Start with the free one. It is also the good one.

Colonial Oak is free Halloween night, 7 to 10, at 21 St George Street, and the band is Tangled Orchid. Six pieces, out of Jacksonville and this county. The venue’s own listing says all ages and says dogs are fine. No cover. No ticket. Nothing at a gate. It is free Thursday too, with Dalton & Campbell playing country night in the same hours for the same nothing.

Now the catch, and it is the water again. The rip current statement for the coastal county runs until 8 p.m. Friday, and the coastal flood warning and the high surf advisory both quit at 2 a.m. Friday. So Thursday is out. Most of Friday is out. Saturday is the first clean day the beach has had since Monday.

Saturday is also Halloween. Mostly cloudy, high near 82, and a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2 p.m. that holds through Saturday night at the same 30 percent. There is a rain version of Saturday. It arrives in the afternoon, not the morning.

Write Sunday off. Showers and thunderstorms likely, 60 percent.

Four bands, three nights, no cover printed anywhere

Prohibition Kitchen has the most music in it. The House Cats at 6 on Thursday. Bottom Feeders at 6 on Friday, then Trae Pierce and the T Stones at 10 the same night. Halloween night it is Dr. Sick & the Etcetera at 8, with members of the Squirrel Nut Zippers in it.

Not one of those four prints a cover, and neither does the venue, so take cash and expect to be asked for some.

La Cocina runs two sets a day Friday and Saturday, early and late. Lani Sosa at 1 Friday, Buffalo Rose Duo at 6. Vegas Gray Acoustic Duo at 1 on Halloween, Sage Trunnell at 6. Nothing Thursday.

The Amp is dark all weekend, and its next date is the food drive on Nov. 6.

If you want the costume thing

EstuScary is the one that asks for it. Thursday and Friday, 7 to 9:30, out at the GTM Research Reserve South. Twenty to thirty dollars, and the listing says come dressed. It is a haunted trail, so it is also a walk in the dark on the marsh, which is either the point or the problem depending on you.

Trunk or Treat is free. Friday 6 to 7, at Shores United Methodist Church. Candy in a parking lot. That is the whole format and there is nothing wrong with it.

The candlelight tour at the Ximenez-Fatio House on Aviles runs Friday and Saturday at 6:30 and again at 7:30, twenty-five dollars, carried by two calendars under two different names and called Mortality and Mourning either way.

Crop Maze at Sykes Family Farms is 6 to 10 Friday and 10 to 10 on Halloween. The listing says prices vary. That means the listing does not know.

The strange one is the mystery dinner in Hastings, Friday at 6, one hundred and twenty-five dollars a head, and the Cultural Council’s calendar calls it The Gilded Cage.

Free all three days

The Tactile Art Show at the Art Association is free, noon to 4, Thursday through Saturday. Rebel Waters at the Crisp-Ellert is free too. Saturday it opens at noon instead of 10.

The Amphitheatre farmers market runs Saturday morning, 8:30 to 12:30, free to walk into. Halloween morning. Go early and go hungry.

To Kill a Mockingbird is at the Limelight all three nights at 7:30, and prices vary there too. Boat Drinks is running the movies on Halloween night, three of them, at 5 and 6:30 and 8. That is off the bar’s own Instagram post rather than a calendar, and it does not say what it costs.

The one everybody ends up at anyway is St. George Street on Saturday after dark, in costume, for nothing, with a free band playing at number 21 until ten.