Davis Arts Council and Layton City present it with the Weber State Storytelling Festival and the Utah Storytelling Guild. The schedule has two halves with a break in between:
3:00 to 6:00 p.m. — All-ages spooky stories 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. — Dinner break 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. — PG-13 scary stories for teens and adults
That dinner hour means one festival can work for two kinds of evenings. A family with young kids can come for the afternoon set and be home by dark. Teens and adults can show up for the second half. The festival will have seasonal vendors and food trucks, so you can eat dinner without leaving the amphitheater.
The lineup is the reason this festival leads into the rest of the month. The headliner is Nestor Gomez, an internationally known storyteller who was born in Guatemala and is based in Chicago. Mo Reynolds and Sam Payne are the featured regional tellers. Local storytellers and graduates of the Scary Storytelling Workshop Series will also perform. So the stage includes people who learned the craft in workshops tied to this same event. The festival also helps bring new storytellers up.
Two Tellers, Two Weeks, Two Layton Stages
Remember Mo Reynolds and Sam Payne, because both are back in Layton less than two weeks later.
On Friday, October 30, the Davis Arts Council and the Weber State University Storytelling Festival present a Halloween Spooktacular encore. Paul Strickland, Sam Payne and Mo Reynolds perform at the Weber State University Davis Stewart Center, 2750 University Park Blvd. They will have played Peery's Egyptian Theatre in Ogden the night before. The Layton show is free, with spooky stories for kids and families at 6:30 p.m. and spookier ones for older kids, teens and adults at 7:30 p.m. Strickland is a professional storyteller and theater artist from Kentucky. The listing describes his family-friendly repertoire as reworked folk tales, fairytales for adults and tall tales.
Put the dates together and you get a progression. Hear Reynolds and Payne at Kenley Amphitheater on October 17. Then hear them again at the Davis campus on October 30, with Strickland added and, as the listing promises, new stories. Most Halloween calendars repeat the same kind of event every weekend. This one has a cast you can follow from show to show.
The Short Stretch of Wasatch Drive
The smaller events fill in between the big storytelling nights, and most of them are on the same civic block. Here's the month in date order:
- Monday, October 5, 1 to 2:30 p.m. After Words adult book club, Layton Branch Library, 155 N. Wasatch Dr.
- Tuesday, October 6, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Spooktacular, Layton Branch Library, 155 N. Wasatch Dr.
- Saturday, October 10, 1:30 and 5:30 p.m. Active Pages: Hansel and Gretel, Layton Commons Park.
- Wednesday, October 14. Little Historians Spooky Museum, Heritage Museum of Layton, 403 N. Wasatch Dr. It's for ages 2 to 5, costs $10 per child and requires preregistration.
- Friday, October 16, 6 to 8:30 p.m. Halloween Bash, with accessible Active Pages sessions at 7 and 8 p.m.
- Saturday, October 17, 3 to 9 p.m. Whispers in the Dark, Kenley Amphitheater, 403 N. Wasatch Dr.
- Friday, October 30, 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. Halloween Spooktacular encore, WSU Davis Stewart Center.
The library listings don't say what they cost, so check the Davis County Library calendar before planning around them. Two business-hosted trunk-or-treats are also on the regional Halloween calendar. First Community Bank hosts one at 12 S. Main St. on Friday, October 16, from 4 to 6 p.m., which ends right before the Bash starts. Wee Care Pediatrics hosts one at 1600 W. Antelope Dr. on Saturday, October 17, from 5 to 7:30 p.m., during the festival's dinner break and the start of its PG-13 set. Neither listing gives a cost.
The addresses tell the story. The library sits at 155 N. Wasatch Dr. The Heritage Museum and Kenley Amphitheater share 403 N. Wasatch Dr., and the Bash is listed at 465. Only the October 30 encore is off the block, at the Davis campus on University Park Boulevard.
Daylight Before the Dark Stories
October 17 has open hours before the 3 p.m. festival start, and the east bench is a short drive away. Layton City lists the Adams Canyon and Bonneville Shoreline trailhead at 600 S. Eastside Dr., with 1.9 miles of unpaved trail to the waterfall. In July 2026, the Davis Journal described the upper falls as a 40-foot waterfall on steep, rocky, partly sun-exposed terrain, with an optional side trip of about a mile round trip to the lower falls. The trailhead has restrooms and water-fill stations. The same story says going past the upper falls is prohibited because the terrain there is steep and slippery. The Forest Service lists a little over 1,000 feet of elevation gain and allows leashed pets.
If you want something gentler, Layton City lists Kays Creek Parkway as 2.5 miles of paved trail plus a 0.94-mile soft-surface loop around Hobbs Reservoir. The Adam J. Welker lot at 2700 N. 2125 E. has 25 parking spaces. None of these sources is an October trail-condition report, so check the Forest Service alerts page before heading up. A morning at the falls followed by the all-ages festival set at Kenley Amphitheater still fits inside one Saturday.
If your family's October runs along North Wasatch Drive this year, you may notice your street differently once the festival tents come down. Ame Lawlor at Ame Lawlor pays attention to what makes a Layton block feel like home, from a fairy tale in Commons Park to a well-kept front yard. If you're starting to think about what's next for your place in Layton, Let's Connect.
