Montford's Late-Fall Calendar Is Using Familiar Places in Unfamiliar Ways

"We're taking over the familiar and beloved Asheville theater, The Hazel Robinson Amphitheater, for three nights and using it as it has never been used before." That's how the producers of Hauntville describe the show that opens tonight on Gay Street.

The same idea runs through the rest of Montford's calendar between now and mid-November. The amphitheater is about to become a haunted house. A painting festival has moved to new dates and set its public sale up behind the Visitor Center. Riverside Cemetery, the neighborhood's oldest gathering place, is open every day while its walls and gates wait for a repair crew that hasn't been hired yet.

The Stage Went Dark Saturday, and Comes Back Tonight as Something Else

The Montford Park Players closed their 2026 season with The Hope of Oz, which ran October 2 through 24 at the Hazel Robinson Amphitheatre, 92 Gay St. The season runs on donations, and the Players' homepage asks for help to "keep theatre free for our community."

Five days later, the same venue opens on very different terms. Hauntville High: Class of '26 is the sixth annual Hauntville, an immersive haunted house from Asheville immersive theatre producers Vinny Vignette Bonanno and Andrew Magazine. They've brought together more than twenty performers and visual artists. Here's how it compares with the season that just ended:

Each tour runs about an hour and moves through thirteen vignettes, indoors and out. The theme is high school horror, which the producers describe as "gnarly, messy, raunchy." Groups leave every 15 minutes from 7 p.m., and the last tour leaves the entrance at 10 p.m. each night. The Players will sell adult concessions on site.

Hauntville has sold out every year so far, and tickets are sold at hauntvilleavl.com. If the weather forces a cancellation, the Players will post updates on their social media pages. For parking, the Players point people to the lower asphalt lot, the middle gravel lot, or the community center lot at 90 Gay St. The back lot has only a few spaces and is held for guests who need easier access. If you live a few blocks away, the Halloween-weekend traffic on Gay Street starts at 7 and runs past 10 on all three nights.

The Painters Moved to November, and the Sale Moved Down Montford Avenue

The second big change on the calendar is a matter of timing. The Montford Plein Air Painting Festival is back for a second year. The organizer says the first one went well enough to repeat, this time "capturing the fall leaves and making a few changes." The biggest change is the date. An older schedule still lower on the festival's site lists October 16–18, but the current announcement at the top of the page sets the festival for November 6–8. The rain date is still listed as TBD.

That puts painters on Montford's sidewalks and corners in the second week of November, after Hauntville has cleared out. The schedule:

1. Friday, November 6. Artists check in at 129 Cumberland Ave. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., get their canvases stamped, and paint anywhere within the festival's mapped Montford boundaries.
2. Saturday, November 7. A second check-in runs 9 a.m. to noon at the same address, and painting goes on through the day.
3. Sunday, November 8. Artists drop off finished work at 1 p.m. behind the Asheville Chamber Visitor Center, 36 Montford Ave. Judging starts at 2, and the wet-paint sale is open to the public from 2:30 to 5 p.m.

The new sale location is the other big change. The organizer calls the Visitor Center "a great new development for the Fall event," listing bathrooms, parking, snacks, drinks, a stage for the band, a food truck, and walk-in traffic, with shaded and covered spots to display work. Ten to fifteen paintings will be picked to hang inside the Chamber Visitor Center for a month after the festival.

For painters, entry is $30 and the festival takes a 15% commission on sales. First, second and third place win cash prizes, and the amount depends on how many artists sign up. Last time the prizes were $300, $200 and $100. Artists can enter any medium and submit one piece for judging, and they can show as many pieces as they like at the sale.

For anyone who wants to see their own street through someone else's brushwork, the Sunday sale is the easiest place to do it.

Riverside Is Open Every Day, and Its Walls Are Still Waiting on a Contractor

Riverside Cemetery, at 53 Birch St., is the biggest example of a familiar place in an unfamiliar state. The City of Asheville's Riverside page, updated October 16, lists the grounds as open 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Dogs and other domestic animals aren't allowed, except animals assisting people with sight, hearing or mobility impairments. The City also says walking tours can be arranged through the cemetery office.

The repairs that open hours can't show are a separate matter. According to the City's Riverside Cemetery and Montford Park recovery project page, Tropical Storm Helene damaged retaining walls, stormwater systems and roadways at both sites, and caused sinkholes, slope failures and broken fencing. After the storm, the cemetery reopened by appointment only on October 14, 2024. Fifty-three trees had to come down, and fallen trees damaged 132 headstones.

The work still to come is the hard part, and both parks are covered by one contract because of historic district requirements:

• What's included: the entry gate, roadways, stormwater, the perimeter fence and the granite retaining walls, all approved by FEMA as mitigation, which means they're designed to better withstand future storms.
• Design approvals: a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Resources Commission and the Planning & Urban Design Department in April 2026, plus a requirement to follow the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation.
• On-site requirements: archaeological monitoring at the cemetery to protect gravesites, and bidders with stone masonry expertise.
• Already done: trees on top of the cemetery retaining wall were removed in March 2026. Replanting comes after the project is finished.

The City has projected that construction would start by the end of 2026, while noting that no timeline or budget can be set until a contractor is on board. The bid went out a second time. A rebid for the historic parks recovery construction was posted September 24 with responses due October 1. As of mid-October, the state's procurement listing showed the solicitation as "Pending Selection," with no award recorded. So the end-of-year start date is still a projection, not a schedule.

For a walk this fall, that means the cemetery is open on its posted hours, and the walls and gates you pass are the ones still waiting on masons. The City posted a notice in January that some areas were still inaccessible because of storm damage. If you have a particular plot or section in mind, the cemetery office can tell you what's open now.

Smaller Changes Making Their Way Through City Hall

The Montford Neighborhood Association has a few smaller projects moving through the City on their own timelines. The minutes from its July 22 quarterly meeting, printed in the August 2026 newsletter, cover three of them:

• Plans to refurbish Montford Park's former small stage had been submitted to the City and were under consideration, with no construction date.
• A grant for Stumptown interpretive signs had verbal approval, and City Traffic Engineering was reviewing the requirements for the sign toppers.
• The City had approved traffic-calming cushions, but they were still waiting on funding.

Like the cemetery walls, none of these has a date attached yet. Each one changes how an existing Montford space gets used, from the second stage in the park to the corners where Stumptown's history could be marked.

Late Fall on One Page

When the Riverside repair contract is awarded, the construction schedule will matter to anyone who walks Birch Street or lives near Montford Park. I'm keeping an eye on the City's project page. If you're weighing a home near the parks and want to know what that work could mean for the blocks around it, Nick Cocozziello is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.