"Halloween has just evolved into a huge part of our parks." To have a new time of year to show our parks, to create new experiences and new reasons for guests to come back and really see how the parks evolve and change throughout the year," Matthew Edwards, entertainment manager of consumer events for Busch Gardens, said.
"Halloween is a good opportunity for all of our parks. Of course, SeaWorld also operates Busch Gardens, which enjoys bringing the scares during the Halloween season. In both San Diego and Orlando, the park offers trick-or-treating as well as a Sesame Street Halloween parade. The Sanderson sisters from "Hocus Pocus" have their own Halloween-themed bash in the park and Cruella de Vil hosts a soiree at Tony's Town Square Restaurant.Īnother family-friendly park is SeaWorld. While Disney minimizes the gore, it does like to have fun with its catalog of villains. Kids and parents are even invited to dress up and go trick-or-treating throughout the park. 1.ĭisney offers a number of parades, fireworks shows and in-park entertainment that promises to delight, not terrify.
The park had swapped over to pumpkin decorations in mid-August, opening the event on Aug. However, as interest in these limited-time-only mazes, haunted house and experiences grows, parks are opening them earlier and earlier.ĭisney, which hosts a family-friendly experience called Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, is hosting its Halloween event for a record 36 nights. Most parks start their Halloween-themed events in early September. and abroad, often padding the bottom line for operators. These events have become incredibly popular with guests both in the U.S. In fact, there is very little luring that needs to be done. "You find your kind of slow periods and you create an operating attraction that pulses people back to the facility."īut luring guests back to parks in the off-season isn't the only reason theme park operators have embraced Halloween. "Special events are the key to the success of the theme park business model," Bill Coan, president and CEO of ITEC Entertainment, said.
These days, Disney, Universal, Six Flags, SeaWorld, Busch Gardens and countless other regional parks have created their own scary and not-so-scary spooktaculars. Knott's Berry Farm, which first launched its Knott's Scary Farm event in 1973, was the first park to dream up a Halloween-themed event. Cold temperatures made riding rollercoasters less appealing and, with school back in session, families were less likely to attend during the weeks after summer ended. Spooky-themed events were once a way to extend operations at regional parks well into the autumn.
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