It’s the official kickoff of the spooky season, and Worlds of Fun’s Halloween Haunt opens this week – Friday the 13th. Even after 20 years of Haunt, this attraction is still a can’t miss for many midwesterners.
“It started as ‘Halloweekends’ in the early 2000s. It’s become a staple in Kansas City,” communications and Public Relations manager Brian McGannon said. “Now it’s a huge part of the season and our busiest time of year.”
McGannon shared looks, secrets and tricks for this year’s Haunt as well as some history.
More than 20 years ago, Halloween Haunt began as a weekends-only event in October, filled with ghostly adventures and fun activities around the park. It grew bigger each year. Now with seven featured houses and four scare zones, Worlds of Fun’s Haunt has started opening in September, letting customers experience the once-a-year event just a little longer
“We hire over 1,500 people to work Halloween Haunt,” McGannon said. “Those are screamsters, those are leadership, area managers, creative decorators, all ahead of the event.”
Around the park, people were working on different parts of the Haunt decor, including pumpkins, cornstalks, skeletons, cages and lights. Every area of the park had a few coordinators working on the decor.
“It’s a huge undertaking,” McGannon said. “Before the full season we hire 3000 people, so we have to staff basically half of that for a two-month event.”
With workers already running rides, food stations, and stores, they hired an additional 1,500 to work on only Halloween Haunt.
“It comes down to really hiring as fast as we can, so we start hiring in late June for Haunt,” McGannon said.
As the weather cools and the heat breaks, it becomes a blitz to make sure everything is set up for opening night.
“We start setting up between June and July and all the way through to opening night in the month of September,” McGannon said. “So about three and a half to four months it takes to get our park prepared for the event.”
Even with setting up in summer, it is always a rush to get every detail in place since many of the workers are still students during the day.
“We have a big Haunt warehouse just to the right of The Prowler,” McGannon said. “We start pulling stuff out in late June and get it all set out, but the clock definitely starts ticking when everybody goes back to school.”
A specific part of the set up of Halloween Haunt is the Cornstalkers maze. Built and located outside, the Cornstalkers maze has walls of cornstalks, straw, wooden boards and farm-like material. With natural resources based all around the maze, it makes it harder to upkeep. World of Fun staff goes above and beyond: spraying, removing, and cleaning all straw and corn stalks in the maze.
“Cornstalkers is the one that really requires a lot of labor,” McGannon said. “A lot of the mazes are in free-standing buildings already, so all we have to do is flip the lights up and start decorating. For Cornstalkers, we have to spray it for bugs, clear it out, treat it. We bring in two tons of corn stalks from Carolyn’s Pumpkin Patch every year to replace it.”
Along with setting up the park’s decorations, they also must prepare the Haunt Screamsters – the actors dressed up in scary costumes with special effects and hairstyles. There is a three-day program called “Scare School” every scarer must go through.
“It basically teaches them how to scare in a respective manner, while also scaring the crap out of you,” McGannon said.
The “monsters” run around the park scaring customers, while some stay in the haunted houses around the park. More than 1,000 individuals in the park are “monsterfied,” and all of them have a special part to play.”
Different for this year – the park will be open all day, and Haunt won’t be a separate event.
“We are going back to the single gate,” McGannon said. “So, you can come into the park at 11a.m. and stay until 12 a.m.”
For about two seasons of Halloween Haunt, Worlds of Fun was selling separate tickets apart from the park’s regular day ticket. People at the park were being sent out at around 6 p.m., and they would have to reenter with a pass. McGannon said that caused Worlds of Fun some trouble, as people were upset about having to purchase divided tickets for the attractions during the day and the haunted attractions at night.
“We noticed people were wanting the previous tradition,” McGannon said. “So, we really listened to the input from customers who felt like they were getting separate experiences.”
That’s not the only thing that is new this season. There is a new attraction.
“A big attraction that is new is Shadowmore Cemetery which will be our new Vampire ‘Scare Zone’ to celebrate 20 years of ‘Lore of the Vampire,’” McGannon said.
He said the most popular haunted houses ‘“Lore of the Vampire,” “Cornstalkers” and “Blood on the Bayou” were expected to beat records yet again this year.
“When you brand yourself as the Midwest’s largest Halloween event, it’s a priority to make it bigger and better each year,” McGannon said. “In the future you will definitely see a bigger investment from us in terms of our market and Kansas City.”
There is a Friday the 13th sale on tickets – $29.99. After that, it is $39.99. Tickets can be purchased online, and season passes are accepted.
