HANCEVILLE — Downtown Hanceville will become a paranormal lover’s dream destination Saturday, when a day-long festival highlighting the area’s spooky past comes to life.

The free-admission, first-of-its-kind Haunted Hanceville Paranormal Investigation Festival kicks off downtown Saturday at 10 a.m. and will keep the scares coming well into the night, ending at 11 p.m.

Organized by local business owner Shawn Bennett, local merchants, and The Southern Ghost Girls Tours and Paranormal Investigations, LLC, Saturday’s event will stage movies, walking tours, games, food trucks and more from the farmer’s market lot in downtown Hanceville.

The Hanceville City Council agreed at its regular meeting Thursday to close off Bangor Avenue in front of the area, giving pedestrians plenty of room to roam between Commercial Street and Blountsville Street. Admission to the event is free, but guests can also pay a $25 admission that will secure them a spot on a ghostly walking tour — the first of its kind in Hanceville.

The tour will check in on sites long rumored among some to be haunted, including the downtown buildings that house Just Repurposed Furniture and Too You Nique Home Decor, as well as the site of the former funeral home in Hanceville.

There’ll also be $1 screenings of Casper and Ghost Rider back at the farmer’s market lot, while downtown businesses get in on the act with themed sales and displays. Bennett told the council it’s hard to predict how many people might turn out, but social media response suggests it could be a busy day.

“We originally thought this might attract maybe 150 people, but now we’re expecting as many as 500 or more people to come through our businesses between 7 and 9 p.m.,” he said.