Category: Site Updates

I am very happy with how many haunts (and related activities) I have found so far this season. If you know of any I have missed, please let me know.

HAUNTS: I try to do a daily post on Facebook with which haunts are open that day. I get this information from my Calendar page. When I was going through it today, I noticed several mistakes I made. I have corrected those, but I expect I may still have some missing dates or wrong hours. Take a moment to check the calendar, and your listing in the index. I appreciate your help in getting your information updated on this site. Thanks!

After the big Covid drop in 2020, things have slowly been picking up for this site. As of October 18th, this site has already had 13.29% more visitors than all of October 2022. Last year, the site saw a 40% increase in visitors from the previous year. I am curious to see where things end up after October 31 this year.

Something I just added last week is a “Visitors” count on every page. I used to have one on my old site, but that was a script I wrote myself and had full control over. This one is more questionable, since it tries to define who is a ‘bot, and it doesn’t seem to like folks using privacy software (such as Apple’s anti-tracking features). At least I can see numbers that are larger or smaller from hour to hour and get an idea of how many folks are visiting throughout the day.

The interview video page has been updated with information about all the videos I shared from 2011 to 2017. The videos themselves will eventually be uploaded to the dedicated Des Moines Haunted House YouTube channel (when I get time).

Is there any interest in new videos like this? Leave a comment and let me know.

I have finally gotten time to start updating the haunted house list for 2023. Only a few of the local haunts are in there now, and there may still be some items yet to be updated for this year so be sure to check with the official website.

More to come… Hopefully I will have all the local haunts updated accurately this week.

HAUNTS: If there is an error, please let me know.

Find it here (updates in progress; not everything listed yet):

Calendar

Or here is a direct link:

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/1?cid=cGsycmN2MjFyZ2hicG9yZ2I2a3RpNXUyaTRAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ

You should be able to “subscribe” to this calendar on Android or iPhone, and have it available in your Calendar app.

Website updates for 2023 will begin before the end of the month.

We are back from our most recent excursion. So far this year, we have gone through twenty (20!) haunted houses. Most recently, we visited Halloween Horror Nights 32 at Universal Studios Florida as well as year three of SeaWorld Howl-O-Scream.

Though these haunts look great, and have actors at every turn, the Universal haunts had a scare level of about zero. You are walking through them in a continuous “conga line” chain of people, so every scare is spoiled ahead of you. We didn’t get startled even one time during our seven hour visit, nor did we hear anyone else scream except for twice from chainsaws in a scare zone. Beautiful sets, great sound, wonderful costumes and makeup … but it’s really just walking through creepy sets with folks acting out to pre-recorded sound clips. If you are looking for scary, I do not recommend, but if you like scary looking things, it’s top notch.

SeaWorld’s offering, however, startled us often through the much shorter evening — mostly due to their scare zone actors hiding in the shadows and bushes and such. They were in many unexpected places, and it was a really good time. The haunts were not anywhere as fancy as Universal’s, but the actors got to do their thing — they could talk, yell, bang and follow you — just like we are used to at “real” haunted houses around here. It was a much funner time overall, but the food offerings were not nearly as good as the tons of speciality booths at Universal.

Now that we am back, and kind of burnt out on haunted houses, attention will turn to … haunted houses in Des Moines. And around Des Moines.

I do not plan to renew the index software I’ve been testing the past few years, and my old haunt index script I wrote does not integrate with this WordPress blog website, so I’ll be doing everything manually like I did when this site started in 2010. This will just make it take longer 😉

I have a few more tasks I need to take care of first – including a visit to try to fix some zombies at an area haunt and two haunt articles to update/write for some other sites – then we’ll see what needs to be done here.

More to come…

The haunted house scene in the area came crashing down in 2020, with most not operating, and some closing permanently. 2021 had far fewer haunts operating than earlier years, though it did see the addition of Scare DSM. This year saw the addition of Adventureland’s new Halloween themed event. Even with all of this, the market is still way down compared to “the before times.”

That said, with fewer choices, and an audience returning to wanting to do these things, that should mean that the remaining haunts get a larger slice of the haunt visitor pie. Without having access to business records of the various haunts, all we can really say is several did report nights when they operated at capacity (though we don’t know if they are operating a full pre-pandemic capacity, or still at some reduced level).

As far as this website, it saw a 41% increase in visitors in 2022 compared to 2021. With the trajectory is headed back up, so let’s hope for an even better next year.

Maybe I’ll even resume doing video interviews, though the landscape in 2023 is very different than what it was like when I first started this site. I think posting 15 second TikTok videos or someone screaming when they see a clown might get a larger audience than interview videos 😉

Happy thanksgiving!

I will be away from the keyboard until next week, so no (or just limited) site updates until I get caught back up.