When you try to figure out a trend line for haunted attractions and fall festivals, you have to go back more than a few years to find a stable year. That would be 2019. However, we’re in a totally different world than 6 years ago, so there isn’t really a line to follow. The one new constant is that every year will be different, with a new set of challenges, and we will all be pivoting and evolving, all the time. Change is the new constant.
Darwin didn’t say the strongest will survive. It is those species most adaptive to change that make it. Haunted attractions and fall festivals need to evolve…with the changing wants and needs of the consumers and with the changing media environment. That is one of our tasks at FearWorm, to stay ahead of these changes. We saw more than a few happen in 2025 and wanted to provide our wrap, as well as looking to 2026.
We hear the haunted attractions industry was down in the 15% range in 2025. Maybe that’s true, maybe not. We really saw results anywhere from 15% down to 30% up. There wasn’t even that much rhyme or reason market by market.
We can attest that when FearWorm is in charge of just about everything: the photo and video shoot, website, picking the marketing budget, social media, email/SMS, creative, traditional and digital advertising…AND…the client puts on a stellar event, it was hard to not be successful. This is almost always the case…put on a great event, with awesome creative, and all marketing firing on all levels…it usually works. Of course, other factors can come into play, like weather or specific market conditions, which can be out of anyone’s control. But when doing everything right, we usually reap the rewards.
Market Conditions
Across the U.S. in all forms of business, from events and entertainment to restaurants and retail, most businesses took a hit in September 2025. The government shutdown and uncertainty started and people were just scared. So they stopped buying.
However, if you like rollercoasters it was a “fun year” (can you hear our sarcasm?). Because things were down, then up, then down, then really up. Most business sectors saw big jumps in business in about the second week of October. We were seeing really unprecedented bad starts to the season in most markets, then huge jumps in October that in many cases more than made up for the drops early season. Is this the new normal? Are customers going back to just wanting haunted attractions in mid-to-late October? Has that bump from the pandemic completely gone away and we’re back to “normal?” Remember, its all a new normal, and the new normal is change.
The Government Shutdown
We saw our biggest hits in military markets and those with large government populations. That makes sense, less money in pockets and uncertainty means lack of spending. Once this appeared to be going away in later October this issue went away. Events running military discounts/offers won big.
Weather
2024 was a near perfect year for weather in the north and northeast, except for the heat. 2025 was back to more of a normal cycle with some rain outs in most areas, including some big weekends, plus heat in the early part of the season. Many of our clients made up the lion’s share of this, but most just can’t make up losing a full weekend in mid-October. We also once again saw abnormally warm weather in the early part of the season in most markets. Even if an attraction is indoor, this hurts putting people in a “fall” mindset.
What does this mean? Think about bad weather plans. How do you get rid of the soggy areas of your event? Have better parking? A covered queue line? Or better yet, something like Fear Factory does where they have a character, Lady Portland, who only comes out in the rain? Fear Factory has managed to turn rainy nights into some of their best of the season. Take a cue from Fear Factory (in many ways) and have a plan for the rain. At least when it is not overwhelming.
The Economy
Pretty clear here…people were trading down to less expensive entertainment this year. Superfans were still buying VIP. People in higher incomes are treating themselves like they always do. But the average buyer traded down in tickets, looked to Groupon or asked for coupon codes. This will be ongoing until the economic outlook is stronger. The bifurcation of the US economy will continue to grow and get worse.
Seasonality
It appears the world is not quite as interested in haunted houses in early September as they were a few years ago. Across the board we saw slow starts in September, then about the second week of October the crowds started flowing. Many events ended “up” for the season based on a strong last few weeks of October. Even Halloween night was strong in most markets. Haunted attractions are doing as much as 80% of their annual business in the last 2 to 3 weeks of the season. We may try to push people to September by offering deals, but it seems the people buying in September are the Super Fans that might pay full price. The bulk of the audience at the end of the season just wants to have a fun Halloween-themed outing. Be wary of opening too many days just because you have competition that is open, especially earlier in the season. You might make more money moving some people to another night and saving the expense of opening on an “off” night.
More nights later in the year is better if logistically possible. We found that the slow early season was made up when haunts were open more days toward the end of the season and we expect this trend to continue.
Spanish Language Audience Considerations
In some markets, we see large Spanish-language-dominant audiences, especially on Sundays. This year that seemed to disappear, likely from economic factors as well as a tendency in some markets for this consumer group to not gather in large groups due to fears of confrontation with ICE – we wish we were joking about this, but it was 100% a factor this season. Some Spanish-language-dominant business areas have seen large decreases in traffic and business at clubs, retail stores and grocery stores. We expect this to continue in 2026.
Halloween Weekend
Many of our attractions didn’t want to open up the weekend of Halloween with Friday being the 31st. This would have been a big mistake. For the most part Halloween night was strong, November 1st very strong. Even Sunday the 2nd and Thursday the 30th were strong in most markets. The push to later season attendance is game time.
In a couple markets we found the Sunday before Columbus (Indigenous Peoples) Day was strong again this year. This should be the one Sunday to open even if your attraction doesn’t open other Sundays.
Halloween is on a Saturday in 2026, so open that night. Maybe host a lights-on event earlier that day. Or think about special events like a Halloween costume contest for prizes. Also consider opening that Sunday.
Last Minute Purchase, Last Minute Push
As has been the case for a number of years, people are buying later and later both in the week and in the day. We often saw sales very slow early week, then mostly happen day-of. In fact, it is pushing until nearly the moment of attendance. We are seeing searches for generic terms such as “Haunted House Near Me” on a Friday night at 7pm, with a purchase made for that evening. This means a lot for your media scheduling, including your Google PPC campaigns, are optimized toward maximizing this time of purchase.
