by Graham Speak, Speak Consulting
Whether a zoo, museum, farm park, or destination theme park resort, attractions worldwide are increasingly leveraging events to engage visitors, drive repeat visits, and deliver incremental revenue.
Halloween is a big moment on the calendar for many operators. Lots of events are now firmly established, turning traditionally quiet periods in the calendar into some of the busiest, most profitable, and most anticipated times of the year. Well-known, iconic events, such as Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, now in its 32nd year, and the UK’s Shocktober Fest Scream Park, celebrating its 25th season this year, are big commercial operations that are hotly awaited by fans.
However, events are not all the same. There are different objectives, audience targets, and ways of bringing Halloween to life. We talked to some experience providers about how they ensure Halloween both works for guests and delivers commercially for their business.
The Panel
- Larry Roles, marketing director, Alton Towers Resort
- Martin Goymour, owner, Roarr! and PrimEvil
- Steve Sheldon & Charity Hill, founders, Epic Entertainment
Halloween events have become a core part of many attraction calendars. Why is it such an important time for you?
[LR]—Staging Scarefest at Alton Towers Resort gives us something new and exciting to reengage fans and attract new guests with. Especially after the busy summer period when we would traditionally expect lower visitation. Scarefest is also a time when we are at our strongest for creativity and storytelling, transforming the overall resort. The beauty of the general Halloween period is that there is something that can appeal to all ages!
[MG]—Halloween has turned October into a month for increased income and profitability. It allows us to extend our operating and busy season by attracting a whole new customer base who normally wouldn’t visit the Park (with PrimEvil). It also provides us with some stability in an ever-changing operating environment.
[SS/CH]—After Christmas, we believe Halloween can be the most profitable seasonal event, and we see pretty much every brand and segment trying to capture a bit of that market. We’ve been involved in many Halloween events across the US [including Long Beach’s Dark Harbor]. So, we have seen first-hand how, when delivered with the right audience understanding and appropriate budgets, they can grow exponentially.
Halloween seems to have really struck a chord with guests worldwide. Why do you think that is?
[LR]—There is something universally appealing about the unknown, the mysterious, and the supernatural – a fact reinforced by research and development of our rides and attractions. Consumers want a storyline, and their preference is towards those that lean into these themes.
The Curse at Alton Manor (which we opened in 2023) is a great example. It has a storyline aimed at families but is rooted in themes around the supernatural with a sinister edge. Openness and desire for these themes are driving an unprecedented interest in Halloween, or vice versa!
[MG]—H.P. Lovecraft once said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” People love to be scared; Halloween provides the platform to create worlds that stimulate fear. It allows us as a tourist attraction to break the rules and defy boundaries, creating a fully immersive horror experience with blood, guts, and gore!
[SS/CH]—As an event, Halloween has become part of US culture. Over 78% of people celebrate it in some way. Involvement isn’t just limited to kids either, with over 50% of costumes being bought by adults. At a macro level, there’s an increasing desire for escapism. Halloween is the OG of immersive events that deliver this.
Story is critical, and there are so many ways to tell stories as part of a Halloween event. We’ve also seen Halloween continue to evolve, often pushing the boundaries with new, innovative ways to get audiences involved, such as through gamification.
Halloween isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ event. How do you make sure to appropriately manage and segment for your audiences?
[LR]—As a resort that appeals to pre-schooler families through thrill-seekers, we face this challenge every day. We have to ensure that we continually talk to these different audiences and invest in new products to keep them returning. Scarefest is no different. So, we look at our offer for each of those segments, whether that’s additional live entertainment for families, added gamification to attractions to help engage teens, or uniquely terrifying experiences to encounter with friends.
Feedback also plays a huge role in our understanding of the preferences, expectations, and behaviours of our guests. Last year, we worked with YouTuber Daz Games as an IP partner to deliver a UK-first experience—a live scare maze meets escape room challenge. It was a risk, but it massively paid off in delivering something that our mid-family market absolutely loved. It is that kind of innovation that really drives results.
[MG]—We do a daytime event, Dippy’s Halloween Days, where everything is spooky but sensitive to younger audiences and PrimEVIL in the evenings, where everything is scary. We make Halloween accessible to all by producing themed events and activities across the spectrum, allowing our customers to pick the one best suited to them.
[SS/CH]—One of our clients, Hersheypark, is a great example of a business with clear direction around their Halloween positioning. They provide a family-friendly experience during the day but also a separate and more intense experience geared toward the 12 and older crowd as night falls.
