Kings Dominion Halloween Haunt 2023

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I'm not sure why you think the only options are tailgating and sitting on a bench.

As I said, both Disney's wristband system and Uni's holding areas work incredibly well. Guests still have access to a variety of things to do inside the gates, and the park has a simple system for tracking who has paid for the after-hours event and who needs to leave. I have experienced both several times and was never bored,

Also, it doesn't make a ton of sense to force people, who already been checked earlier in the day, to go through security a second time. The lines are already bad for Haunt and it would increase their staffing needs. Moreover, KD has long had a rule against re-entry after the event starts. The same logic that led to that prohibition would have to apply here.

Tailgating would very likely create more problems for the park; produce the opposite effect from what they are trying to achieve; and may not even be feasible, given liquor laws and liability constraints.
 
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This feels a lot like the "breweries with kids" argument where people without kids explain kids are annoying and stressful to be around when trying to blow off steam and the parents call the people without kids selfish for not "just tolerating their kids."

I would love Haunt to go 21+ only but I'm sure that would decimate attendance sadly.
 
This all sounds *fantastic* to allow kids into a mature event, while holding people in a pen, or kicking them out into an unsupervised parking lot to wait 1-2 hours for the next event where some of them might not realize they need a ticket.

Nope. I see no ways anything could go wrong here.
 
CoasterAuditor said:
This feels a lot like the "breweries with kids" argument where people without kids explain kids are annoying and stressful to be around when trying to blow off steam and the parents call the people without kids selfish for not "just tolerating their kids."

I would love Haunt to go 21+ only but I'm sure that would decimate attendance sadly.
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We have had the debate about whether younger children should be at adult haunt event for years. I can't recall if there is specific thread for KD's Haunt, since BGW was previously the more kid-friendly event, but here is the BGW discussion for reference:

parkfans.net

Kids at HOS

I mentioned this before here, but Halloween is the only major holiday that is celebrate in two extremely different ways by kids and adults. At this park, this causes issues for two groups of people (which I will be referencing going further). Group A: The grown ups and children old enough to...
parkfans.net parkfans.net

In my opinion, it is much more complex than finding the kids "annoying." It is unfair to the scare actors, because they have to find ways to target adults, without upsetting the children. It is unfair to other guests, because (especially in houses), because it usually means no one gets stalked or startled. It is unfair to the kids, because even without the actors, the sets and environment can be terrifying.

I have seen children being dragged through mazes crying. I have seen parents yelling at actors for scaring their kids. I have been in mazes and scare zones where the actors were doing nothing, because there were children in front of or behind me.

I don't want to derail this thread, but I did want to clarify why people are so frustrated with the decision to include Haunt in Pre-K passes.
 
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I have seen kids in strollers at Haunt, but so far not experienced seeing them in the houses. But I'm a scaredy cat and only do one or two houses each year. However the scare actors in the scare zones would be affected by the kids and also by people with the glow in the dark don't scare me things. I actually get why people would want to go to Haunt and not be jump scared, though. I love the atmosphere at Haunt, but I don't like jump scares very much. I run around trying to avoid them. lol. Taking kids unwillingly through a house is mind blowingly awful, though.
 
Looks like the link is broken now, but KDFanatics reported earlier that the show lineup was visible on the Haunt website. Hope this means that the lineup will be announced VERY soon!

Big Top Band and Black Widow’s Burlesque will be returning to the stage under the Cleaver Brothers’ Carnival. There is unfortunately no sign of Burnette the Barker’s return.

The new bandstand show is called Conjure the Night. Blood Reign will also return this year, though I assume it will be majorly reworked if the rumors of Astaroth’s and the Barker’s demise are true.

Looks as if Riff Raff and Convergence have been cut from the show lineup this year. Also, no parade this year (thank god).

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Not a fan of the show lineup. Those Cleaver Brothers shows totally ruin the atmosphere of the scare zone. On the other hand, I thought the shows that were cut (Riff Raff and Convergence) were actually some of Haunt’s historically better shows.

Riff Raff in particular was a perfect Haunt show in my opinion — a simple, grungy rock band with a cool stage and a set list of less commonly played 70s and 80s rock songs. Their full rendition of Bat Out of Hell in particular was great. It was tonally appropriate for Haunt, and it drew a crowd. Plus, its location (in that big plaza between Racer 75 and Twist & Shop) was in a big, open area where it didn’t detract from Haunt’s darker atmosphere.
 
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aceistheplace said:
Going a bit off topic from the show conversation, it's interesting to see how the quality of the maze facades has kinda declined over the years. I say this after looking at old photos of mazes like Medieval Macabre, Slaughter House, Doll Factory, and a few others that had MASSIVE facades. Even the original No Vacancy had a big facade and for some reason it was downsized over the years. I have heard though that even though the outside of these mazes were cool, the insides weren't very good, and were somewhat cheap looking.
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Well then it looks like they started spending the money on the important thing about the house then. I’ve always been curious about the insides of those old houses and scare zones that i’ve heard about but never seen pictures of. I understand theres supposed to be no photography but it really surprises me that there’s no public photograph documentation of what the physical contents of the houses looked like.
 
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