Ingersoll Avenue Beggars Night: Why the October 30 Tradition Endures

Des Moines spent nearly ninety years telling its kids to trick-or-treat a day early. In 2024, a string of severe storms forced every metro community to move Halloween candy runs to October 31 for the first time since 1938. City leaders then asked residents which night they actually preferred. More than 4,300 people answered, and Halloween night beat Beggars' Night by nearly two to one. In March 2025, the Des Moines City Council made it official: trick-or-treating moves permanently to October 31. By 2026, with Halloween landing on a Saturday, every community in the metro is expected to fall in line on the same night.

Nobody told the business owners on Ingersoll Avenue. Their trade association is still running an event called Beggars' Night on Ingersoll on October 30, a full day ahead of the city's own calendar, according to a post on their site dated September 17.

That gap between the city's decision and the corridor's calendar is not a scheduling mistake. It is the clearest evidence of something worth understanding if you spend any time on this stretch of Des Moines: Ingersoll Avenue runs on its own institutional clock, and that clock rarely syncs perfectly with anyone else's.

The Vote Nobody on Ingersoll Asked For

The story behind the citywide switch is straightforward. Beggars' Night began in 1938 after Des Moines police logged more than 550 vandalism reports on a single Halloween, everything from fires to bricks through windows. City leaders moved trick-or-treating to October 30 and told kids to earn their candy with a joke or a riddle instead of just showing up in costume. It worked, and the tradition stuck around for generations.

Then came 2024's storm-forced switch to October 31, followed by that resident survey, followed by the March 2025 council vote. Clive Mayor John Edwards, who chaired the subcommittee that ran the survey, pointed to something else behind the numbers too: a metro that keeps growing with people who moved in from places where Halloween has always just meant Halloween. That preference showed up clearly in the vote.

So as of this fall, the city's answer to "which night" is settled. October 31. Everywhere.

Why the Corridor Didn't Follow

The Avenues of Ingersoll & Grand is not a city department. It is a self-supported municipal improvement district, a nonprofit funded by the property owners along the corridor to handle economic development, beautification, and events for the district that runs roughly from the Pappajohn Sculpture Park out toward the Art Center. That structure means the organization sets its own calendar independent of what city hall decides for the rest of Des Moines, and it has been doing that since a 2009 pilot streetscape project grew into the full corridor improvement effort it runs today. In 2020, the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs designated the district a Cultural and Entertainment District, on top of the streetscape work.

The district lists Beggars' Night on Ingersoll for October 30, while the citywide trick-or-treat date is October 31. The district also hosts Ingersoll LIVE. This year's edition ran August 29, presented by Bankers Trust, with two music stages, a beer and cocktail tent, 35-plus vendors, and a kids' zone with a mini train and a Des Moines Art Center activity station.

Lauren Kollauf, the district's executive director, described what she values about Ingersoll LIVE:

"My favorite thing about Ingersoll LIVE is that you always, always run into someone you know. You run into friends, neighbors, your favorite local business, and that's really what it's all about." —Lauren Kollauf, speaking to Iowa Public Radio.

Kollauf's comment highlights the social side of Ingersoll LIVE, reflecting the community focus of the district's events.

What Actually Opened, Closed, and Came Back This Year

The turnover on the block itself tells a version of the same story: a handful of new names moving in fast, next to businesses that have outlasted several city administrations.

The Ingersoll's return is the most dramatic of the four. The building first opened as a movie theater in 1939, one of the first in Iowa built specifically for sound film. It ran as a dinner theater through the 1980s and into the '90s, then cycled through a restaurant and a nightclub before closing in 2014 and sitting empty for more than a decade. Local developer Connor Delaney bought it in 2022, and it reopened to live audiences on New Year's Eve 2025. Executive director Renee Crowell described the goal in plain terms: a place that brings chef-crafted dining and live performance together to give people "a memorable night out close to home."

Set that four-business timeline against Ingersoll Wine & Spirits, which has operated on the corridor under the same motto, "your neighborhood wine store," for 19 years. The timeline shows several openings within roughly a year. The businesses that anchor the block have been there since long before the streetscape project existed.

The Street Is Also Mid-Construction, Again

If you have driven Ingersoll this year and hit orange cones, that is Phase 5 of the city's streetscape project, covering the stretch between 31st and 35th Streets. The city held a public meeting about it on October 16, 2025, at Palmer's Deli on Ingersoll Avenue, and construction got underway in spring 2026. According to the city's own project page, work is expected to continue through summer 2027. The scope includes replacing aging roadway pavement, adding protected bike lanes, installing permeable paver parking stalls, and widening sidewalks to ADA standards, on top of utility work happening underground.

The tradeoff for businesses is the same one the corridor absorbed during Phase 4 two years ago: on-street parking disappears for the duration of construction, and driveways get torn up and rebuilt, sometimes overnight to avoid closing a business's only entrance during operating hours. Ton Stam, owner of Chocolaterie Stam, told WHO 13 during the last round of construction: "There's something you lose for every gain you make, right?"

Kollauf has pointed to a specific number from before this current phase to explain why business owners tend to agree with him. In calendar year 2023, she said, the corridor logged more than two million visitors, a figure she has cited as evidence that the earlier streetscape phases were paying off in foot traffic even while construction was underway.

What To Actually Put on Your Calendar

If you live near Ingersoll Avenue this fall, here is where the district's own schedule diverges from the city's:

• October 30: Beggars' Night on Ingersoll, the corridor's own storefront event, still running on its traditional date even though the city's official trick-or-treat night is October 31.
• October 31: Citywide trick-or-treating in Des Moines and every other metro community, per the 2025 council vote.
• Ongoing through summer 2027: Phase 5 streetscape construction between 31st and 35th Streets, with on-street parking suspended and driveway work happening block by block.
• Year-round: The Ingersoll's performance calendar, running jazz orchestra shows, Broadway revues, comedians, and tribute acts out of the reopened dinner theater at 3711 Ingersoll.

None of this is really about the city of Des Moines. It is about a business district that has been setting its own rules on this stretch of avenue since 2009, and that keeps doing so even when the rest of the metro moves in a different direction. Understanding that is useful even if you have no plans to buy or sell anything. It is just what it means to live near Ingersoll Avenue right now.

If you are watching this corridor for a different reason, though, whether that is a home nearby, a rental, or just curiosity about how a neighborhood like this holds its value while it keeps reinventing its storefronts, the Ingrid Williams Real Estate Team knows this stretch of Des Moines block by block. Start Your Next Move whenever you're ready.