Howl-O-Scream 2024

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Attraction Lineup​

Haunted Houses​

  1. Clown Town [New] (Festhaus Parking Lot)
  2. Monster Manor [New] (Germany Event Pavilion)
  3. Lost Mines: Bloodstone [Updated] (Beneath Escape from Pompeii)
  4. Death Water Bayou: Morte [Updated] (Behind Roman Rapids)
  5. KILLarney DIEner: Condemned [Updated] (Killarney Simulator Building)

Terror-Tories​

  1. The Bash [New] (Aquitaine)
  2. Stalker Street [New] (New France)
  3. Fest-Evil [Returning] (Festa Italia)
  4. Gorgon Gardens [Returning] (Da Vinci's Garden of Inventions)
  5. Scary Tale Road [Returning] (Rhinefield)
  6. Ripper Row [Returning] (Banbury Cross)

Shows​

  1. Fiends: The FREAKquel [New] (Abbey Stone Theatre)
  2. Monster Stomp on Ripper Row [Returning] (Globe Theatre)
  3. Phantoms of the Festhaus [Returning] (Das Festhaus)
  4. Skeletones [Returning] (Il Teatro di San Marco)

Official Website​

Howl-O-Scream: Virginia Halloween Event | Busch Gardens Williamsburg

The spirit of Halloween is unleashed at Howl-O-Scream! Find haunted houses, escape rooms, scare zones, live shows & roller coasters if you dare.
buschgardens.com buschgardens.com
 
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Ontop of seeing someone say they already bought quick queue. Man I would be livid and demanding some comp. Especially if their website says not a single thing about it before you buy tickets.
 
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This is the classic two sides to every coin debate….

Can BGW get the house ‘ready enough’ for opening day??? Can they open the house with a few things missing and just add them over the next week?? After all, the park is closed during the week, why can’t they just leave a few things out and add to it over the four and a half days they are closed the next week????

On the other hand, maybe it’s more than that. It’s a brand new house…. Maybe the emergency lighting or evacuation systems aren’t in place or working right. This would definitely be a show stopper. This is a brand new house and maybe something isn’t laying out right or changes are needed. Are staffing levels adequate???

While it sucks to not have this house ready on night one, I would rather they have it ready for the rest of the event versus opening weekend. Opening weekend is typically one of the worst weekends for most events anyway. Staff isn’t 100%, most staff are new and just learning, and it is generally disorganized. I feel for those that go opening weekend expecting the best and get short changed on a few items. Opening weekend for most anything people attend is generally less favorable than later weekends for events.
 
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Have they announced any special foods? I’ve seen posts on Hersheyparks & Universal’s themed food items but BGW continues to drop the ball with HOS specialty food items. Last year was limited to doughnuts, cake with extra raspberry syrup, and chicken tender sliders on a stick
 
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RKRCC said:
This is the classic two sides to every coin debate….

Can BGW get the house ‘ready enough’ for opening day??? Can they open the house with a few things missing and just add them over the next week?? After all, the park is closed during the week, why can’t they just leave a few things out and add to it over the four and a half days they are closed the next week????

On the other hand, maybe it’s more than that. It’s a brand new house…. Maybe the emergency lighting or evacuation systems aren’t in place or working right. This would definitely be a show stopper. This is a brand new house and maybe something isn’t laying out right or changes are needed. Are staffing levels adequate???

While it sucks to not have this house ready on night one, I would rather they have it ready for the rest of the event versus opening weekend. Opening weekend is typically one of the worst weekends for most events anyway. Staff isn’t 100%, most staff are new and just learning, and it is generally disorganized. I feel for those that go opening weekend expecting the best and get short changed on a few items. Opening weekend for most anything people attend is generally less favorable than later weekends for events.
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I’m not very comfortable judging the delay of a new house from the optic that every year they are behind; always fail to train their staff adequately; and never manage to learn from previous years and improve their processes. Maybe it isn’t reasonable for a park that has been running an event for 25 years not to have figured out how to open its haunt with fully prepared staff and completely erected and dressed houses and scare zones.
 
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They should just pay enough to have it all ready but I think people in general put them in a catch-22.

