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With Halloween just around the corner, it’s a good idea to keep track of some of the fun and creepy events coming up in Austin, Texas. The good news is that most of them are inexpensive and fun for the whole family.

The Bats

The bats are a popular Austin attraction from May until October every year, but Halloween is obviously the most appropriate time to go check them out. The underside of the Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin is home to North America’s largest urban bat colony, with these creatures of the night numbering close to 1.5 million. Every evening at dusk the bats fly out from the bridge in search of food, and people gather around, waiting and watching for a glimpse.

The Day of the Dead Parade

La Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is a Mexican holiday celebration that takes place each year on November 1. Because Texas is so close to Mexico, the culture has spread throughout Austin which, through its Mexic-Arte Museum, hosts a parade. This year it will be held on Saturday, October 27, 2007, and will not only feature the standard costumes, noise makers, dancers and music, but also a celebration of Frida Kahlo, one of Mexico’s most beloved artists. In honor of Frida’s 100th birthday (1907-2007), there will be 100 Frida look-alikes in the parade. Tickets for this event cost only for adults and for children, and entrance is free for participants in the parade.

Austin Ghost Tours

Austin Ghost Tours offers hour and a half tours on foot through the downtown Austin area, where you will hear the haunted tales and legends of various local buildings and people. They have a couple of tours each night, so you shouldn’t have a hard time scheduling one. Tickets are .95.

Austin Haunted Forest

For only .00, the Austin Haunted Forest allows you to wander the October Trail of Fears and enjoy

Musical festival season is officially over, and it was a great one, wasn’t? The season of music festivals, which began last spring with Coachella and was followed by a string of others with kooky names like Bonnaroo and Lollapallooza, has come to a close with Austin City Limits. The Texas festival marked the end of the 2008 music festival season and even though it took place in September, just as fall was beginning to creep in, the 90-degree Texas heat allowed for festival fans to break out the short shorts and bikini tops one more time.

Jenny Lewis, of Rilo Kiley fame, took the stage solo on Sept. 26, the first day of A.C.L., with a performance featuring tracks from her newest release, Acid Tongue, as well as songs from 2006’s Rabbit Fur Coat while her newest fan, Bill Murray (yes, the Bill Murray) danced and sang along. While Lewis did her thing, Conor Oberst took the stage across the way with performances of “Danny Callahan” and “Milk Thistle” from his most recent eponymous album. Day One of A.C.L. also hosted the Mars Volta, N.E.R.D., the Swell Season and Vampire Weekend. Headliners Mars Volta delivered the psychedelic “The Widow” and “Goliath,” while N.E.R.D. brought fans up on stage to dance along to “Lapdance” and a medley of “Everyone Nose” and “She Wants to Move” which featured the melody of the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army. Zoey Deschanel, on a break from touring with M. Ward as She & Him, drew a crowd as a solo performer on the first day as well.

Day two featured headliner Beck with a shorter performance than expected, although fans still enjoyed his eclectic set list which spanned his career. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss performed “Killing the Blues” and “Gone Gone Gone” from last year’s Raising Sand and Led Zeppelin fans received a treat in the form of “The Battle of Evermore.” Spiritualized delivered one of Day Two’s best performances with a set list harking from their past releases (playing only one song-”Soul on Fire”-from their recent album, Songs in A&E). Iron & Wine took the stage at dusk with a more upbeat performance than their usual fare; the set list included “Cinder & Smoke” and “Wolves,” among other songs and a pregnant Erykah Badu sang “Healer” and Me” earlier on that day.

Dave Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters closed this year’s A.C.L., with a performance featuring newer singles like “Let it Die” and “Long Road to Ruin” as well as a cover of the Who’s “Young Man Blues” and old favorites like “Monkey Wrench.” Rock’n'roll proved to be the pervading theme for the final day of A.C.L., as the Raconteurs, Against Me! and Band of Horses also played. Jack White and Brendan Benson shared vocal duties for the Raconteurs, who delivered “Steady As She Goes,” “Level” and “Hold Up.” Gillian Welch offered some more soothing sounds for fans in a set which featured guitarist David Rawlings and an appearance by Alison Krauss.

In October the television series for which serves as the inspiration for Austin City Limits kicks off its 34th season. With episodes with Gnarls Barkley, the Swell Season, Erykah Badu and R.E.M. in store, fans will already be thinking of when to purchase their Austin City Limits Festival tickets for next year.

http://www.stubhub.com/austin-city-limits-festival-tickets/ is your best source for Austin City Limits Festival tickets.

You want a festival that offers you a little bit of everything. You want a great venue, with plenty of room so you don’t feel squashed amidst the masses of people sure to attend. You want masses of people sure to attend. You want food, drinks, music and vendors. You want fun that, if possible, is not at the expense of the environment – after all you are from Austin, so you must be green – and you want it all at a reasonable cost. Fortunately, the Austin City Limits Music Festival is just that.

Held every year in Zilker Park at the end of September, the Austin City Limits Music Festival offers a great lineup of bands for three days of unbeatable music. In 2008, the Foo Fighters, Allison Krauss, N.E.R.D., Jenny Lewis, Gnarls Barkley, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Patty Griffin, Tegan and Sara, Iron & Wine and so many more took the stage at the festival, entertaining guests with their varying styles and great tunes. They performed at the AMD, the AT&T Blue Room, the Austin Kiddie Limits stage, the Austin Ventures stage and the BMI, WaMu, Dell and AT&T stages, so that no matter what your taste there was always someone worth listening to playing. It was just a matter of finding them.

In between shows, participants were able to sample some amazing cuisine from numerous Austin eateries. At the Austin Eats Food Court, Aquarelle Restaurant, Austin’s Pizza, Solar Natural Wraps, The Best Wurst, Thistle Café, Saba Blue Water Café and Wahoo’s Fish Taco, among others, served their best dishes to famished music fans. Those who walked away did so full of burgers, gyros, pizzas, salad, fish cones, potatoes and so much more. Famished they may have been to start, but they were anything but to end.

While eating and listening, guests were also able to relax their eco-conscience, knowing that the Austin City Limits Music Festival is as green as it possibly can be. The festival’s motto is Love the Music. Love the Park. Love the Planet. The festival more than lives up to that motto by offering its guest suggestions on how they can be a green part of the weekend. Recommendations include biking or taking the festival shuttle, carpooling, buying carbon offsets as a part of the ticket or once at the festival, and reducing the number of water bottle littering the park by refilling or making use of the water fountains throughout Zilker. However you choose to make a difference – try them all – you’ll know that the weekend of fun you had wasn’t one of waste.

The Austin City Limits Music Festival is a phenomenal, annual event that all should attend. It is the opportunity to see bands few have the privilege of seeing live, and to enjoy warm fall days with your friends and family. If interested, head to aclfestival. You can purchase your ticket or wristband (and maybe that carbon offset?) there, and find out about parking, getting to and from the festival, the lineup and the schedule. That way, you’ll be all set when the festival begins for three days of music-packed fun.