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Get ready to scream at the top of your lungs

By Samuel Cheng

Published 12:51 PDT, Mon October 23, 2023

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Playland’s Fright Night is back as it celebrates the 20th anniversary since its inception back in 2003. It has since grown to become western Canada’s biggest and spookiest Halloween convention.

It started out with three haunted houses and a few rides, the targeted audience was between the ages of 12 to 35. It attracted a total of 43,741 attendees in the first ever October Fright Night. Three years later, Fright Night added a Fire Show and a new haunted house to its event.

In 2007, another haunted house was added, bringing the total number of houses from three to five. The number of attendances nearly doubled to 64,738, bringing in over $1.5 million dollars of revenue.

In 2008, Fright Night added another show called the “Monster of Schlock”. In this year, Fright Night was met with a record-breaking attendance of 83,076 people, raking in over $2.1 million in revenue.

2009 was the year that Fright Night had undergone a revamp, replacing its five existing haunted houses: Bates Hotel, Black Hole, Scary Tales, Nuclear Nightmare, and Demon of the Dark/House of the Dead with four, completely new haunted houses. The new houses include Asylum, Hollywood Horrors, the Haunted Manor, and Darkness. There was a slight drop in attendance compared to the previous year, with a rainy October to be suspected as the biggest culprit.

A new haunted house was added once again to the collection as 2010 rolled around. Car-n-Evil, a one-of-a-kind 3-D haunted house, featuring terrifying clowns and various carnival rides as the highlight of the new addition.

Two years later, Fright Night celebrated its 10th anniversary milestone with the addition of another house that haunted people’s worst phobias and superstitions. Fear, the name of the new house, featured spiders, snakes, germs, heights and other “life threatening” dangers and scary things.

2013 was a success as the attendances climbed back up to around 80,000 people. It was in this year that Fright Night decided to extend its hour of operation to as late as 1 a.m. on busier weekends. Rapid pass was also introduced for those who would like the opportunity of shorter lineups.

A new haunted house, Keepers Doll Factory, was introduced in 2014. It boasted an astounding $2.86 million in revenue while entertaining over 74,000 fearless participants.

Due to the ticketed sale of premium ticket pricing for weekends and rapid passes, 2015 was a major success as the attendance number broke an all-time record of 84,000 bringing in over $3.4 million in revenue. Two years later, an eighth haunted house, The Bloodshed, was added to the collection.

Fright Night was cancelled due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Instead, it was replaced with Slayland: Night of a Thousand Screams. COVID-19 social distancing and sanitization policies were enforced during this time of difficulties. Amusement park rides, costumes and decorations were in place instead of the eight haunted houses.

This year, Fright Night is back to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The event runs until Oct. 31 (closed on selected weekdays). Tickets range from $30 to $62 and are available for purchase online and on-site.

Please visit frightnights.ca for more information.