Kings Dominion Halloween Haunt 2023

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For me, even if they just paint the rustic sets to look….less rustic, but weathered, will be an appreciated change up for a maze theme usually filled with old, dilapidated, and rustic barns. On a completely different note, what's everyones opinion of Knotts retired houses begin shipped to other parks? Carowinds got Paranormal Inc. last year and it seems Wonderland is getting Dark Ride for 2023. I am very conflicted myself, but maybe I am overthinking it.
 
October13 said:
For me, even if they just paint the rustic sets to look….less rustic, but weathered, will be an appreciated change up for a maze theme usually filled with old, dilapidated, and rustic barns. On a completely different note, what's everyones opinion of Knotts retired houses begin shipped to other parks? Carowinds got Paranormal Inc. last year and it seems Wonderland is getting Dark Ride for 2023. I am very conflicted myself, but maybe I am overthinking it.
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Never been to Knotts, so they're new for me. So I don't care about them recycling sets, personally.
 
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buckler89 said:
Never been to Knotts, so they're new for me. So I don't care about them recycling sets, personally.
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I has heard about SeaWorld doing things like this but never Cedar Fair…

As long as the quality is good (which Knott’s mazes usually are really top-notch and innovative), then I’m okay with it.
 
October13 said:
For me, even if they just paint the rustic sets to look….less rustic, but weathered, will be an appreciated change up for a maze theme usually filled with old, dilapidated, and rustic barns. On a completely different note, what's everyones opinion of Knotts retired houses begin shipped to other parks? Carowinds got Paranormal Inc. last year and it seems Wonderland is getting Dark Ride for 2023. I am very conflicted myself, but maybe I am overthinking it.
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I honestly love it. I love Knott’s event, and I love that their retired houses get to have a second life.


Random question but do we think the announcement will be at around 12PM?
 
Theoneandonlyteddy said:
I honestly love it. I love Knott’s event, and I love that their retired houses get to have a second life.


Random question but do we think the announcement will be at around 12PM?
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I was actually about to ask what time you all think the announcement could drop. I wish I remembered when past announcements have dropped, but I feel like it’s been very random. I’m honestly hoping it’s earlier than that. It looks like we’re not the only park announcing tomorrow (Kings Island is also announcing their Haunt stuff), so there may be more coordination this year. I love not being the last park to announce this time around!

With that being said, they’ve been making some VERY early announcements across the chain lately. We’re talking like 6am-8am early for announcements for Iron Menace at Dorney and Camp Snoopy at KI.

Honestly, anything could happen tomorrow. Not to mention, the potential for at least two “new” houses, a new/relocated scare zone (my bet is on relocation), and a new Bandstand show leads me to believe that this could be a more surprising announcement and season than I originally anticipated.
 
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It's exactly as expected. No new house. 21 is updated to FEAR and Cornstalkers is updated with the Blood Harvest tag. No new scarezones. New Bandstand show is Conjure the Night. Some entertainment cut as rumored (such as the Barker and Convergence).

Blog Link

So yeah, very disappointing year on paper if you ask me. Feels like an awful way to roll out the "next generation" of Haunt.
 
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So - very little new and it’s a separate ticketed event? Plus the weird new setup in the front? And this holding pen for pass holders to wait out the one hour?

This all sounds like a downgrade.
 
Well I’m hoping with the extra money they make from the upcharge that they use it towards actually making Haunt worth the money, as well as upgrading the park’s other events, cause yeah this dropped the ball
 
Perhaps they moved Masquerade from the Eiffel Tower to the arbor as they know International Street is going to be complete chaos during the transition of daytime hours to the Haunt event.

Personally I would've moved and expanded Masquerade to Center Walkway (could do some unique lighting through here with the trees) and moved Uprising to the Skyflyer plaza and arbor.
 
