Halloween is making a run at one of the biggest nights in Bradenton for parties with costume contests, drink specials, live music – and even a haunted bar.

Most every bar and pub in Bradenton is celebrating Halloween this weekend. So wherever you live, your neighborhood pub probably has a costume contest and drink specials this Friday or Saturday night. For those who hang out downtown, Zombie Fest is back for its third year this Saturday.

From 3:30 p.m. until midnight Old Main Street (12th Street West) will close to vehicular traffic between Manatee and Third avenues west to allow for hordes of zombies to do their zombie crawl or stumble from bar to bar. Zombie Fest officialy runs from 6-11 p.m. but Old Main Street's collection of bars and pubs – from south to north – , , , and – will be slinging out the drinks until closing time. Various vendors and tents will line Old Main Street and a stage near Fourth Avenue West will feature live music from punk rock bands A Gentleman Army, Crash Fist Fight and Six Year Bender. Buy a $20 bar pass and get a Zombie Fest T-shirt and a drink at participating locations.

If you want to get your zombie on, get there early. The local tattoo parlor and Zombie Fest's official "Zombification Station", , 306 Old Main St., will open at 1 p.m. for anyone who wants zombie makeup. On the other side of town, , 4343 Palma Sola Blvd., is hosting a Halloween extravaganza - the 3rd Annual Sugar Shack Ball - on Saturday night with live music, Halloween-themed drinks and shots and a costume contest – and it all takes place in what once was a 1900s-era barn in Gatlinburg, Tenn. Some say, said Ace's general manager Robert Slicker, that ghosts from the past accompanied the barn's move to Bradenton.

When the barn was dismantled, shipped to Bradenton and rebuilt as a bar, construction workers claimed to have found tools rearranged every morning. They also found stacks of lumber arranged in strange patterns. The ghosts of the couple that owned the Gatlinburg barn are said to haunt Ace's second-story loft. Legend has it, they both suffered violent deaths in the barn.

"Closing bartenders have often told stories of seeing the (ghosts) up in the loft and hearing screams and the floorboards creaking," Slicker said. "Some have even refused to accept closing shifts."

Party if you dare. The cover is $10 in advance (click here) or $15 at the door. Festivities start at 9 p.m. First prize in the costume contest is a basket worth $250. Live music from Biscuit Miller and Damon Fowler. We've covered downtown Bradenton and west Bradenton. Here is everything in between and everywhere else: