Downtown Woburn is trading car traffic for costumed crowds today as the Woburn Host Lions Club kicks off its 72nd annual Halloween Parade at 1 p.m. Main Street closes to vehicles for the march, which has been a fall fixture in the city for more than seven decades.
According to the woburnwire.com, the parade is a great opportunity for the City of Woburn to come together and enjoy the day. The outlet reports the event starts this Sunday, October 25th, at 1pm, with Main Street closed to vehicular traffic during the march. Woburn Wire describes the route as running on Main Street from Middlesex Canal Park Drive to Lake Avenue, while the Woburn Host Lions Club describes the route differently, saying it starts at Crowne Plaza/Showcase Cinema, travels south on Main Street through Woburn Center, continues onto Lake Avenue at the Winchester line, and ends at Horn Pond. The two descriptions of the route do not fully match, and it's unclear from available sourcing how they reconcile.
A 2.2-Mile March Toward Horn Pond
Whichever stretch of Main Street kicks things off, the Lions Club says the full route stretches 2.2 miles and normally takes about 1.5 hours to walk end-to-end. That lines up with the city's own warning that the road will shut down ahead of the march: Main Street was expected to close to vehicle traffic at about 12:45, per the City of Woburn, though the notice behind that detail was not fully available.
The Woburn, MA Police Department also flagged the closure on Facebook, noting that Main Street will be closed to vehicular traffic during the parade and that vehicles parked along the route need to be moved by 8 a.m. The department's post adds that the parade is anticipated to run until 4 p.m. and that city municipal lots will be open for parking during the event, though a fully detailed city notice on lot availability was not available for this report.
Decades of Downtown Tradition
The Woburn Halloween Parade has been held for 72 years and attracts families from Woburn and surrounding communities, according to the Woburn Host Lions Club. The event was in its 68th year back in 2022, per a Patch report from that year describing the parade as regularly drawing tens of thousands of onlookers into downtown Woburn.
Estimates of just how many people show up vary widely depending on the source. The Woburn Host Lions Club page says more than 80,000 people join together along Main Street for the event, while a 2026 Patch listing puts the figure at more than 30,000 people gathering to celebrate what it calls “Parade Sunday.” Neither number is confirmed as more accurate than the other, but both point to a crowd that dwarfs an ordinary Sunday afternoon downtown.
For anyone planning to catch the march, the message from police and organizers alike is simple: clear Main Street early, expect a packed sidewalk scene, and settle in for an afternoon that's been a Woburn institution since long before this year's 72nd installment.