Interest Levels
Interest for haunts has never been higher. We saw more clicks and interactions this year than ever before. FearWorm produced over 2 MILLION clicks for haunts this season, and ad engagements are higher than ever. Time spent on pages (websites) is higher than we’ve seen it before. Now the number of visits may be lower, likely driven by AI results for simple information like directions or hours of operation. But engagement for the visitors on-site is longer. This proves that the interest for haunted attractions is prevalent more than ever before.
Deals
If you want to sell tickets in August, you need to offer a huge value. You should continue to throw out deals that get smaller and smaller as the season progresses and then hopefully discontinue discounts toward the end of the season. Offer your best deal first.
Groupon or deals for early season and off nights were successful in 2025. We are usually not fans of Groupon, but it was very helpful for “off” nights in many markets this year.
Charge more for walkups to either generate more revenue or to help persuade people to buy ahead of time. Not only are online purchases better for revenue projecting but they give you access to valuable customer data. It also makes for quicker throughput of your customers.
Thoughts on Media
Search
Google is still dominant but it died off drastically at Halloween and after, even on the big November 1st Saturday. We predicted that Bing (search) would win big and it did. Bing is grabbing a good deal of share from AI search as ChatGPT tends to prefer Bing. We expect AI search to be much more prevalent by next season. ChatGPT’s Atlas browser was introduced during this season and Perplexity is now selling AI search.
TikTok search is growing steadily. We moved more dollars this past year to TikTok and off Snapchat for the most part. TikTok is not a great ad source, but it is where our customers are spending their time (and now searching) online.
Social Content
More. More. More. It is hard to make enough. Partnerships with our clients are best when we have someone on the client’s staff that is able to add “at the moment” or “live” posting.
How do you build enough content? Get ready ahead of time….for rain delays. Closings. Last minute sales. Countdowns. Special events. All these extras posts can be created pre-season.
Major advertising-related shoots should take place before the season with actors. However, continue to shoot as the season progresses for social content. This is where you can grab real testimonials and customer content.
Influencer Marketing
This is great if you can get it. Timing is a problem for haunts, more so than fall festivals or farms. Influencers usually don’t really want to do the content until the last two weeks of October, which is almost too late to be of benefit to the haunt.
Solutions – pay them, not just trade, to push early.
Find “horror” based influencers that are in to haunts all year.
Some of our best-performing influencers have been from the broader-based entertainment and event category. Some of these have been very lucrative for our clients.
Press is a form of influencing. This can be pushed more and sometimes purchased. We find great success with the right local PR firm. We tend to get even more coverage for family-friendly events, daytime events and farms than we do for traditional haunted houses. Just be prepared to get up at 5am for a TV segment!
Email Marketing
Email rates are still reporting low, but not quite as low as 2024. That is, if you can trust the reporting numbers. However, our open rates did increase in 2025, and email marketing proved to be very effective for us this season with all events. It is often hard to directly attribute sales to emailers, but after analyzing events for which we managed email versus events we did not and the results are clearly successful for emailers. Email marketing sells tickets. The trick is to start early. Send to legitimate lists that want your offers. The early emails tended to perform best as people get tired of seeing them repeatedly, so make sure the design and offers are top-notch up front.
SMS
People are very willing to sign up for SMS and email messages if you provide value and treat it like a club. The money that you give away on tickets is well worth the value of the list you are building.
People are also very willing to sign up for communications by simply asking in person. We see a nearly 80% sign up rate in person without even providing an incentive. Make it fun. Give the SMS club a name. And make the deals deadly good if you want it to perform.
Don’t Expect to Be Big if You Don’t Act Big
An event has to have the value equation in favor of the customer.
Length of Show + Quality of Show = price. (Length of the event plus the quality of the event must equal the perceive price/value that is a win for the customer.)
You can’t be a short haunt and charge a ton. Or one that isn’t that great, but takes an hour to go through and charge a lot. The top dogs are where they are for a reason: quality, length, value proposition, location, wealth of offerings, years in business, etc. You can’t just open and expect to get those kinds of results immediately through marketing.
Money is money, and it buys reach and frequency in advertising. You can’t beat a 200k budget with 40k. You can barely compete. You have to step up if you want to be one of the big guys. Let’s seriously talk about budgets that move the needle in 2026.
Build First Party Audiences. Emails. Phone Numbers.
You can use this in targeting beyond sending a text or an email. Always gather emails, phone numbers, names, and addresses when you can. Get permission to use them. Or at least do not say that you will NOT use them for marketing. We do not have to send an email to use an email for audience targeting through advertising.
These Things Hold True for Fall Events
Location. Location. Location.
Parking. Parking. Parking.
Expanding Seasonal Competition
We saw even more competition this season, especially with family-oriented fall events. Lots of municipalities are putting on free or nearly free events. Pumpkin patches. Games. Rides. Entertainment. Built to drive people into town to shop or eat. If it is free, you have to beat it or match it in your value equation or it’s hard to win. Which, in this economy may be an impossible task as “cheap” will always win – for the time being.
Large-Scale Competition for Haunts
More and more corporate groups are coming in with multiple haunts and deep pockets. Think amusement park-level competition. They spend a lot of money and make themselves appear large – or are really large. Be wary of this competition. You CAN be a better event even if you can’t out spend them. You can out-market them without out-spending them.
Differentiate yourself to stand out. Don’t try to just copy what the bigger event does. Rely on your own unique selling propositions. Find and own your audiences. Avoid knee-jerk reactions to your competition’s moves. Find your space and own it.
On that note…Happy New Year from everyone here at FearWorm.