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Since Kings Dominion decided to do essentially nothing for their newly upcharged event, I decided to design 2024’s event to make it more worthy of such. Yes I know this is a lot of additions, but let’s be real they have the budget now

Returning Houses
- GrimmWoods
- Blood Harvest (dropping the Cornstalkers name to focus more on the cannibal farmers)

Reimagined Returning Houses
- Trick Or Treat: Rotten Ruins - After a disastrous spell destroys the house, the witches have abandoned their home, leaving what once was to rot and decay. However, there may be some evil left behind, lurking within the ruins

- Blood on the Bayou: The Snake Charmer - The powers of the voodoo queen have weakened, as a new force only known as the snake charmer has put the residents of the swamp in a hypnotic trance, as scaly mayhem ensues around the bayou

New Houses
- Wax Works (Planet Snoopy) - Explore this twisted wax museum with disturbing creations made from molten hot wax and human remains. Do not touch the sculptures, or else you may find yourself in a burning situation

- Deadly Dominion (Action Theater) - The queen has invited you to her chateau of terror. Careful though, one wrong move and you may be punished for treason

- Temple of El Tunche (Flight of Fear) - The Whey Foundation has uncovered a hidden temple said to worship the Peruvian spirit of El Tunche. The spirit is not welcoming of trespassers, however, so find a way out quick, or else you may be trapped in the caverns…forever

- Night Terrors (Dodgems) - Plunge into pitch darkness, where you must use your remaining senses to navigate yourself from danger. Some monsters may reveal themselves through temporary bioluminescence, while others will keep you screaming in the dark

Scare Zones
- NEW Wicked Welcoming (International Street)
- Masquerade (Eiffel Tower)
- Uprising (Center Street)
- Cleaver Brother’s Carnival (Candy Apple Grove)
- Pumpkin Eater (Old Virginia)
- NEW Bewitched (Arbor Tunnel)
- Site X (Jungle X-Pedition)

Shows
- RETURNING Burnette The Barker
- RETURNING Convergence
- Big Top Band
- Black Widow Burlesque
- Blood Reign
- Conjure the Night

Ride Overlay
- Tollway Terror: The Witching Hour - Travelers stopping by at the Blue Ridge Toll have told recounts of an eerie forest-worshipping cult of witches lurking within the woods. Not to worry though, this is all just some old-fashioned rumor…right?
 
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Theoneandonlyteddy said:
Since Kings Dominion decided to do essentially nothing for their newly upcharged event, I decided to design 2024’s event to make it more worthy of such. Yes I know this is a lot of additions, but let’s be real they have the budget now

Returning Houses
- GrimmWoods
- Blood Harvest (dropping the Cornstalkers name to focus more on the cannibal farmers)

Reimagined Returning Houses
- Trick Or Treat: Rotten Ruins - After a disastrous spell destroys the house, the witches have abandoned their home, leaving what once was to rot and decay. However, there may be some evil left behind, lurking within the ruins

- Blood on the Bayou: The Snake Charmer - The powers of the voodoo queen have weakened, as a new force only known as the snake charmer has put the residents of the swamp in a hypnotic trance, as scaly mayhem ensues around the bayou

New Houses
- Wax Works (Planet Snoopy) - Explore this twisted wax museum with disturbing creations made from molten hot wax and human remains. Do not touch the sculptures, or else you may find yourself in a burning situation

- Deadly Dominion (Action Theater) - The queen has invited you to her chateau of terror. Careful though, one wrong move and you may be punished for treason

- Temple of El Tunche (Flight of Fear) - The Whey Foundation has uncovered a hidden temple said to worship the Peruvian spirit of El Tunche. The spirit is not welcoming of trespassers, however, so find a way out quick, or else you may be trapped in the caverns…forever

- Night Terrors (Dodgems) - Plunge into pitch darkness, where you must use your remaining senses to navigate yourself from danger. Some monsters may reveal themselves through temporary bioluminescence, while others will keep you screaming in the dark

Scare Zones
- NEW Wicked Welcoming (International Street)
- Masquerade (Eiffel Tower)
- Uprising (Center Street)
- Cleaver Brother’s Carnival (Candy Apple Grove)
- Pumpkin Eater (Old Virginia)
- NEW Bewitched (Arbor Tunnel)
- Site X (Jungle X-Pedition)

Shows
- RETURNING Burnette The Barker
- RETURNING Convergence
- Big Top Band
- Black Widow Burlesque
- Blood Reign
- Conjure the Night

Ride Overlay
- Tollway Terror: The Witching Hour - Travelers stopping by at the Blue Ridge Toll have told recounts of an eerie forest-worshipping cult of witches lurking within the woods. Not to worry though, this is all just some old-fashioned rumor…right?
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I actually thought some of those sounds really interesting… what are your thoughts of the themes for your made up new scarezones?
 
Holy shit. Marketing really dropped the ball with this one.

