Or just spooky enough to feel exciting, with costumes, sweets, mysterious adventures and absolutely no chance of anyone sleeping with the lights on for the next three weeks.
Paddington Bear has chosen option two.
From October 17 to November 1, 2026, The Paddington Bear™ Experience at London’s County Hall is transforming for Halloween, bringing a limited-time Trick or Treat adventure to the immersive world of Windsor Gardens.
Think less haunted house, more marmalade magic with a spooky little twist.
And fancy dress is very much encouraged.
For the October half term, Windsor Gardens will be transformed with autumnal colours and seasonal details, creating a Halloween edition of the experience families already know.
Visitors will still step inside Paddington’s world and journey through familiar locations from the stories but this time, there’s trick or treating along the way.
Children will encounter beloved Paddington characters throughout the experience, receiving treats before the adventure finishes with a Halloween celebration in Windsor Gardens.
Basically, Paddington has entered his spooky era.
Politely, obviously.
Families can add a special Trick or Treat package to a child’s visit, which comes with everything required for a suitably Paddington style Halloween adventure.
Children receive a souvenir pumpkin bucket ready to collect sweet treats handed out throughout the experience, as well as a Paw Biscuit, exclusive Paddington Bear™ ears and a Halloween Paddington postcard.
It’s an easy way to bring the ritual of trick or treating into a controlled family experience, while still preserving the part children actually care about.
The sweets.
Naturally.
The Halloween takeover sits inside the much bigger world of The Paddington Bear™ Experience, which spans more than 26,000 square feet of County Hall on London’s South Bank.
And this isn’t simply somewhere to walk around and look at Paddington memorabilia.
The experience places families inside his story.
It begins amid the bustle of Paddington Station, where guests meet the Station Master before setting off on a journey through famous London landmarks.
The destination?
No. 32 Windsor Gardens.
One of the nicest things about the experience is that children aren’t expected to remain passive spectators.
There are themed rooms, interactive games, character encounters and surprises to discover as the story unfolds.
Eventually, the adventure reaches a Windsor Gardens street party celebrating the Marmalade Day Festival, with more games and time with the Brown family.
Food and drinks are also available there including, because it would be borderline unacceptable otherwise, their famous marmalade sandwich.
For Halloween, that already immersive structure lends itself particularly well to trick-or-treating.
Instead of collecting sweets from anonymous doors, children are moving through a story while meeting characters along the way.
A little theatre.
A little Halloween.
A lot of Paddington.
London in autumn already understands the assignment.
Add Halloween, Paddington and a pumpkin bucket and you’ve got a particularly strong contender for the half-term calendar.
The limited run also lands neatly across the school holiday period, beginning on Saturday, October 17 and continuing through Sunday, November 1.
And because the seasonal elements are layered onto the existing Paddington experience rather than replacing it, families aren’t choosing between the original adventure and a Halloween event.
They’re getting both.
Perhaps most importantly for families with younger children, this isn’t Halloween built around frightening them.
The emphasis is on a safe, joyful celebration — costumes, autumnal scenery, familiar characters and treats rather than jump scares and horror.
There’s still enough mystery to make things feel different.
But when your guide into Halloween is a bear whose primary concern is usually marmalade, you can probably assume things aren’t going to get too dark.
SHARE:
