Busch Gardens Williamsburg Howl-O-Scream 2025

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HoS is starting to grow on me the more I experience new haunts at parks. After doing Scarowinds last saturday, I feel like HoS was really on par with my haunt experience there. I always thought Scarowinds was the more grand event in the haunt events at the cedar fair parks. Up there with knots scary farm and halloweekends, but I think after tonight HoS had a better overall atmosphere than walking around Scarowinds so that was really eye opening. Less actors than HoS for sure but everything else walking around is just as good. Mazes felt the same as KDs haunt and HoS, give or take better set designs. Some actors felt lazy, mazes still very understaffed in some areas. THANK GOD HoS does not have any bullshit pre shows like Scarowinds has. I don't even think KD does. I know this looks like a Scarowinds review and might be the wrong place for this but to tie it all back around to HoS, I think we get a overall damn good event for what we GET FOR FREE. So I will hold back more hard criticisms on HoS. Maybe Haunts are major parks just don't have that special feel they once did when we were kids/younger going.
 
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MrBradferd said:
Maybe Haunts are major parks just don't have that special feel they once did when we were kids/younger going.
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It's not nostalgia—haunts at many regional parks just aren't what they used to be. Going back and looking at the house quality of 10 to 15 years ago vs today paints a stark contrast at many parks. Some are still managing great new builds—Ghost in the Machine at Dorney—the absurdly high-quality house builds Hershey is pulling off—but many other parks are really struggling in the house design department in my opinion—BGW, KD, and, from what I've heard, Carowinds, definitely included.

If you go back and watch some of the old behind the scenes production videos of a house like Bitten and see the conceptual design, set work, etc that went into houses in that era and compare it to today with the likes of Clown Town, it's very disheartening. Sadly, many parks have decimated the in-house teams and the budgets allocated to the careful crafting of houses back then. No idea what it would take to get it back now—especially when many of the recent good houses at regional parks (such as Ghost in the Machine and everything at Hershey) are almost entirely contracted out to third parties now. If that's what it takes, more parks need to do it, but it's definitely a sad state of affairs.

Oh, and outside the houses, many parks just aren't dressed like they used to be—BGW very much included. We have many years of photographic evidence to illustrate that.
 
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I’d have to say the only “high quality build” I’ve seen out of BGW recently in regards to HoS is Killarney Diner. Quite frankly was a fantastic house and then they butchered it with the “infested” theme. I did get to do a tour for Killarney Diner pre-infested theme and they mentioned that they had more creative freedom with that house in regards to gore and budget.
 
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I will never stop sharing AmusementPics.com’s collections of old HOS photos. The pictures are such a great blast from the past for the event — but they also show just how much the park used to decorate. There were inventive details everywhere, not to mention complex scare zones with tons of props and hiding places. It’s not just nostalgia. BGW, objectively, decorates the park far less than they did in the heyday of HOS.

BTW, if you haven’t yet, take a moment to look through the site’s whole collection of past HOS events. They’re a great trip down memory lane if you visited the park during those years, or a cool look at the history of the event if you didn’t.
 
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The event was firing on all cylinders last night. All of the mazes made me jump at least once, even the traditionally weaker ones. The scare zones were really good too. All the actors are high energy and the zones are pretty well staffed apart from the New France one.

I also saw Fiends this year for the first time. It was great!

Planning to hit Haunt soon
 
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After going my 3rd time, killarney is the best maze and it's not even close. I know it's been rumored to be on the chopping block and I hope we get 2 more years of it aslong as they keep it staffed like it is. It's almost overly staffed. They need to take like 3 or 4 actors and move them into clown town. Clown town is the most wasted potiential maze possibly ever. The 1st half has no actors till the carnival game section. Maybe I just have bad luck
 
MrBradferd said:
Clown town is the most wasted potiential maze possibly ever.
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Big disagree. Every actor they allocate to Clown Town is a wasted performer. The house is an amateur-ish mess. There's practically nowhere in the entire house where an actor can effectively hide—let alone bounce someone back and forth or similar. Clown Town (like Monster Manor and now Werewolves—don't worry, I'll skewer it sometime soon) almost seems proactively designed not to scare. Actors are expected to stand in full view of guests up against a wall in bright lighting and, somehow, scare people.

Clown Town has a strong, proven concept and its scenic is... tolerable... but it is just as horrifically structured to scare as its recent siblings. Meanwhile, Killarney Diner, despite being in one of the worst, most restrictive house locations BGW has ever used, was designed quite well to conceal actors, to provide hidden actors chances to work together to chain scares, etc. Cast is much better utilized in Diner than, frankly, any other house in the park's lineup right now.

This isn't to say I want Diner to stick around forever—it is getting long in the tooth—but it is a serious condemnation of more recent BGW house design.
 
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Zachary said:
Big disagree. Every actor they allocate to Clown Town is a wasted performer. The house is an amateur-ish mess. There's practically nowhere in the entire house where an actor can effectively hide—let alone bounce someone back and forth or similar. Clown Town (like Monster Manor and now Werewolves—don't worry, I'll skewer it sometime soon) almost seems proactively designed not to scare. Actors are expected to stand in full view of guests up against a wall in bright lighting and, somehow, scare people.

Clown Town has a strong, proven concept and its scenic is... tolerable... but it is just as horrifically structured to scare as its recent siblings. Meanwhile, Killarney Diner, despite being in one of the worst, most restrictive house locations BGW has ever used, was designed quite well to conceal actors, to provide hidden actors chances to work together to chain scares, etc. Cast is much better utilized in Diner than, frankly, any other house in the park's lineup right now.

This isn't to say I want Diner to stick around forever—it is getting long in the tooth—but it is a serious condemnation of more recent BGW house design.
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100% agree. Yea maybe more actors won't actually make it better. Least not scary. It would be more entertaining though
 
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I plan on going to the park in two weeks from now. I generally go just for the night ride experiences because the mazes at this park don't impress me much. Are they at least jump scary this year or are there numerous parts of downtime in between the next scare? It's always disappointed me how big the scare houses are and how little jump scares there are. I didn't want to go too early in the year or too late when they are finishing up, so I figured I'd go sometime in the middle.

Honest opinions, please 🙏
 
MikeLovesKD said:
I plan on going to the park in two weeks from now. I generally go just for the night ride experiences because the mazes at this park don't impress me much. Are they at least jump scary this year or are there numerous parts of downtime in between the next scare? It's always disappointed me how big the scare houses are and how little jump scares there are. I didn't want to go too early in the year or too late when they are finishing up, so I figured I'd go sometime in the middle.

Honest opinions, please 🙏
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If you care more about rides, I would just do killarny and bloodshot and be done with the mazes
 
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