ScreamFest Calgary 2015
Well, Halloween is over for another year. As I took down my decorations yesterday, I had many mixed feelings plus a few ideas for what I'd like to do in my year next year. I am that person who puts up her decorations the first weekend of October so I did get to enjoy the horror for a few weeks!
While not exactly an annual tradition, I would say that I try to get to ScreamFest at least every second year. However, I believe I have missed quite a few years since I first discovered the small yet frightening haunted house event that pops up in the city each October.
My first ScreamFest took place in some large warehouse lot that seemed to be off MacLeod Trail, with a few games, some snacks and one large haunted house exhibit. I vaguely remember the exhibit taking 10 or so minutes to walk through with a bunch of ghouls walking around, severed limbs hanging from the ceiling, and robotics popping up at the last minute to scare you. What lingers with me, though, is the final walk from the exhibit, through a small maze of chain link fences, and the guy with the chainsaw coming out of no where, slamming the saw into the fence right beside me and chasing me as I (wrongly) ran the rest of the way out! I am petrified of chainsaws so this was both exhilarating and oh so frightening!
A couple of years later, we attended ScreamFest at COP. There were more people, more ghouls and three or four exhibits to walk through. Nothing memorable stands out from that experience but I recall I enjoyed it.
Two years ago we skipped the Calgary ScreamFest but visited this amazing Haunted Hotel in San Diego. It was truly memorable, with its shaky, rickety elevator that took us into the basement; the 'room' we got stuck in that was just long, sand-filled bags hanging from the ceiling that we had to figure out how to get out from; and, of course, the guy with the chain saw at the end who, again, chased me as I ran (again, wrongly) up the stairs to the exit!
This year, ScreamFest was located at the Stampede Grandstand and was a lot larger than ever before. I was not impressed with their website advice to buy tickets ahead of time to beat the line ups because we still had to stand in a line up that was longer than the line up for ticket purchases just to get a wristband. Not efficient and I don't really see the point of the wristband. If we purchased a ticket, we should have unlimited access to the haunted houses.
Anyway, ticket perils aside, the 6 haunted houses were actually very impressive. The Bates Motel exhibit was superbly animated and terrifying - I wished I could have gone through again to get some ideas for my yard next year. The line up for the "What Lies Beneath" exhibit was incredibly long but worth the time spend standing on uncomfortable concrete. We both enjoyed the 3D house and I thought the clown exhibit was cool for its psychotic clowns and cool props.
Two ghouls were wielding chain saws as they mingled with the crowd, chasing screaming patrons. Luckily I did not get chased as I managed to get away from them both before they saw me cowering behind Bryan.
We joined in a few of the games inside the building and won some small stuffies for our kittens. We both found the two charity haunted houses inside to be very well down, as well. In one, we had to crawl our way through the middle of these two massive inflatable air bags; in the other, another 3D, we had to walk across this bridge while lights rotated around in a circle, making it feel like we were tipping. I almost fell!
All in all, I was happy to visit the ScreamFest exhibits. It's a fun night out for anyone looking for a little scare and you can get some wicked ideas for your own haunted house-themed front yard for next Halloween!
While not exactly an annual tradition, I would say that I try to get to ScreamFest at least every second year. However, I believe I have missed quite a few years since I first discovered the small yet frightening haunted house event that pops up in the city each October.
My first ScreamFest took place in some large warehouse lot that seemed to be off MacLeod Trail, with a few games, some snacks and one large haunted house exhibit. I vaguely remember the exhibit taking 10 or so minutes to walk through with a bunch of ghouls walking around, severed limbs hanging from the ceiling, and robotics popping up at the last minute to scare you. What lingers with me, though, is the final walk from the exhibit, through a small maze of chain link fences, and the guy with the chainsaw coming out of no where, slamming the saw into the fence right beside me and chasing me as I (wrongly) ran the rest of the way out! I am petrified of chainsaws so this was both exhilarating and oh so frightening!
A couple of years later, we attended ScreamFest at COP. There were more people, more ghouls and three or four exhibits to walk through. Nothing memorable stands out from that experience but I recall I enjoyed it.
Two years ago we skipped the Calgary ScreamFest but visited this amazing Haunted Hotel in San Diego. It was truly memorable, with its shaky, rickety elevator that took us into the basement; the 'room' we got stuck in that was just long, sand-filled bags hanging from the ceiling that we had to figure out how to get out from; and, of course, the guy with the chain saw at the end who, again, chased me as I ran (again, wrongly) up the stairs to the exit!
This year, ScreamFest was located at the Stampede Grandstand and was a lot larger than ever before. I was not impressed with their website advice to buy tickets ahead of time to beat the line ups because we still had to stand in a line up that was longer than the line up for ticket purchases just to get a wristband. Not efficient and I don't really see the point of the wristband. If we purchased a ticket, we should have unlimited access to the haunted houses.
Anyway, ticket perils aside, the 6 haunted houses were actually very impressive. The Bates Motel exhibit was superbly animated and terrifying - I wished I could have gone through again to get some ideas for my yard next year. The line up for the "What Lies Beneath" exhibit was incredibly long but worth the time spend standing on uncomfortable concrete. We both enjoyed the 3D house and I thought the clown exhibit was cool for its psychotic clowns and cool props.
Two ghouls were wielding chain saws as they mingled with the crowd, chasing screaming patrons. Luckily I did not get chased as I managed to get away from them both before they saw me cowering behind Bryan.
We joined in a few of the games inside the building and won some small stuffies for our kittens. We both found the two charity haunted houses inside to be very well down, as well. In one, we had to crawl our way through the middle of these two massive inflatable air bags; in the other, another 3D, we had to walk across this bridge while lights rotated around in a circle, making it feel like we were tipping. I almost fell!
All in all, I was happy to visit the ScreamFest exhibits. It's a fun night out for anyone looking for a little scare and you can get some wicked ideas for your own haunted house-themed front yard for next Halloween!
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