This weekend offers an early start to Halloween at the College Park Gymnasium with the annual Halloween Festival.

Winchester-Clark County Parks and Recreation program director Deborah Jackson said there will be plenty of activities for all ages, especially for younger children, to the haunted house and haunted swamp downstairs for the older crowd.

“Our whole top floor is filled with inflatables, pumpkin painting, face painting and fun things for little kids,” Jackson said. “The pool level is the haunted house and haunted swamp.”

The first hour each night, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., will be the kid-friendly hour for the haunted house and swamp.

“They keep the lights on,” she said. “They’re not so scary. At 7:30, the lights go off and its full steam ahead.”

Veronica Brown and her family design and set up the haunted house each year and recruit a crew of 30 people or more, she said, to provide the scares.

In the pool area, lifeguards and divers from New Horizons Diving lurk underneath the surface as patrons float through the smoke-filled natatorium on boats.

“They volunteer their time,” Jackson said of the divers. “They put on masks … It’s really awesome.”

Tickets are available at the front desk at Parks and Rec on Wheeler Avenue for $5 each through Thursday, she said. On Friday and Saturday, tickets increase to $8 a person. Everyone attending must have a ticket, she said.

Other volunteers throughout the nights will come from the Clark County 4-H Leadership Club and the art and Beta clubs at George Rogers Clark High School, she said.

Last year, about 300 people attended each night.

“We’re hoping to have even more this year, of course,” Jackson said. “People should get their tickets as soon as possible to avoid paying more Friday or Saturday.”

For more information, call 744-9554.