As Hershey itself is a much-loved brand (which is huge at Halloween time from a confectionary point of view), they must be ultra-careful not to alienate audiences. Appealing to the varied desires of a broad fan base to maximise the Halloween opportunity while staying true to the core brand is a delicate balance.
They act responsibly and make it easy for different audiences to get what they want out of the event. For example, dividing up the park to find the scare level you want, providing warnings around areas where there may be scares, and offering ‘No boo’ necklaces for those that don’t want to be terrified.
There are many Halloween events on the market now. How do you approach standing out and making an impact?
[LR]—With Halloween now being such a competitive space, it’s important to make sure we create unique, story-led experiences and take them to market effectively. It’s a full team effort. We also value our media, promotional and IP relationships to help us reach both our existing and new audiences effectively. We continually evolve our comms channels in line with the changing media landscape. Influencer marketing is one way that has helped us amplify reach and ensure Scarefest is in the minds of consumers when it comes to Halloween events.
We also look at how we leverage our existing unique assets. So, our fantastic rides and attractions also run in the dark.
[MG]—We remain true to our values and offer quality, highly themed productions that we have become known for. We have a long-standing reputation and know that while guests may try other attractions, they come back to us for the quality. This creates high expectations so we must work hard to stay ahead and use effective marketing and PR to keep us top of mind. Our ambition is to remain incomparable in the region. So, we were delighted to win the ‘Best UK Scream Park’ in 2024 at ScareCON (Europe’s biggest Halloween Awards).
[SS/CH]—One benefit of a competitive market is the high awareness, desire, and interest in the season. Demand is there!
With Dark Harbor, we were in the same market as the granddaddy of all haunt events, Knott’s Scary Farm. We couldn’t necessarily play in the same budget scale, but we leveraged our uniqueness, having one of the top 10 most haunted locations on the planet. We told the stories and myths of the spirits that were found on the Queen Mary. It was the only place on Earth where guests could come and do that!
It’s not enough to be unique, though. It also needs to be delivered with great production value and conviction to drive great experience, repeats and word of mouth. We led with story, made it immersive, and layered in gamification to drive more engagement. We encouraged guests to get involved by wearing costumes. There were secret bars to discover within houses that guests could find and immerse themselves in. Having layers for guests to discover creates more value.
Many operators have different approaches to making Halloween events commercially successful. Where have you seen success?
[LR]—Guests will only choose to pay if we put them at the heart and offer them brilliant products. Whilst there is plenty to do at Scarefest with a standard ticket, we want to deliver scare mazes and experiences so compelling and immersive that guests are willing to pay extra to experience them.
We also introduce new ranges in retail and around our food and drink options. Demand for limited-edition merchandise can be strong. For example, our partnership with Daz Games last year drove merchandise sales far beyond our expectations. This is a great insight for our future developments.
[MG]—Alongside understanding customers’ needs and focusing on what they value, we’ve also learnt a lot by trial and error over the many years we’ve been running events! From optimising the timing of each night’s operation to varying types of tickets, different pricing strategies for each season of operation, and the number of nights operating vs. demand, we’ve developed tactics to increase dwell time by making it more of a festival.
Leveraging our IP and branding to make it a fully immersive experience is a key part of our strategy. Festival t-shirts, mugs, beer cups—every touch point is part of the experience. Professional photographs with green screens are very popular, too. People want to capture their experiences and memories. No event can grow by sitting still, so we listen to feedback, and every year, we improve.
[SS/CH]—The core experience of the Halloween events must be great for every guest as a foundation to build from. But once you’ve done this, there are loads of ways to create more value for scare hunters.
At Dark Harbor and Dark Horizon, we knew the market had many guests wanting to spend more on premium experiences. So, we offered everything from VIP Cabanas, where you could order from a monster menu of la carte scares (fancy having a fire-eater perform a private show for you and your friends?!) to ordering monster hosts to provide VIP tours around the mazes and experiences.
We learnt that guests had different interests, too. Some were fascinated with how the experiences themselves were created. So, we sold pre-show dinner packages with producers and creators to share some of the secrets behind creating events. Some guests wanted lower crowd experiences. As a result, we developed an Early Scare Event to allow limited visitors an opportunity to mingle with the monsters before the event officially opened.
It’s important that the standard ticketed experience is great, too. We did things like adding bars and entertainment to queue lines. That’s because we learnt that guests having fun are likely to engage and participate further and spend more money with us.
