Linn’s confirmed; Adventureland 18+?

Linn’s Haunted House

One of the oldest haunts in Iowa, Linn’s Haunted House, has confirmed plans to operate this year. At the time of this news, their Facebook page and website still only had things from last year, but they say they will have it updated soon. Halloween just wouldn’t be the same without Linn’s!

They have stated their opening night will be Friday, September 30 at 7 p.m.

Adventureland Phantom Fall Fest

Adventureland’s new Halloween event will feature four haunted house (one is an additional $9.99 upcharge), three scare zones, and some of the park rides open just like a normal day in the park.

There is currently a $29.99 offer on their website — a great savings from the gate price of $69.99!

But, note that if you want to go to the scare zones and haunted houses in the evening when it gets dark, you cannot do so if you are under 18 unless you are accompanied by a chaperone.

Their chaperone policy requires any 17 or younger visitor to be with an adult, guardian, or supervising adult that is 21 or old. From their website FAQ:

Guests aged 17 years and under must be accompanied by an adult chaperone beginning at 6pm.

An adult chaperone is a parent, guardian, or other supervising adult at least 21 years of age or older. Adult chaperones must be able to provide valid ID, including a photograph and date of birth.

Each adult chaperone must be present at the time of entry and remain within the park for the duration of their party’s visit. Adult chaperones supervising more than four minors must register their group at the Rider Safety Center before entering the park.

Minors visiting prior to 6pm may enter without and adult chaperone. Adventureland expects that minors entering without a chaperone will be joined by one at 6pm. If guests aged 17 and under enter prior to 6pm., then leave and request to re-enter the park, at 6pm or later, they must be accompanied by an adult chaperone.

During Phantom Fall Fest, adult chaperones are required beginning at 6pm Saturdays and Sundays, plus the entire evening on Fridays.

This policy is subject to change at Adventureland’s discretion.

https://www.adventurelandresort.com/things-to-do/events/phantom-fall-fest/faqs

This is an improvement over their policy from their last Halloween event in 2018 — that one was 21 and older, period.

Share your thoughts in the comments here, or on my Facebook page.

2022 season!

Well, the last two years have been quite … different. Many haunts didn’t operate at all in 2020. But, with less competition, the audience was funneled to the ones that did operate. I have been told that Trail of Terror had it’s best year ever in 2021. (I tend to believe them, since they are a fundraiser and not a for-profit business; seems every year the haunts will say ”this is our best year yet!” 😉

While I did visit Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights (as well as seeing the new Halloween offering at SeaWorld Orlando), the only visits I made to local haunts was for technical support. (I can now say I’ve ”fixed a dragon” at two haunted houses.) I have similar tasks lined up this year to install new effects, and possibly produce a video documentary with a haunt operator near Clear Lake/Mason City area.

As far as this website goes, a few years ago, I invested in software with a yearly license fee of $300/year. It offered automatic features I had been doing manually on this site since 2010, so I really liked it. The downside is the listing went from a simple one-page ”easy to view” listing to dozens of pages, and a cumbersome directory that was hard to view on a phone.

I have currently let that license lapse, so only basic listing information will be available this year, and I’ll go back to manually doing the Map and Calendars. More work for me, but I think it makes this a more useful site.

Look for updates for 2022 to start, soon. And, if any haunts want to sponsor this site, get in touch with me. If I can generate $300 in donations, I’ll re-activate all the fancy features for this season.

COVID-19 Updates

Although COVID-19 is still alive and well, and there are still people very concerned about it around here, the majority of folks seem to be accepting that it is now just something we all have to live with. I have heard from many who will 100% still NOT go to haunted houses, but overall the mood is much more pro-haunt this year than it’s been the past two seasons.

Haunts

After failing to convince the City of Ankeny to grant them a permit last year, Ankeny Haunted Barn is now officially gone (for the second time, so maybe we’ll see it return for a third time some day). Their inventory has been sold, so if they ever re-start, they will be starting from scratch.

The new owners of Adventureland Resort owners (Parques Reunidos out of Madrid, Spain) are starting their multi-haunt Phantom Fall Fest. Admission at the gate will be $69, and there is a $9.99 fee on top of that to enter one haunted house. As always, this site will track any known discounts so you can save some money.

