Check the Town of St. John's official events page this week and you'll find a Boo Bash with pumpkin train rides, a document shredding day, and a Bingo Night set for Friday, October 23 at the Community Center. What you won't find is any mention of the three-day festival happening the first weekend of October with five live music acts, a beer garden, and enough Bavarian pretzels to feed half of Wicker Avenue.
That's because St. John's biggest fall weekend isn't run by the town at all. It's run by a parish, on its own website, and if you're the kind of resident who bookmarks stjohnin.gov and calls it done, you're going to miss it.
What the Town Actually Publishes
St. John's municipal events page is a good list, as far as it goes. Boo Bash brings trunk-or-treat, pumpkin decorating, and a costume parade for younger kids on what the town calls "the perfect fall morning." The Fishing Derby, now in its 21st year, hands out prizes for first fish, largest fish, smallest fish, and most fish caught, with Wintrust St. John sponsoring a Traveling Tom's Coffee Truck for the parents standing around holding poles. Touch-A-Truck, in its third year, brings a Lake County helicopter onto the grounds alongside the usual fire trucks and excavators, and this year it's building in a sensory-friendly window from 11 a.m. to noon with no sirens or horns. The St. John Fire Department grills burgers and hot dogs at that one, cash only, with proceeds going back to the department.
These are genuinely good events. They're also small, free, and organized around the town's own calendar of civic life. None of them is the thing most people mean when they ask what's happening in St. John this fall.
Where Oktoberfest Actually Lives
The St. John Oktoberfest runs October 2 through 4 this year, hosted by St. John the Evangelist Parish in the Old Parish parking lot on Wicker Avenue. It has its own domain, its own promotional push, and a lineup that looks less like a parish potluck and more like a genuine festival booking:
Friday, October 2, 5 to 11 p.m. Saturday, October 3, 1 to 11 p.m. Sunday, October 4, noon to 8 p.m. Live music from the Ed Wagner Band, Pech Schwefel, the Gronik Children's Folk Ensemble, German Band Inc., and Prost!
The beer garden pours Hacker-Pschorr. The food tent covers schnitzels and Bavarian pretzels. Kids get pumpkin decorating and face painting across all three days, and two large screens keep college and NFL football running in the background for anyone who'd rather split attention between a stein and a scoreboard.
None of that shows up on the town's own page, which means the calendar most residents check first is the one that leaves out the weekend with the most going on.
Why the Split Exists
St. John runs a second parish festival every summer, the St. John Festival, held July 9 through 12 at the corner of Highway 41 and 93rd Avenue. That one is bigger still: carnival rides, a $10,000 Big Ticket Raffle, a wine and sangria bar, and a free shuttle running all four days with pickup points at AVGO, Kolling Elementary, and Lake Central High School. Between the two events, the parish is effectively running its own separate civic calendar alongside the town's, one built for fundraising and community turnout rather than municipal service delivery.
That's not unusual for a town that's grown as fast as St. John has. A 2025 report in the Northwest Indiana Times put the town's population growth at around 25 percent over the prior five years, with the town swelling from roughly 8,000 residents three decades ago to more than 24,000 today. Infrastructure like a shared events calendar tends to lag behind that kind of growth. The parish festivals predate a lot of the town's newer subdivisions. The town's official programming has expanded to match its current population, but the two systems never merged into one source of truth. If you want the full fall picture, you're checking two websites, not one.
Wicker Avenue Is Catching Up Too
The same growth that split the calendar has also filled in what used to be gaps on Wicker Avenue itself. That NWI Times report noted Jewel-Osco breaking ground on a new supermarket in the long-vacant Kmart building, and a multimillion-dollar expansion at the Arcadia Center near 101st Place that added eight storefronts, including AT&T, The UPS Store, Sport Clips, and a Tropical Smoothie Cafe. Over on Calumet Avenue, St. John Commons picked up the Daily Grind Coffee and Ice Cream Shop, The Great American Bagel, Moda Beauty Bar, and Wisely Advised within the same stretch of reporting.
None of that is festival programming, but it changes what a weekend in St. John actually looks like. A few years ago, grabbing coffee before the Fishing Derby or a smoothie after Touch-A-Truck meant driving toward Schererville or Crown Point. Now more of that happens without leaving Wicker Avenue.
A Realistic October Weekend
Put the pieces together and a St. John weekend in early October could run something like this. Friday night, Oktoberfest opens at 5 p.m. at the Old Parish lot, with the Ed Wagner Band setting the tone and the beer garden pouring Hacker-Pschorr through 11. Saturday, the festival runs from 1 p.m. straight through to 11, long enough to catch both an afternoon set and the evening crowd. If you'd rather skip the crowd one night that week, 41 North Tavern on Wicker Avenue runs Trivia Mondays and live bands most weekends, with a patio that stays open for both indoor and outdoor seating. Sunday morning, before Oktoberfest's shorter noon-to-8 closing stretch, AVGO on Wicker Avenue covers breakfast and lunch with a full bar if the weekend calls for one more round before the festival wraps.
Later in the month, Bingo Night at the Community Center on October 23 gives families a lower-key option, with a costume contest and door prizes that don't require standing in a beer garden line. None of these events conflict with each other on paper. They just live on different calendars, which is the entire point.
The Takeaway for Anyone Who Lives Here
St. John isn't unusual in having a town government and a parish that both program fall events. What's worth knowing is that in St. John specifically, the parish's production is the bigger one, and it's the one most likely to get missed if you're only checking the town's official list. Bookmark both. Oktoberfest's site updates the lineup and hours as the weekend approaches, and the town's events page is the better source for the free, kid-focused programming like Boo Bash and Touch-A-Truck.
Growth like St. John has seen tends to show up first in traffic and new storefronts, and only later in things like a unified events calendar. For now, the town is still catching up on that last part, which means residents who want the full fall picture have to do a little of that work themselves.
If you're curious what all this growth on Wicker Avenue has meant for home values in the surrounding St. John neighborhoods, the team at The Lauren Roman Group tracks that alongside the town's calendar. Get your free home valuation any time you want a clearer read on where your property stands.
