Nightfall is Filoli's after-dark Halloween experience. This year's run begins September 26.
The season is starting three weeks earlier than it used to
Nightfall debuted in 2024, running from October 16 through November 3, a nineteen-day window that began in mid-October and wrapped after Halloween. It returned in 2025 for a second run. This year, its third, the show opens September 26 and runs through November 1.
That's not a small adjustment. This year's run opens three weeks earlier than the 2024 debut, while the closing date barely moves, landing at November 1 instead of November 3. What was once a nineteen-day fall show has become a run of about five weeks that now includes the end of September.
For a town the size of Woodside, late September has historically been a quiet period between summer's Horse Park show weekends and deeper autumn crowds. This year, Nightfall opens September 26, during that period.
The garden isn't the only thing running early
Nightfall isn't Filoli's only fall programming, either. Before the Halloween show opens, the estate hosts Fleurs de Villes, a floral exhibition inspired by the Gilded Age, running September 9 through 18. Together, the two events bring fall programming to Filoli from September 9 through November 1, with a break between Fleurs de Villes and Nightfall.
For residents, the two openings give the fall calendar a longer span of Filoli programming than Nightfall alone.
When Nightfall overlaps with weeknight plans
None of this requires a decision from anyone who already lives here. Cañada Road is two lanes for most of its length and one of the main routes connecting the town center to the Highway 280 interchange. Nightfall's five-week run falls during the hours locals are usually heading home or heading out to dinner.
If your plan is a burger at Buck's of Woodside or a stop at Roberts Market for something to grill, dinner plans can overlap with Nightfall's ticket windows. Village Pub, the town's fine-dining anchor, tends to draw its own reservation crowd regardless of what's happening up the road.
The trails are shifting into their own version of fall at the same time
The fall season also marks the point where Woodside's two county parks settle into their cool-weather rhythm. Huddart Park, 973 acres of redwood forest with 24 miles of trails and a six-dollar parking fee, holds its shade the longest of anything close to town, which matters once the afternoon sun is still strong but the mornings have turned crisp. Wunderlich County Park, smaller at 942 acres with 17 miles of trails and free parking, opens into oak and madrone country instead of redwood canopy, and its riding stables mean horse traffic shares the trail with hikers on any given morning. Purisima Creek Redwoods, further up Skyline Boulevard, sits at a higher elevation where the coastal fog holds on longer into the day, offering a cooler walk.
That means the same weekend this fall can include a redwood hike at Huddart, a trail walk at Wunderlich, and a Nightfall ticket that evening. The parks themselves haven't changed. What's different is that they're now settling into their fall rhythm at the same time Filoli's Nightfall calendar starts three weeks earlier than it used to.
The takeaway for anyone who already lives here
Nightfall's third run opens September 26, three weeks earlier than its 2024 debut, and closes November 1. For anyone following Filoli's fall calendar, Nightfall's opening now falls in late September.
If you're weighing what a Woodside property is worth given how the town's calendar and character keep evolving, or you're simply curious how this kind of local detail factors into valuation and timing, Allen Nazari at Park Lane Capital has spent more than three decades reading these signals across the Mid-Peninsula. Schedule a private consultation to talk through what's actually happening in the market behind the headlines.
