Jan. 21, 2026

Fright Nights WV’s NEW Valentine Survival Horror Experience

Fright Nights WV is https://gladesprings.ticketspice.com/vday, a survival-horror experience that places guests directly inside the story while they navigate Valentine’s-themed horror scenarios. Layered inside the attraction is Cupid Crawl, a...

Show Notes
Transcript

Fright Nights WV is opening for Valentine’s weekend with Final Cut: ‘Til Death, a survival-horror experience that places guests directly inside the story while they navigate Valentine’s-themed horror scenarios. Layered inside the attraction is Cupid Crawl, a three-stop bar crawl hidden behind secret doors and available exclusively to upgraded ticket holders. Creative Director Ashley Long joined The Haunted Attraction Network to explain how the event works and why it represents a more intentional approach to off-season programming.

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Fright Nights West Virginia is opening for Valentine's Day with

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a brand new immersive experience that blends horror live theater

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at a themed bar crawl that's coming up on today's show.

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Welcome to the show. I'm Philip on the Haunted Trash

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Network show. We bring you the news and stories you

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need to prepare for Halloween. This podcast is just one

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part of what we do. You can find our videos, articles,

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and our free weekly newsletter linked in the show notes.

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It's almost February and that means more and more Haunted

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tractions are experimenting with off season events, especially around Valentine's Day,

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and one of the most ambitious this year comes from

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Fright Night's West Virginia, who is debuting Final Cut Till Death,

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a limited run Valentine's themed horror experience with a bar crawl.

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In this interview, I'm joined by Ashley Long, creative director

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at Final Cuts West Virginia. We talked through how Final

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Cut works, why guests are placed directly inside the story,

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how the kill sticker mechanic changes everything, and why this

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event is designed to be park date night, part horror

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film in part live theater. All Right, here's Ashley.

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I'm Ashley Long and I'm the creative director at Fright

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Nights West Virginia.

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It's almost February and that means that a lot of

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haunts are opening for Valentine's Day. And that's why I

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want to talk to you because you are opening your

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hunt for Valentine's Day and I was reading through what

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you were doing and I was like, this sounds so

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cool because not only is it like an interactive experience,

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but it's steamed for Valentine's Day and also there's alcohol involved,

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which people love.

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Yes.

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Yeah, it's our first time doing Valentine's Day experience, but

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this year there's actually a Friday the thirteenth in February,

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so we thought it's probably a good year to start.

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Can you walk us through the different elements of the experience.

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We are doing a final cut, a Fright Night's Final Cut,

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which is something we started doing last summer, which is

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an interactive experience. You walk through our haunted house and

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you're trying to survive. There are actors on the inside

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and they're loaded up with these stickers.

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If they tag you with the sticker.

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It means that you have died in this scene, so

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it's kind of movie based. In the summer, we did

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Friday the thirteenth, so it was very heavily adjacent theme.

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But this year, for our final cut, our Valentine's Day

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weekend is called Till Death, and we are taking you

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through different Valentine's Day movies or scenarios. So our first

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one you're going to walk through is called Voyage of

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the Damned, and it is Dracula's brides are being shipped

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over in our ship and have crash landed on an island.

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And now you're walking through and there are vampire brides

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out to get you. They're going to be a little

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sexy but fierce and scary at the same time, and

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if they get too close, they can't tag you. If

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you get tagged, your experience doesn't stop. It just means

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you died in that scene. And now you can continue

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to the next scene to see if you'll make it there,

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which will be our Cupids Killer Cupids scene, and there's

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gonna be little cherubs running around trying to get you.

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And then we're going to go into.

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Love Shack, which is our Cabin in the Woods experience,

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but it's gonna be very romance based a little heart

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eyes theming going along there.

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So there'll be a killer inside there to get you.

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And then our last one is called My Bloody Valentine,

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where you try to survive a scenario.

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There where there is killers on the loose trying to

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get you.

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I love those themes.

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We've never actually done vampires at Fright Night in our

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sixteen seventeen years of operation, so we're going to have

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a lot of fun with it.

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So you mentioned that you also did this for the

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previous version. What is it that you noticed about the

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last time that made you want to keep doing this.

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It's because it's different.

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I don't want to burn out our community with a

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haunted house.

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After haunted House, it's more than a haunted house.

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It's even if you don't like haunted houses, this is

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still fun to come to because of the.

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Interactive entertainment element.

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And we did final cut in the summer for Friday

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the thirteenth. We also did it for Halloween Night and

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both were very successful and we had a great feedback

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from our customers. They absolutely loved it. They're like, do

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more of these, So that's what we're going to do,

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except we are adding the crawl the Cupids Crawl onto

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this and we have been doing a bar crawl for

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I think four years for our Christmas hunt, and this

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past year we were sold out way in advance for

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the Crampus Crawl.

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It's a very limited experience and I only have.

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So much alcohol that I've purchased to give out to

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you guys.

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So I was like, you know what, let's merge the.

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Success of Final Cut with our crawl event and put

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it together and try something brand new for Valentine's Day weekend.

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Tell me more about the logistics of how the cupids.

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Okay, so they are three hidden bars within our attraction.

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And you when you arrive, you get a lanyard.

