Haunted Attraction Network

I’m writing this week’s letter from Beijing, where I’m seeing Universal’s Halloween event for the first time, and our full review of Halloween Horror Nights Singapore is live. Two new surveys show Halloween spending remains at the top while price sensitivity is up everywhere, so keep both rungs: a premium tier for guests who want to spend, and a clearly communicated value ticket for those watching their budget. In this issue: - Halloween Horror Nights Singapore - What the new spending data mean

Halloween is bigger than ever! The NRF puts spending at a record $13.5 billion this year, with 74% of Americans celebrating and 49% starting their shopping in September or earlier. And gore isn't driving any of it: the top ways people celebrate are...

Fall is officially here, and we're only 35 days away from Halloween. By this weekend, every major theme park Halloween event in the U.S. is open, Alton Towers, Movie Park Germany, and Disneyland Paris are open in Europe, and our tracker shows more than 30 haunts opening tonight and tomorrow alone. This is crunch time, and all of us are in the middle of shows. So I'm giving you permission: take care of yourself, and enjoy some of it. If anyone disagrees, tell them I said it was OK. Also this week

At HHN this year, the premium tiers sold out first. Premium Scream Night, a capacity-capped evening at $399 a head, sold out on both of its dates. The R.I.P. guided tour, at $469, has sold out outright, and the only way left to buy that experience is a private booking for $5,000. Six Flags is making the same premium bet with The Conjuring: Beyond Fear while playing the value side at the same time: a low gate for the passholder, scarcity on top for the guest who wants more. Thirteenth Floor is ru

It's Pumpkin Spice Week, and the theme park season is nearly all open too. In this week's newsletter: every major U.S. theme park Halloween event is either running or opens within the next three weeks, and haunted houses are the roller coasters of fall, the dedicated attractions that give the theme park industry its pricing power. Meanwhile, Thirteenth Floor is running a licensed Jason walkthrough at nine haunts, a bigger footprint than Six Flags has with the same brand, and The Scare Factor lau

Movie tickets broke records this summer, showing that people are still paying to go out. They're choosing cheaper formats, and a haunt ticket sits much closer to a movie ticket than to a theme park vacation. In this week's newsletter, we break down what that demand means for haunts this fall, the sensory Halloween food trend hitting national shelves, how Kennywood and HHN are monetizing assets by day, and what Ocean Park's shrinking house count says about the classic IP trap. In this issue: - V