In our opinion, retail is still a huge opportunity in the Halloween event space!
IP and third-party brand partnerships are big trends in the broader attraction industry. What place do you think they have in enhancing events?
[LR]—We’ve seen the benefit of IP and brand partnerships firsthand, adding value, credibility, and appeal to Scarefest. Whilst not a new concept for us, the type of IP partners we have engaged has broadened to help us expand our reach, awareness, and loyalty among our guests. Endorsement from influential brands and media partners is key to increasing our visibility and reputation among our existing and potential guests.
[MG]—On a commercial level, we have activated brand partnerships. Notably on our bar and with TV brands such as ‘Hunted’, well-known social media influencers and TV personalities. These have all been great in helping us build brand awareness. On a community and local level, which should not be underestimated, we work with food trucks, bands, tech companies and suppliers – both on service provision and also mutually promoting each other. There is definitely more potential for traditional IP partnerships in this space.
[SS/CH]—We believe there are pros and cons to IP partnerships around Halloween events. Clearly, Universal have had success with some IP executions. If you can marry the experience authentically with the story it can be great.
That said, there are some commonly referenced challenges. For instance, IP costs over a shorter event period and lots of brand guideline parameters. These can be particularly challenging for Halloween, where a lot of the impact comes from the unknown and unexpected. If you’re going to deliver an IP experience, reality must meet expectations. It’s got to be as good as the original content!
How do you think we may see Halloween events evolve moving forward?
[LR]—Greater immersive and interactive experiences must be at the forefront of how we evolve Scarefest and theme park attractions in general. This reflects our wider ambition for the Resort’s future, too. As we continue to compete for consumer spend, we have to create memorable and meaningful experiences through our attractions, environments, and people that are valued and connect with guests’ emotions when they visit the resort.
[MG]—We have been delivering PrimEVIL at ROARR! for over 15 years and have seen the Halloween experience market grow hugely over that time. With customers’ ever-increasing expectations, we’ll see more immersive experiences and technology continue to enable us to deliver new and exciting innovations. We enjoy attending global industry events and experiencing the latest trends we can bring to PrimEVIL.
[SS/CH]—The volume of events has exploded over the past few years. There are more mom-and-pop style events, amateur haunts, and lots more smaller haunts opening. We’re also seeing more conservative operators who hadn’t considered Halloween before also making moves in the space. It’s an exciting time with operators innovating to differentiate. We notice a high correlation between Halloween fans and those of gaming and tech. They can be fast-learning audiences who often encourage you to push the boundaries of technology and keep evolving.
We’re also seeing some all-year-round scare experiences being launched, like Universal’s Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas. Vegas could be a great market to launch in, as many have failed at this previously in other locations. It will be interesting to see if they can develop a concept and model that works as an all-year-round proposition.
What can we learn from Halloween events to take into broader event planning?
[LR]—Events provide a powerful and effective way to attract, engage, and retain our guests by creating memorable and meaningful experiences. Guest feedback helps us consider new, targeted experiences that may be different from our typical products. So, events can be a great way to trial and showcase innovation and creativity.
[MG]—Halloween demonstrates it is possible to drive attendance to your park with different audiences by utilising and sweating your assets in different ways. With Halloween being a growing success, we now need to look at leveraging the estate for other purposes and making it a destination at other times. Christmas has historically been more difficult to develop profitably. However, by using Halloween thinking, we have made great strides there (for example, creating impactful experiences in defined areas).
Halloween and illumination trails have also taught us that you can overcome many weather-related challenges by creating experiences that guests want to come out for. They don’t want the ‘fear of missing out’!
[SS/CH]—There are great examples of Halloween events that are successfully crossing multi demographic, generational segments. This is powerful learning for other events in the calendar. Consumers, more than ever, are demanding new and innovative experiences. We’ve seen haunt producers develop great agility in responding to interests, trends, changing demands and technology. These are great skills and traits to leverage across other events. Keep evolving…staying as you are means you’re probably moving backwards!
A big thank you to the contributors for sharing their experiences and insights. Whether you’re a large or small operator, and regardless of the segment you operate in, hopefully, some of the principles here spark thoughts about the value events like Halloween could deliver for your guest experience and your P&L.
After hearing from our panel members, I’m excited to see the chills and thrills they create this year. It will also be interesting to see how they commercially evolve their events with guests at the heart.
Top image: Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando Resort
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