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Some spooky fog here at 2 am

I wonder what they did with that surfing snoopy sign from the shack...

It was definitely SUPER foggy this morning on my morning commute to work!

Haunt Scareactors - has leadership continued to do the nightly/weekly award to the house with best performances or scares? Winning that gross bloody little man statute and having it presented at the house your represented was a badge of honor and something we all strived to win every night.

So I've though about Haunt and what all has been said here (as well as another thread) and here are my thoughts: Kings Island's Haunt (or Fearfest when it started way back in 2000) has always been an event where the purpose was to take most of regular Kings Island and add a Halloween twist to it in the form of later operating hours, scare zones and scare mazes, and scare actors roaming a fog covered park. Boiled down, Kings Island infused with haunted houses (sorry if this sounds rather simplistic; I really don't know how else to say this lol) The point is that its supposed to be scary. Halloween is the holiday of fear. Scary and fear is not family friendly is most instances. A scare maze themed to a shopping mall overrun with zombies is NOT family friendly. Haunt in general is not a family oriented event and its not supposed to be. If families want to experience Kings Island during the Halloween season but do not like the gore of Haunt, there is literally an ENTIRE family friendly event that takes place 11-6 (which is a little over half of the operating day) on Saturdays and basically all day Sunday. So families with young children should plan accordingly or else not be surprised when 6 and 7pm come around. Kings Island literally advertises that Haunt is not suitable for younger audiences. Families dragging their kids around Haunt and then complaining about the intensity of it is just ridiculous. Its the same logic as bringing your family through Dent Schoolhouse and wondering why all of your kids have soaked pants and then blame the people who run Dent Schoolhouse. In this specific regard, Kings Island should not catch flak for the poor planning of families. Tricks or Treats Fallfest is family oriented. Haunt is not. Period. Anyways, getting to some more specific details, roaming scare actors have been a staple of Haunt since its inception. Having scare actors themed to their respective areas is the best possible use of that resource. It adds to the areal theming of each haunt area and it adds to the atmosphere of haunt itself. The fog at Kings Island is also a staple. Walking around the park when its covered in fog (with the scare actors roaming around) as well as getting the LEGENDARY night rides with the fog is something that only can be understood by experiencing it. To end this off, I know that Kings Island has been facing budget cuts this year. I will say its certainly affecting and has affected the atmosphere of haunt so far this year and in the last several years. All I can say is that hopefully Kings Island doesn't cut any more budgets and that hopefully in the near future they can raise budgets.

Friday when a lot of high schoolers are at their football games.

I think it's more overt than that. While I hold Mr. Kootnz in very high regard, he has stated that he wants Kings Island to be more family friendly. So I think, under his reign, he has changed Haunt as much as his influence will allow for this demographic. I don't like it, but I'm only up there one or two times for haunt. This isn't to say that the scareactors and tech, park services etc dont work hard, they do the best they can given their constrictions. I don't do much with Tricks N Treats, but it does look to be very well done, besides being crowded in Planet Snoopy. But there is no way that we deserve to be ranked #4. That is just targeted advertising from the past that carries over today, much like a tradition.

So here’s my take: When it comes to Haunts, KI actually competes with some pretty big names like Dent, USS Nightmare, Land of Illusion, etc. These attractions are only open for a few weeks (Land of Illusion is a different story) so they pull out all the stops- if you want a good scare, check those out. Truth be told, there aren’t a lot of family friendly Halloween events to do in Greater Cincinnati at night; I think this is where KI comes in. If they can focus more on their night rides and atmosphere while offering the haunts as a side dish, they’re able to bring in a wider range of people. Sure this will upset those who enjoy a good scare, but as mentioned previously- you’re more than likely to go to actual haunted houses if that’s your thing. Knott’s kind of has the opposite problem. While I’m sure there are plenty of haunted houses in the LA area, their target market isn’t families. If you want a family friendly Halloween event to do at night, you’re going to Disneyland/California Adventure. When it comes to haunted parks, Knott’s has to compete with Universal so they’re going to pull out all the stops to stay competitive- KI has no amusement parks to compete with when it comes to fall events in general. TL;DR: Cincinnati has a competitive haunted house market but not a competitive family friendly Halloween market so they’re going to opt for the market they don’t have to put as much effort into attracting.

Yep a wall is up. Not surprising considering the park opens tonight and Snoopy will be open tomorrow.

Put it on surf dog

Ahh the good old days of Fearfest! It has become quite a bit tamer it seems over the years. I can remember the fog being so dense quite a few years back that while riding Drop Zone at the time, you could not see the ground halfway up. It was like you went up into the clouds. It lent a fantastic and a bit scarier ride with all the fake fog covering the ground. And walking through the park, some areas were completely shrouded in fog so you couldn't see a scare actor creeping up on you in the midway. Loved that aspect and believe that adds so much to the ambience of the event.

Wish granted. https://www.facebook.com/Baynumsolutions/posts/pfbid02mDFGpQZ5JXUCYWqW2gtAEoYySLogrqkgQJD4a815Ym7KgkUgj2uoLnDdai4aCiArl

Quick Haunt question. What does everyone think the best day to visit Haunt is?

Right, as Disneyland has gotten into the Halloween game more and more, Knotts can go darker and more adult oriented to carve out a different niche. We have no Disney to do family friendly, so instead we try to do both as cheaply and inefficiently as possible these days.

Kings Island seems to either want to attract, or has attracted a more family focused Haunt. They have cut back on spookiness and Haunt attractions. This is what probably makes them the most money. Knott's seems to have a different target audience.

