Tom Petty is a headliner for the Vegoose festival. Click image for enlargement. Piano chanteuse Fiona Apple will play during the Vegoose music festival, which will be held at Sam Boyd Stadium and other venues Oct. 27 to 31. Las Vegas' own The Killers, above, and the hip-hop group The Roots, below, will be playing at the Vegoose at music festival. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

Vegoose learns to fly this year, as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have been tapped as one of the headliners of the wild-eyed five-day music festival. It's set for Oct. 27 through Oct. 31 at Sam Boyd Stadium and other local venues as part of the Vegoose at Night series.

The predictably unpredictable lineup also boasts such big names as Las Vegas' own The Killers, earthy Southern rockers Widespread Panic, tightly wound piano chanteuse Fiona Apple, heady hip-hop troupe The Roots, brain-scrambling rockers The Mars Volta, garage rock revisionists The Raconteurs, who feature White Stripes frontman Jack White in their ranks, along with many others.

"I think we're just trying to pick up where we left off last year," says Rick Farmar, one of the partners in Superfly Productions, which co-produces Vegoose with A.C. Entertainment. "We think we've got a really great, diverse bunch of acts, and we're hoping that the Vegas community, the people who are local, start to feel like this is an event they can call their own."

Though more acts are to be added to the bill, the current lineup for Vegoose is rounded out by Phil Lesh & Trey Anastasio, The Keller Incident, The Black Crowes, Ben Folds, Damien "Jr. Gong" Marley, Medeski Martin & Wood with Maceo Parker, The Rhythm Devils featuring Mike Gordon, G. Love & Special Sauce, Jurassic 5, Galactic, Praxis, Yonder Mountain String Band, Gomez, Built To Spill, Guster, Aesop Rock, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Dr. Octagon (aka Kool Keith), Band of Horses, Jamie Lidell and The Zutons.

Last year's festival, which was headlined by the Dave Matthews Band, Phil Lesh, the Flaming Lips and others, was colored by fans in Halloween costumes, paramedics in tie-dye and all kinds of freewheeling attractions, such as a wedding chapel, the festive Great Evil Pumpkin and a slew of celebrity impersonators working the event.

"For us, to have (impersonators of) Rambo, Bill Clinton, Mr. T and Liza Minnelli handing out the CD samplers and the programs to people as they walked in -- it was the funniest thing," says Farmar, whose company also helps put on the popular Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee each summer. "We want to make it this great big party where there's all these unique elements."

The bands got in on the fun last year as well, with Beck dressing up as a Boy Scout and groups such as Widespread Panic and the Dave Matthews Band turning in extended, three-hour sets.

"One of our motivations for doing this event is that we knew that a lot of the bands that we work with get into the whole vibe of being at a Halloween show," Farmar says. "To be in Vegas on Halloween weekend playing a festival -- this is when they're going to do really special things. If you're a big fan of one of these bands, you don't want to miss this show, because they're going to do something that they probably won't do all year."

Two-day passes to the show at Sam Boyd Stadium will go on sale at 10 a.m. Aug. 19.