attractionsmagazine.com: Starting Sept. 17 and running on select evenings through Oct. 31, the separately-ticketed evening will offer all the fear of a Halloween haunt combined with the thrills of a theme park. SeaWorld San Diego’s Howl-O-Scream will offer three haunted houses and six scare zones, plus four roaming hordes throughout the park.
3 comments:
This seems like a great inaugural attraction for Sea World to have! I think that many theme parks already have something similar to this going and I think that adding more is never a bad idea. However, I do think that if you're starting a new event, you need to make people want to go to it and not regret going to it over somewhere else that they have been to before and know and love. From all that I read about this event, it seems that they have all their bases covered. Including a spot where people can go to get away from the constant scare factors at the park. One of the things that I didn't see in the article, nor on the website for the event, was any COVID protocols that might be in place during this event. There is no signification that attendees need to prove vaccination status, nothing saying that face coverings are required by either guests or staff, and nothing about social distancing. This worries me because at haunted houses and attractions where performers often roam the grounds, they can get pretty close to personal space. Though California is not one of the biggest hot spots of COVID in the US right now, I do worry about the safety of this event and the possibility for it to become a 'super spreader' event.
Seaworld’s effort to create a new haunted Halloween event makes me wonder how bad they have been doing in ticket sales over the last few years. This seems like an attempt to bring in some new and different crowds to the theme park with attractions that are completely unrelated to the original experience that Seaworld offered to the people. The events, attractions, and concepts for this “Howl-O-Scream” do seem original (I will saw I’m not that into horror but still). For example, having multiple haunted houses, themed bars, “scare zones”, a circus, and characters walking everywhere all sound like they are offering diverse options to attract audiences. However, there seems to be a disconnect for me. As I mentioned before they are entering a category of entertainment that is unlike anything you would expect to experience at Seaworld. I am interested to see how well the event is supported by the people. It seems like a lot of money is being put in to this “first time event” and I hope that they get something out of it. I guess we will know if they end up doing it again.
I'm actually a little surprised that this is only the first year that SeaWorld has done this. I know Disney resorts all over the world have held Halloween themed events for several years now. The theme park resort where I interned has also done this for more than 10 years now. The general idea is the same - the park is split into sections/areas and they each have a storyline. Within each section there are haunted houses, roaming actors and some sort of small performances. There’s also a Halloween themed parade. I have really high expectations for SeaWorld’s “Howl-O-Scream” just to see what they have that’s refreshing and innovative. So far, it means that the general theme of each area is pretty attractive and developed, but I would like to know if there are some sort of connection that will bring the areas together, so that when tourists go through the park, they feel immersed in one large story that has been split into chapters. One thing that attracts me the most is the Vampire Circus. It seems really cool to bring acrobats into the world of horror.
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