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That says Cupids Crawl that you get to keep, and

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that way our actors can see outwardly if you have

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purchased a Cupids Crawl and as you walk through the haunt,

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there are secret doors that our general mission customers walk

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right past, but if you're wearing that lanyard, we have

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an actor there that will open up a secret door

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for you to go in our.

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Bars for the Cupids Crawl.

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The first one is called Love Bites, and it's a

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vampire themed bar. You are going to get a drink,

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a five ounce drink there plus a treat, So we're

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going to pair each drink with a Valentine's Day treat

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that goes with the drink.

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Of course.

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Our second bar, oh yeah, I'm very excited about that.

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I think a lot of people are excited. And it

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also brings that date night element into it. So instead

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of going out for dinner and a cocktail, it's come

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to us.

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We're going to have tree and drinks.

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So our other bar is a Parisian themed bar called

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Cafe de la More, And like Cafe of Love, it's romance,

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it's Paris, it's the Eiffel Tower. It's going to be

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when you think of Valentine's Day or romance, you think

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of Paris. So we have a Parisian bartender who's going

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to serve you a French martini as well as another pairing.

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I don't know what our dessert is for there yet.

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We're still working on that part and that's just going

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to be a lot of fun. And then our third

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bar is called Cupid's Cloud and you're going to walk

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into what you think is an elevator, but you're up

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in the clouds with Cupid who's a little crass and

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you're going to get a drink there and a treat pairing.

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I really like the idea of the treat pairing too.

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Right and the Cupids Crawl. I do think it will

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sell out.

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People are already buying their tickets and we're blown away

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with the response from our fans a community. But it's

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so much more than just going and having drinks or

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a bar crawl.

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Like when you go.

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Inside these themed areas and the actor the bartender is

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interacting with you, It just it heightens the experience so

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much more.

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When are you doing these and how many nights and

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how much is everything?

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Yeah, so we're doing it on Valentine's weekend, Friday the

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thirteenth and Saturday the fourteenth, from seven to ten o'clock

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at night. We do time ticketing, so we sell every

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thirty minutes their tickets held for you and it is

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thirty dollars for the general admission or sixty dollars for

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the Cupid Scrawl.

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Tell me a little bit about opening in the off season.

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How are you making that calculus? And is it because

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of the crawl element where you're adding foot and beverage

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so it helps with your per cap or how are

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you thinking about it?

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Honestly, we've put off doing a Valentine's Day Haunt for years.

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We've talked about it, and our biggest challenge with producing

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an event like this is weather.

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Because we are in West Virginia. There's snow on the ground.

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I think it's twenty degrees outside right now, so it's

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even our Christmas hunt. One day was fifty degrees, which

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was amazing.

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The other day was twenty.

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Degrees and we had to ask everybody to bring us

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some propane and heaters and try to keep our actors warm.

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But that is the only challenge I have. Where we

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are a little bit different is our haunt is set

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in the middle of a resort, So I work for

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the resort at lad Springs. I'm the creative director here

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and Valentine's Day weekend is already a huge weekend for

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us because we are right next to a ski resort,

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so we have ski guests coming in and so I'm

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trying to lean into that a little bit. These people

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that are coming from the South Southern States coming up

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to ski maybe have never done Fright Nights before, but

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now I can market to them and get them to

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come out and do our Valentine's Day event. Plus we

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offer We're offering a two nights day, so what's what

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better for Valentine's Day weekend? You can buy a final

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cut package and stay here for two two nights, do

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our event and do the Cupids crawl, have fun. But

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we also have restaurants where you can go have a

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romantic dinner. We have a spa, we have an indoor

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pool and hot tub, and all kinds of amenities here

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at the resort that couples or friends. It doesn't have

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to be a couple, but people coming out can take

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advantage of So I'm really lucky to have that part.

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But with it just seems like our off season events,

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they just grow a little bit each time. And honestly,

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we put on a really great show and we put

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a lot into it. For a Christmas show, we don't

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just throw Christmas lights up in the scenes. Every character changes,

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the props change. We will take down all these air

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props and replace them with Christmas air props.

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And a lot of people don't go through that effort,

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but we do.

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And I think that our customers see see that and

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they return.

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If I'm going to kind of summarize it, it's like

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there's a big opportunity there for you because of the

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foot traffic that's our near your location. So you're like

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seeing that opportunity and you're like, there's already all these

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people coming here. And then from the resort standpoint, then

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what you're saying is it's actually that this is like

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an up cell for the resort, like it's an upsell act.

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Yes, absolutely, yeah.

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So for the resort. On the resort mind, you're like,

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we can do this thing, and it's an upsell. On

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the haunt mind, people are already going to be here.

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There's a way for you to capture some of them

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in and then but I think you're also saying, even

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with all of those elements, so you're gonna sell tickets

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no matter what because there's people here, but it still

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can't be bad otherwise it will ruin the reputation, so

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you have to put the effort into it.

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Yes, Yes, absolutely.

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Today's episode was edited by me Philippernandez, with post production

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by David Swape and original music composed by Chris Thomas.

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Support for today's episode comes from Gantum Lightning hand Controls,

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This is a Haunted Attraction Network production