Utah haunted houses prepare to stay open during global pandemic

Utah’s haunted houses are preparing​ for the 2020 Halloween season with confidence thanks to a collective effort to build rules aimed at keeping a real-world horror at bay.

“Nightmare on 13th, Fear Factory, Castle of Chaos, and Asylum 49 all got together, put together guidelines, turned it over to the state,​" said Dusty Kingston, the owner of Asylum 49 in Tooele “The state said, ‘yeah, run with it,’ so we got ahead of the game before anything could get ahold of us.”

Under the guidelines, visitors will be required to wear face masks, must stand six feet apart at all times, and will only be allowed to enter each haunt in the group they came with. Ticket sales will be made primarily online, and safety guidelines will be posted around the haunted houses.

For employees, the changes have created new puzzles to solve.

“As a make-up artist I was really excited to paint a whole face,​" said Karen Keller, a make-up intern at Fear Factory in Salt Lake City. "But with COVID, the actors will have to wear face masks. Thankfully, our make-up team leaders have spent a lot of time making some super freaky masks for the actors to keep them looking scary.” 

The end result, industry leaders hope, is the continuation of a tradition that goes back decades in Utah.  
“Our goal is to make it as normal as possible,” said Lauren Ethington, a long-time actor at Haunted Forest in American Fork, the oldest haunted attraction in the state. “I think that’s what people are looking for.”