If stuff is going up and the park is still open during the non-decorating hours there’s complaints it looks bad (not saying BGW is perfect in the end). But at the same time to decorate and erect everything in a short window to the quality expected is horrifically expensive (not saying BGW spends enough here).

I don’t go to HOS events but if I did I would prefer returning houses open, path decorations looking great, and them taking an extra weekend to really hone in the new stuff. But that’s just me.
 
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warfelg said:
If stuff is going up and the park is still open during the non-decorating hours there’s complaints it looks bad
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I haven't seen this, honestly.

HOS setup season used to be both considerably longer and considerably more disruptive—and frankly, I think people liked seeing the park get dressed for the holiday.

The significant reduction in Entertainment and Tech Services roles in the park paired with the corporation's demands for a longer and longer Howl-O-Scream season without a willingness to invest in the manpower required to make that happen is what has gotten us here.

Oh, and the COVID brain drain really didn't help either.
 
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MrBradferd said:
It doesn't help that they have to have xmas town up mostly before HOS even ends either. But again.. KD can do both and argubly put on both events better than BGW can. Why can't the award winning park do better?
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Because for some reason BGW turns into Six Flags America at HOS.
 
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Zachary said:
I haven't seen this, honestly.

HOS setup season used to be both considerably longer and considerably more disruptive—and frankly, I think people liked seeing the park get dressed for the holiday.

The significant reduction in Entertainment and Tech Services roles in the park paired with the corporation's demands for a longer and longer Howl-O-Scream season without a willingness to invest in the manpower required to make that happen is what has gotten us here.

Oh, and the COVID brain drain really didn't help either.
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I’ve seen some isolated here and there. One person showed the banners and was like “this is it?!? Terrible”

Like I said they need to spend more (and maybe in this case use outside contracted workers) but outside of just closing down and having even ride ops/F&B people/games and everyone go full force on decorating, I feel like it’s just a huge task in a short time.
 
MrBradferd said:
It doesn't help that they have to have xmas town up mostly before HOS even ends either. But again.. KD can do both and argubly put on both events better than BGW can. Why can't the award winning park do better?
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KD starts both of their events almost a month after BGW. This is just another area where BGW has sacrificed quality for profits—both in cutting costs by eliminating jobs and HOS scenic investments and increasing revenues by expanding the event calendar dramatically without making the investments required to do so at previous quality levels.
 
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It is a huge task. And after 25 years they know that and should have strategies in place to solve the problem.

I’m sorry, but you don’t get a pass because “it is hard.” This is literally their job. They run a theme park. This isn’t the local gas station that thought it would be fun to do a holiday event one year. All they do is themed attractions and they have been putting on this particular event for a quarter of a century. There should be standard plans long-since refined that merely have to be implemented.
 
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For the record I’m not giving a pass, which is why I said at the start that I rather see them just pay (invest) right, so I feel that terminology puts some words in my mouth.

Merely I feel they should start with paths (100% guest facing) and returning houses (these should be easy to build and really storing wrong makes it difficult to erect again). Then turn the attention to something new.

My opinion is I would wait for something that’s new to be right and as good as it can rather than rush it, have it half executed, and then it carries the judgement of an unfinished product.
 
My comments weren’t directed at you. If they were, I would have quoted your post.

I was keying off your observation that it is a huge task and then speaking more broadly that no one should see that as a valid reason for the consistently weak opening this event suffers.
 
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Nicole said:
My comments weren’t directed at you. If they were, I would have quoted your post.

I was keying off your observation that it is a huge task and then speaking more broadly that no one should see that as a valid reason for the consistently weak opening this event suffers.
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Fair enough and thanks for the clarification.

And I could have clarified that my observation of the huge undertaking is in regards to it is just big, but also they are spreading their resources thin that they are putting to it so it makes it monumental to the people that actually end up having to do the work.

More so - I hate the generalization that BGW doesn’t care (and I know people don’t mean it like I’m about to say but again, this is the way my mind works), it’s that the bean counters care too much about counting the beans, and the hard working people that are trying to set this up are likely doing the best they can with what they are provided.
 
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