ScareDSM opened during Covid and lumber price increases. News reports last year covered the challenges of not being able to afford lumber. Let’s consider last year a test run, and see what they do for 2022.

Slaughterhouse continues to pull out all the stops, and is also staffing for the Adventureland event. This is a good sign, since many of the 10+ years of this site (including the years before Covid), the haunts I visited all struggled with getting enough reliable workers to fully operate their haunts. (I would count the number of empty rooms as I visited each haunt.)

Sleepy Hollow Sports Park was sold to Polk County, and we are in their final year or two of them operating special events there. While most expect/hope/plan for it to continue, it will be up to the government about what happens in future years. There’s even been talk of others renting the government park out for their own events in October.

Tormented Souls in Madrid is installing some new effects and scares for this year, but I won’t know the details until I visit them (hopefully soon).

Trail of Terror was the second haunt to contact me this season, making sure I know they are back. Their $15 long forest walk is still the best haunt value around. As a fundraiser, they are just stuffed with actors. Don’t go if you can’t keep up – it’s a huge walk.

Ames Haunted Forest hasn’t updated their social media in years, but they have announced dates for 2022.

Linn’s Supermarket Haunted House still has 2021 dates on their website, but I’ll share news when I have it.

…and I am sure there will be many more updates in coming weeks.

While price increases, inflation, gas price and other factors have put stress on many of our budgets, hopefully folks will still have a Halloween entertainment budget to get out and see some haunts this season. If we don’t support them, they will go away.

More to come…

Tormented Souls 2022

Tormented Souls Haunt has already contacted me about some of their new enhancements for this season. I may be visiting with them soon to help install some new effects. It sounds like they’ve been busy doing some shopping for creepy and loud things.

Their website hasn’t been updated for 2022 yet, but with October being only one month away, I expect we’ll see some activity soon.

Until then…

Ankeny Haunted Barn for Sale

After the City of Ankeny denied the Ankeny Haunted Barn a permit to operate last year, it looks like the barn is calling it quits, for now. (Recall, they were originally the Bondurant Haunted Barn, then moved it to Ankeny and renamed it. They shut down for a few years, then returned, so who knows what the future will hold…)

All of their equipment is being sold off, including brand new items (like flame throwers) that were purchased for last year.

Drop by their website/Facebook page and let them know if you are interested in seeing what they have.

Home

Adventureland Phantom Fall Fest

Using the slogan “Fright All Night”, which is suspiciously close to Sleepy Hollow’s “All Night Fright”, the new owners of Adventureland have announced the Phantom Fall Fest. It is planned to have daytime activities and nighttime events including four haunted houses. It will run weekends in October, and most season passes (Platinum, Gold and Silver) sound like they get you in free.

This event comes four years after Adventureland’s last Halloween event, which was held at the Adventureland Inn. That event was adults only, and included one haunted house. Even with the marketing power of Adventureland, and their highly successful adults-only Oktoberfest event, attendance at the 2018 event was small, and reviews were mostly negative. (I am on the other side. While their haunt was ridiculously short, we thought the rest of the event was great fun – with only a few minor exceptions.)

Details may be found on the official Adventureland website.

Tormented Souls adds entertainment

For 2021, Tormented Souls Haunt and Scream Park has added some live entertainment on select nights — a fire act! Sabba Circle has been performing their “hot” show to great response.

Their website states “Not your typical haunted house experience. Give us your soul and we’ll give you the fright of a lifetime!”

Unlike most haunts in the area, Tormented Souls Haunt and Scream Park is a multi-attraction event. In addition to the one (large) haunted walk (containing enclosed “indoor” scenes and large open outdoor scenes), they also have the very first zombie paintball experience that was offered in this area. Zee-Pocalypse is a tractor-pulled trailer with mounted paintball guns. A small group gets to ride the route with a guide while they shoot at stationary targets and live actors (dressed as zombies in protective body armor). Round off the experience with a food truck (on busier nights) and live entertainment (this year featuring a fire show, on certain nights).

