Don’tworry; fall funisn’t canceled
Organizers of themost beloved haunts andmazes previewchanges.
While many of fall’s biggest festivals and events have been canceled, fall fun isn’t canceled. The season’s popular traditions including haunted attractions, pumpkin picking and corn mazes are still on, with somemodifications of course.
So, how are organizers of these activities making it work while keeping customers safe and following all mandated regulations? We talked to a sampling of haunted house and maze operators in the area to get a snapshot ofwhat fall festivities will look like this year.
Haunted houses and spooky attractions
Unlike other fall activities, many spooky attractions taking place indoors — meaning that social distancing and other coronavirus-related protocols are a bit harder to enact. Despite these setbacks, manyhaunted houses and other spooky attractions are still gearing up to welcome guests this season.
Oneof thesespookyattractions is the Riverside Jaycees Haunted Castle of Carnage& Trail. The Riverside Jaycees are a nonprofit group that has created this haunted house and trail to raise money to give back to the community by helping young adults gain leadership skills.
TheRiverside Jayceeshave had to implement several safety procedures, including a mandate that guests may only enter theHaunted Castle of Carnage and Trail with the people from their group. Inevitably, thismeans that it may take longer to get through the long line of people waiting to get into the attraction.
“The main thing for us is we’re just gonna ask people to be patient since it may take a little longer because we are going to be doing the 6-foot system,” Julie Denning of the Riverside Jaycees said. “We’re going to be sanitizing everyhour, andwe know that’s going to take time.”
Duringhoursof operation, volunteers with the nonprofitwill be sanitizing all of the surfaces in the Haunted Castle of Carnage. In order to make this process easier and more sanitary, volunteers had to also remove all of the carpeting fromthe haunted house.
Apart from all of the expensive and time-consuming policies that occurred as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Denning notes the importance of the mission of the nonprofit and its haunted attraction.
“Since it’s a nonprofit, we have more barriers and we have to be very cautious with our funds because our haunted house is our primary fundraiser for the Riverside Jaycees,” said Denning. “And that fundraiser helps to fund a huge shopping trip during the holiday season for families inneed. It funds an Easter egg hunt, it funds dinners for senior citizens and somuch more. We canonlydo these things ifwe have the funding. So, that’s the reason it’s so important for our doors to open and for us to have a really good season.”
Brimstone Haunt, a haunted institution offering a haunted house, trail, hayrideandother attractions inWilmington, is instituting similar practices.
“We are promoting a ‘scarily safe zone’ this season, and have implemented changes for COVID-19,” said Cheryl Bucholtz, the marketing director for Brimstone Haunt. That means face masks for everyone, no up-close scaring of customers and more animatronics.
Corn mazes
Another favorite fall tradition is the cornmaze, offering rows upon rows of family fun. And, fortunately, due to the logistics of the typical corn maze (most are outdoors and socially distanced), many area corn mazes are hoping to thrive despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Young’s Jersey Dairy’s Cowvin’s Corny Maze is currently open to the public. Stretching over an expanse of nearly 3.5 acres of corn,
the maze is an intermediate challenge designed for the entire family.
Apart from their corn maze, Young’s Jersey Dairy also hosts a number of other fall-related events and activities, like the HauntedWagon RidesandFallFarmPumpkin Festival. DanYoung, theCEO of Young’s Jersey Dairy, said it was not possible to hold the hauntedwagonrides and pumpkin festival this year.
“From a safety standpoint, we noodled around for a couple of months trying to think about how we can do this thing,” Young said. “We just decided that it was best for just this year to skip it. We’ve been holding these events for around 25 years, but we could not imagine a way to do that in a safe manner.”
Other Young’s activities including mini- golf, batting cages and petting barn remain open as well as the dairy store. Wagon rides to the corn maze will be at half- capacity and will be equipped with dividers and sanitized after every ride.
Opening to the public this weekend, Apple Country Farm Market’s “Thanks to Our Heroes” corn maze features sevenmiles of challenging paths that can take visitors up to two hours to complete.
Thoughthepandemicmay have posed a fewchallenges to the team atAppleCountry Farm Market in Spring Valley, Marcie Hagler, one of the owners of the farm, pointed out that this year’s maze has receivedmore attention from the public than any of their previous corn mazes over the past two decades.
“This year truly was the best maze we’ve ever had, and I’m not talking from the design standpoint,” said Hagler. “I’m talkingabout the maize itself and how well it grew. And thatwas the other part that kind of played into it. It’s like, we’vehad the best days we’ve ever had, we’ve got to do this.”
Though their corn maze andaccompanyingfarmmarketwill open this year, Apple Country Farm Market also hosts a number of other seasonal events, like bonfires and hayrides, that will not be taking place this year.
“We’ve changed a lot of things to adhere to coronavirus standards,” Hagler said. There are a lot of components of our fall activities that we are not doing becausewe felt likewe could not do those appropriately and adhere to the standards that we need to adhere to, like the hayride. So, we are opening the maze, the Farm Market, the pumpkin patch and other things like that."
Apple Country Farm Market is limiting the number of people who can purchase tickets to enter the corn maze each day to control the number of people entering and exiting the maze. Further, all ticket sales will be done online or over the phone in order to reduce contact between individuals. High-touch areas of the farm will be regularly sanitized and hand sanitizer will be readily available for customers to use. And, just like in every other public place in the state of Ohio, customers are required to masks and to social distance while on the premises.