I agree @WoodVengeance. That is exactly what we did. I told him for the exact same reason.

That’s way more fog than will be in the park tonight.

Looking at the webcams it seems a construction wall has officially gone up. @Hawaiian Coasters 325 Can you confirm?

Typically, any signage that has licensed images or characters is destroyed (or re-used/reconceived elsewhere) once it is retired from use.

Here is my question: Why is Knott's Scary Farm, which is in the Cedar Fair chain, one of the absolute best (and possibly the best) Halloween event, while Haunt, which is also in the Cedar Fair chain, has become such a low budget, bottom of the barrel event? Why is there such dramatic differences between the events? I know one is in LA, and one is in southern Ohio, but why can't KI take some of what makes Knott Scary Farm so great and apply it here? I just don't understand it.

Personally, I would ride Lightning Rod first just so you can get the ride(s) in before it potentially closes because of maintenance issues. After that, I would go to Big Bear Mountain. I personally haven't ridden BBM yet as the last time I've been to Dollywood was 2021. From what I've seen online, it seems to be quite reliable and has pretty good capacity, so it should be much easier to get on as opposed to Lightning Rod.

And the times the wind rolled it out over 71 prompting calls from the OSP to turn the fog down Now there is more vape smoke than fog LOL

The whole point for paying for one is that anyone that is impersonating you will be removed much faster than if you don't. Also, if Kings Island gets any of the 2 check marks, anyone with a fake account will not be able to get a blue check mark since each account is manually reviewed before the checkmark is given. If anyone who has a check mark decides to change their name or profile picture, their check is removed and needs to be reviewed in order to ensure that they are not trying to change their profile to be deceptive. Anyone who has a check mark essentially gets a claim over the name and can much easily report accounts for impersonation since if pay for any checkmark (Especially Gold), you get priority within customer service.

The back of the park is eerie in such situations. I've been among, if not the last to leave The Beast plaza numerous times and routed around through Rivertown because the direct path to the Eiffel Tower had already been cleared and guarded for the night, and especially before Mystic Timbers the area where the station and queue are now was really creepy because of the old worn-down funnel cake building and patio with no lights on.

The scariest haunt experience I ever had was back in like 2010. We rode last ride on beast. The train before we got back to station, somebody took my friends backpack from the bin. He tore off to the front entrance. I walked back alone, in very dense fog, with nightmare on elm Street music playing while diamond back sent empty trains. No screams. This was before I got into parks.

Emphasize the "mature audiences" part more, and maybe ditch the no-boo necklaces. If it means doing the KD method of separate ticket but passes are still good, I'd be all for it.

And so can anyone, including fake accounts. I know the corporate-level checkmarks are gold, but how many people will notice anything more than the typical blue-check on a very close fake?

Kings Island can easily afford to get their checkmark back. If I can do it, they certainly can.

Nope. The park has done lights-on tours during the day during Haunt before, but that was the exception, not the norm. The houses are otherwise closed during the day and open for scares at dusk. Presumably, if they decide to offer lights-on tours again, they will make mention of that on social media and/or the KI Blog.

Are you able to go through the haunt during the day? I just specifically want to go in the building and see the remnants of TR: TR /The Crypt. Is this allowed? Thank you!

We don’t have the hotels to make it profitable.

I just hope they have fog again. Last year was embarrassing.

more like the budget to pay for it all

No, I will ask you how giving away low/no cost stuff like ice cream and coupons compares in any way to mobilizing an unnecessarily-massive, unnecessarily-expensive crane that takes an unnecessarily-large crew, each getting paid union wages, and an unnecessary number hours to set up and operate? All I've been saying is that maybe there's a reason other than marketing that this large crane was needed versus a smaller one. After all, wouldn't a smaller, less expensive crane have achieved the same "brand recognition" or whatever? But as far as I can tell, disco and jsus aren't doctors, they're people posting on the Internet. And if someone on the Internet told me to take some unknown medicine whose intended effects seemed unbelievable, and justified it by saying "because I say so", I would go see a doctor, and even then I would get a second opinion. It would be foolish to do otherwise.

You should listen to the recent CoasterRadio podcast when they had Tony Clark on, wherein he basically made fun of the type of nonsensical speculation you're engaging in. The construction requirements drive these project decisions. Is it inconceivable that there were technical considerations that you haven't considered regarding the installation of those supports that drove the use of that crane?

So, the short answer is "no, I can't provide evidence to support the claim". You claiming they have said as much isn't the same as showing examples of them saying this, and further, why would a person whose job it is to justify their job's value say anything that contradicts the argument that their job is valuable? It's like asking a police officer if their writing parking tickets has a positive effect on community safety and taking their word for it without asking for evidence to back up a self-serving claim. So, again, where is some evidence to support the idea that out-of-market advertising has a substantial impact on revenue? Someone else mentioned Banshee as an example of a "PR campaign that have had a huge impact", except CF attendance was down during Banshee's debut season... Can you understand why I'm skeptical of this claim?

Right, like people don’t put down what they do for work on their social media accounts? His account also says his tweets are his, so he already put in a disclaimer that his tweets are not on the parks behalf. Since it’s not the parks official account he probably cannot speak in his own free will about his employer (Kings Island) matters publicly. Without breaking rules. Has anyone actually been blocked from the official Kings Island twitter? Im indifferent with Chad but I find it borderline stalking with what some people are doing on here. Tweeting him directly on issues that relate to the parks official pages? Why not just tweet the official park page instead? Again the appropriate channels..