Haunting The Globe Haunted Attractions Network

Subscribe to our main feed "haunted attraction network" to hear all our shows: https://hauntedattractionnetwork.com/newsletter/ . Today’s Halloween Special is presented in two acts, with an intermission. Act 1 is the audio version of Seasonal Entertainment Source Magazine’s Halloween Special- Issue 28. Intermission is music from Chris Thomas and Whispers of a Witch’s Halloween Special. Act 2 is a collection of short stories from haunters about why they love Halloween. Act 1 contains: “Remembering Halloween” by Scott Swenson, “GROWIN’ UP WEIRD” by Lindsey Gwen Robbins, “HALLOWEEN IS SACRED” by David D. Jones, HOWLING FOR HALLOWEEN by Ted Dougherty, EPIC Entertainment by Steve Sheldon and Charity Hill, SURVIVING 2020 by Cody Bailey, HOME HAUNTERS by Brian Foreman, PRANKSTER TO PLAYING GANGSTER – 1930s HALLOWEEN By Hayley Gross, MAKING A GRAVEYARD by Chris and Jeff Davis, JUMP, RUN, SCREAM: THERE WILL ALWAYS BE HALLOWEEN by Matt Schanandore, ATTRACTION MEMORIES by Alan Ostrander, A HAUNT TOUR REMINISCENCE by Nick and Beverly Pappas, HALLOWEEN IS NOT DEAD by Teresa Ryan, TRANSFORMATION by Alisa Kleckner, IT STARTED WITH A “YES” by Darryl Plunkie, WAIT, YOU CAN SEE ME!? by Tyler and Nora Proffet. Narration for Act 1 by: Donald Kinsley, Jennifer Ann Scott, David D. Jones, DW McCann, Halley Maree McClure, Aaron Rivera, Alan Mckinney, Jeff Davis, Matt Schanandore, and Teresa Ryan. Act 2 Contributors Include: Michael Fernandez from 1870 Haunt Manor, Spencer Terry From Fear Factory Salt Lake City, Ernie from The Grey Phantom, Bill Galvin from Hull House, Jon from the Real Ghostbusters, Max Bryant from the Ohio Haunters Association, A Petrified Forest, Zach Glaros from Sir Henry’s Haunted Trail, and Creatures of the Night at Zoo Tampa. This episode was produced by Philip Hernandez and sponsored by Gantom Lighting and Controls. Post Producton and Mixing by David Swope.

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Take a trip with me through Halloween Past and Halloween Present. Today we're going on location to haunted attractions all over the US, including: Kinetic Theory in Los Angeles, The Queen Mary in Long Beach, Forbidden Acres in El Paso, The Maize in Buffalo, Howl o Scream in Tampa, Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando, Creatures of the Night at ZooTampa, The Dark Seance and The Tunnel of the Damned, and Sir Henry's Haunted Trail in Orlando.

Hush Haunted Attraction in Westland, Michigan, is debuting three haunted houses in a new venue that’s 6X as large as the previous space. The trio of haunted houses—Descent, Coven, and Rosecliff Hall—reside inside a 40,000-square-foot-building for one admission price. Hush opened on September 27th for the 2019 Halloween season and continues every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and on select weeknights through November 2nd.

Cody Bailey, executive producer of Hush, used the new building as an opportunity to design a themed environment. The environment provides a background for the haunted houses during Halloween, but also allows for year-round revenue opportunities. “Since Hush began, it’s become known for its high-quality set designs, actor-driven experiences, and new technology,” he said. “This year, it’s all indoors, and we're creating an experience that people aren't used to seeing in a haunted attraction—at least not in this region,” he said.

Cody has been in and out of haunting since childhood but committed fulltime to Hush in 2013 after a brief political career. “The whole reason I'm a haunter—after graduating from college, running for office, and losing—is that I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was stuck in a rut and, when the opportunity to do Hush came up, I took it. That failure of losing the race for office changed my entire outlook as well as my career path. I'm extremely glad I lost and that I took the risk to see how this would do. The opportunity to plan new attractions each year and create these high-quality, immersive sets is the motivator for me,” he said.

For the 2019 Halloween season, Cross Road Escape Games unveiled a unique, theatrical horror experience with escape-game overtones—The Séance—which opened on October 2nd and will continue on through though November 3rd. Ticket costs range from $45 to $60 per person depending on the date and time. Each séance group is a maximum of eight people, and guests must be 16 years and older.
Madison Rhoades, co-owner and creative director of Cross Roads Escape Games, describes the The Séance as a typical séance with “unexpected twists.” It’s an hour-long experience that takes place in one room and features human-size puppets playing visiting spirits. In addition, The Séance has been designed to be portable, so the experience is available for purchase by venues around the world.
Madison’s background led her to The Séance in a rather circuitous way. She was an actress in Delusion during its first year, and then she worked at the Queen Mary's Dark Harbor as one of their scenic painters. “I loved both sides of it,” she said. She and her husband had been theater students, and when we discovered escape rooms, they were thrilled. “This was what we've always wanted, to open our own theater and be in the story,” she said.
Another reason Madison is such an escape games fan is that she wants to bring guests to what she calls “the brain blast moment.” “This is when people are working so hard on something and then, suddenly, that light bulb goes off and they're like, ‘Wait a second guys. I know it!’ They’re able to open up the lock, and they get such an adrenaline rush and feel so good about themselves.”

Dead Factory, located in Mexico, Missouri, is a 30-minute, linear walkthrough experience in a 12,000-square-foot building. Guests enter the realm of Dr. Phil Phobia, a deranged neuroscientist who specializes in the wide variety of human fears. Dr. Phobia’s allows guests to get up close and personal with common phobias, which change yearly. Dead Factory is open from October 4th, 2019 to November 2nd, 2019 every Friday and Saturday night from 7:00 to 11:00 pm.

Dead Factory also represents how a hobby can turn into a seasonal business. Brian Foreman and his brother bring their haunt to ‘life’ every year in between working full-time jobs. Brian has been learning the haunted house game for the past 15 years, and he keeps working year-round to create the best guest experience.

“This isn’t just an old warehouse building in some downtown area. It's an actual fort with real buildings that give people a completely different haunt experience.” Those are the words of Matt Schanandore, Creative Director for Haunted Fort, which is a seasonal attraction that takes place every October at Fort Abraham Lincoln near Mandan, North Dakota. The site is a reconstructed military fort from the 1870s and is most famously known as the last home of General George Armstrong Custer before he headed out to the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. Since that time, there have been stories of the ghosts at the Fort, including those of the General and his wife, Elizabeth. The haunted site and its spiritual denizens have served as the basis for Haunted Fort’s themes each year.
What’s New for 2019?
New this year at Haunted Fort:
• Scares and mazes
• A craft-beer lounge
• Special lights-on, lights-off events

“Our mazes are completely new each year. We bring different characters into the Asylum and old-style, granary haunt. Because the Custer House utilizes the rooms in the house, it’s more difficult to change that up, but we theme the rooms differently each year. Our guests have a high expectation of something new each year, and we fulfill that while keeping to the main theme of the Haunted Fort,” said Matt.