Port Credit's Halloween Weekend Happens at Brightwater, Ahead of the New Credit River Bridge

The Port Credit BIA has five fall events on its calendar, all within eight days. The first is on Brant Avenue in the village core. Halloween weekend then moves west along Lakeshore Road to Brightwater Pop-Up Park, which is now the BIA's tent ground for the second October in a row. The other big change for anyone getting around the neighbourhood on foot is the new pedestrian and cycling bridge over the Credit River. It's months ahead of its original schedule, but as of today it has no public opening date. The City's latest word is that it will open by year-end.

Unless that changes, getting around Port Credit in late October is a west-and-back trip along Lakeshore on the routes residents already use. Here is how the eight days fit together, and what changes once the bridge opens.

Saturday, October 24 Starts on Brant Avenue

The season opens with Fall #INThePort and The Great Scarecrow Hunt on Saturday, October 24, from noon to 4 p.m. on Brant Avenue, according to the Port Credit BIA's fall events page. The street program includes live entertainment, crafts, face painting and farm animals. The BIA lists alpacas, goats and a unicorn.

The scarecrow hunt is the part that reaches past Brant Avenue. Thirty local businesses will put scarecrows in their storefront windows. Families pick up a scavenger hunt map at the BIA tent on Brant, find all 30, and enter to win a Family Prize Pack donated by local businesses. Thirty storefronts is a long walk with small children, but it covers a lot of the village core.

This is the one event of the fall that happens in the village core. Everything with a fixed venue after it happens farther west.

Halloween Weekend Belongs to Lakeshore and Brightwater

Brightwater Pop-Up Park sits at Lakeshore Road and Brightwater Boulevard. This isn't the BIA's first Halloween there. Its listing for Halloween #INThePort used Brightwater Pop-Up Park on October 25, 2025. In 2026, Halloween falls on a Saturday, so the BIA has spread programming over Friday and Saturday, with two of the four events booked at the Brightwater site:

1. Friday, October 30, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The Big Monster Mash Dance Party at Brightwater Pop-Up Park. It's a gym-style dance party in a fully enclosed, heated tent, with music, disco balls, smoke machines, bleacher seating, snacks, and hot chocolate sponsored by Farm Boy.
2. Saturday, October 31, 10 to 11 a.m. Dog registration for the Spooky Paws Fashion Show at Brightwater Pop-Up Park.
3. Saturday, October 31, 11 a.m. to noon. The Spooky Paws Fashion Show itself, with prizes for the dogs that compete.
4. Saturday, October 31, noon to 3 p.m. Trick-or-treating with participating local businesses throughout Port Credit. Each participant gets a BIA-branded trick-or-treat bag.
5. Saturday, October 31, 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. The Great Pumpkin Patch. It offers pumpkin picking, carving and decorating, face painting, music and art activities in a fully heated big white tent.

The BIA page doesn't give an exact location for the pumpkin patch. It only says "Port Credit," so check the event listing before heading out. Both Monster Mash and the pumpkin patch are in heated tents, so the two biggest events of the weekend will go ahead in late-October weather.

The Saturday times overlap in one useful way. Trick-or-treating runs until 3 p.m., and the pumpkin patch opens at 2:30 p.m. That gives families a half-hour to walk from storefront treats to the tent without a gap.

What's Around the Tent at Brightwater

The pop-up park sits beside an established anchor. Farm Boy, which sponsors the Monster Mash hot chocolate, opened its Brightwater store at 175 Lakeshore Road West on July 18, 2024, according to INsauga. That's two-plus years of regular grocery trips in this part of Lakeshore Road.

The Brightwater shops and dining page lists retail tenants including Mercatto Centrale, COBS Bread, D Spot Dessert Café, Nani's Gelato, the LCBO, Rexall, Bone & Biscuit and StretchLab. That page doesn't say which tenants are open today, so treat it as the project's roster, not a confirmed list of open storefronts. We covered how Mercatto fits into the summer calendar in our late-summer Port Credit guide.

The waterfront part of Brightwater is still mostly in the planning stage. The City of Mississauga describes Brightwater as a 72-acre mixed-use development with about 18 acres of planned parkland. That includes a planned 13-acre waterfront park linking Ben Machree Parkette to the west with J.C. Saddington Park to the east, according to the City's Brightwater parks page. The City calls that parkland planned, so for now the pop-up park is the community gathering space. A finished lakefront park isn't there yet.

The Crossing Still Under Construction

As of mid-October, the new crossing is still a construction site with no announced opening day.

The Port Credit Active Transportation Bridge will cross the Credit River just north of Lakeshore Road, between Port Credit Memorial Park and the Port Credit Royal Canadian Legion. The City says it will connect trails in the Lakeshore Road corridor and give people a direct way to walk, cycle or skate to Memorial Park and the GO station, while reducing parking demand at both.

INsauga reported that the bridge's girders were launched over the river on Monday, September 21. Two days later, city spokesperson Irene McCutcheon told INsauga that "over the next couple of months, the concrete work and multi-use path trail connections on either side of the bridge will be constructed," and that "the bridge is expected to open for public use by the end of the year."

• Original opening target. Spring 2027. By May 2026, Ward 1 Councillor Stephen Dasko said it would open in fall 2026, according to INsauga.
• Current target. Open for public use by the end of 2026, per the City's September 23 statement to INsauga.
• Length. INsauga reports 66 metres. The City's August 2026 funding release says 65 metres.
• Funding. The City and the federal government are sharing the cost. The City's August 22 release describes more than $8.7 million in federal funding, split between this bridge and the Culham Trail work.
• Trees. The City plans to plant 17 native trees and 136 native shrubs, remove 89 trees, many of them invasive species, and prune 24.

The construction site is the part that still affects daily routines. The City's project page lists Front Street from the Legion north to Mississauga Road, including both sidewalks, as closed during construction. Residents' driveways stay accessible, MiWay service is unaffected, and the Legion can be reached via Front Street and Park Street West. INsauga's May report gave that Front Street closure an end date of June 19. The City page hasn't been updated with a dated change, so check what's posted on site before planning a route along Front Street North.

The BIA's last fixed-time event, the pumpkin patch, ends at 5:30 p.m. on October 31. On September 23, the City put two months of concrete and path work ahead of the bridge and gave year-end as the opening target. Neither statement names a date, so check the City's project page before counting on the bridge for Halloween.

Halloween Saturday, Worked Out

Here's one way a household might plan October 31, using only the BIA's posted times:

The morning is at Brightwater, and the afternoon happens across all of Port Credit. For more on the area year-round, see our Port Credit neighbourhood page.

The bridge north of Lakeshore will add a second walking and cycling route between Memorial Park, the GO station and the trails in the Lakeshore corridor. If it opens on the City's schedule, it will be there for the holiday season. If you'd like to talk through how projects like the Credit River bridge and Brightwater's planned waterfront park could shape your corner of Port Credit, Corrie Harding-Keizs is happy to walk you through it. Request a personalized market consultation.