But the most interesting part about this haunt is probably how you get there… You do not drive to the haunt location. Instead, you park in a parking lot and a school bus (the “Terror Bus“) arrives and welcomes you onboard. You are then driven away from town, past the cornfields, then eventually in to the woods before you arrive at the actual scream park location.

And for those curious, the location is called Zook Spur, and it is based on a historical mining town that once existed in the area.

If you have never visited Tormented Souls, it’s worth the short drive to Madrid, Iowa. And, if you want a little extra fun, consider their “Seventh Sin Combo Discount” package. Instead of $20 for the haunt and $29 for the zombie paintball ride, you can get them both and save $5… which you can use to buy extra paintball ammunition while on the ride 😉

And tell them you saw them on DM Haunted Houses, please.

Two Tunnel of Terrors!

Joining the Tunnel of Terror in Ankeny, second (unrelated) Voodoo Tunnel of Terror has been added to the directory. Welcome aboard to the Voodoo Tunnel of Terror car wash in Urbandale. For $20, you can get your car washed in Halloween style, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Food Bank of Iowa.

I just made a new category for “Car Wash” since this is apparently a thing now 🙂

2021 versus 2020

One haunted attraction I heard from (elsewhere in Iowa, not in our area) told me that last year, 2020, they had their largest year ever. They were in a smaller community (less than 10,000 population) so perhaps the Covid impact there was far less than it was here in the big city of Des Moines.

I have not had a chance to follow up and get more details, but I can speculate:

  • Since many haunts were closed due to Covid concerns, customers had fewer choices and would be concentrated at the remaining open haunts.
  • If that is the case, even with fewer customers going to haunts, some locations might see increases as they absorb a greater percentage of a smaller number of customers (compared to normally getting a smaller percentage of a greater number of customers).

Locally, we’ve seen news reports from one haunt operator stating last year was down 50% from their biggest year. That is still much more than the haunts that were closed, which saw 0%, I suppose.

Of the attractions that operated last year, many did so at reduced capacity — not mixing groups, spacing out groups, etc. If capacity were reduced by 50%, then reducing guests by 50% would still be a pretty good turnout (i.e., 100% of what you could handle) on those busiest nights.

So far, reports are that opening weekend was still quite soft — but it normally is at most haunts. The big weekends are the one closest to Halloween and the one before it, usually.

Let’s see what weekend 2 is like, starting this Friday night at a haunt near you. Check the listing on this site to see what is operating. I have listed every haunt I have heard from, so far.

2021 Weekend 1 recap

Last weekend was opening weekend for some of the area haunted houses. These included:

Next weekend, Ames Haunted Forest will join them, then the weekend after that, the Trail of Terror. On the weekend closest to Halloween, the haunted house for your vehicle Tunnel of Terror begins.

Normally I hear all kinds of reports from folks who ventured out, but this year has been mostly silent. After some prompting on the Facebook page, we did get some reports from folks who visited Linn’s (seemed like less actors than normal) and Tormented Souls (no lines). I’d look up some of the other comments, but Facebook is currently offline so I can’t get to that page. Thank goodness websites are still a thing 😉

Haunted Barnless

Haunted Barn’s new expanded outdoor section for 2021.

In the meantime, the Ankeny Haunted Barn continues to be a no-go in spite of a petition (requested by the governor’s office for some reason?) and now a GoFundMe to help raise support for relocating the barn for next year.

Waukeeless

The long-running Waukee Haunted House is also a no go for this season, with the decision to skip this year made back in August.

Covidity

While Covid-19 concerns do seem less this year, it is clear that there is still a significant portion of the population that is being cautious. Some haunts have had struggles finding enough actors, but that should come as no surprise since most places seem to have “Now Hiring” signs on display.

Other forms of entertainment, such as movie theaters, are seeing crowds return, but still not to the level they were before the shutdowns last year. This can no longer be blamed on the lack of content to watch since multiple Marvel movies and other “blockbusters” have come out.

Let’s hope for enough safe support for the haunts this year that we won’t lose any of them.

Your thoughts?

Be sure to leave a review for any haunt you visit this season. This is a new feature of DMHauntedHouses, and one that has only been tried a few times so I’m not 100% it fully works.

Give it a shot.

Then check back for more updates as the season progresses…