They should have done what literally any other park would’ve done and listed Cornstalkers: Blood Harvest and FEAR as new mazes. ESPECIALLY for FEAR. From what I can gather, FEAR is supposed to be almost unrecognizable from 21. Also, why the HELL did they just copy and paste 21’s information to FEAR? They could’ve easily distanced themselves from 21 entirely by writing a new blurb for it.

…Or maybe they shouldn’t have… because whoever wrote the Cornstalkers: Blood Harvest blurb really fumbled the bag, too. Have you read it? It literally sounds like it was written for the Great Pumpkin Fest when it talks about a corn maze for the kiddies. The blurb has nothing at all to do with the new name (which I actually think is really good).

They also missed the opportunity to completely rename and re-theme Masquerade. Why are they throwing a ball in a plant arbor? I’ll save my criticisms here until I see the final product, but something doesn’t seem right here. Maybe there will be major changes to the zone that they don’t want to share just yet. We can only hope.

I hate that all of these fumbles are completely overshadowing the new show announcement of Conjure the Night. This actually sounds really cool and I hope it furthers the overall Haunt storyline since it talks about a battle between two evils… are we setting up a potential return of a past big villain? Hopefully that’s not all for naught.

EDIT: Had to come back and add this. The Bloody Ball is mentioned in Blood Reign’s blurb this year… but isn’t the ball in the Arbor now? What?

Also, please send in your application to KD’s creative team, @Theoneandonlyteddy… amazing work.

What are y’all’s thoughts?
 
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I actually disagree regarding the names, @mtorange. Just because other parks are pretending to have new houses doesn't mean Kings Dominion should too. This year is disappointing because they simply aren't investing in the event. Marketing is setting expectations appropriately given what we know of this year's event. If they had claimed 21 23 FEAR is a new house when, in reality, it is a generic assortment of random phobias/nightmares house located where 21 was and reusing a number of 21's sets and effects, Kings Dominion would have been, rightly, tarred and feathered in the streets. Same with Cornstalkers: Blood Harvest. If guests walked into a "new" "Blood Harvest" house and found a farm-themed, corn maze that looks like Cornstalkers, feels like Cornstalkers, and is in the same place as Cornstalkers, they'd rightly call bullshit and be furious.

At least this way we can all go into these houses with expectations properly set (read: not feeling lied to) and come away with the (overwhelmingly likely) impression that both are notably improved over their previous iterations. That's a successful, positive story that results from honest marketing.

This year's event looks like trash on paper not because of a marketing failure, but because of a failure by park leadership/event creative/chain management to invest in a pivotal year for their most popular, most beloved, widely-lauded, long-neglected Halloween event.
 
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Saying I feel let down is lowkey an understatement. Haunt brings in so many people for the park yet they shy away from changes and improvements year after year. I hate to say it but if next years Haunt lineup is dull I will not be visiting next years 2024 event in boycott due to the poor executive decisions (this is a bold statement coming from a Haunt enthusiast such as myself). They’re going to have to step up the game to an entirely new level… I’m sick of being let down and left with the feeling that it’s just an ordinary haunted house event. I want the whole park to give the atmosphere that I believe it used to have but longer holds. Do better KD.
 
Eh. I'll just wait to see how it all turns out before trashing it. Hopefully they spruced up FEAR to not be so cheap looking, at least. If they just bring back the same set from last year, that'd be awful. But if they do a makeover with higher quality sets akin to Trick r Treat / Blood on the Bayou, that'll do wonders for that house. Playing with phobias is a cool idea, in my opinion. They just botched the execution last year.

Feel like they could do something in the Arbor to cover up the trees and stuff to make you feel like you're inside for Masquerade, right? Again, the idea is there for something cool, the execution just hasn't been great. Its previous location did it no favors. Always felt kinda bad for the actors. Maybe the Arbor will give them something to work with now.

For me, I go more for the atmosphere and just being surrounded by Halloween aesthetics. I'm here for the vibe, if that makes sense. Scares too, of course, but the atmosphere in general has always been my favorite thing about Haunt. So while I would've liked a couple of brand new houses or scare zones, I'll take some updates for now and just (hopefully) enjoy the ambiance that KD usually crushes, assuming they don't mess it up with club music like they did a few years ago.

That being said, I live in Northern VA, so if the reviews are consistently weak, I have no problem skipping Haunt this year and saving me the hour and a half drive lol.
 
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