SALT LAKE CITY — You don’t have to be Jack Skellington to enjoy Christmas during Halloween this year, at least at one of Utah’s more popular haunted house attractions.
Fear Factory, 666 W. 800 South in Salt Lake City, is known for its haunted history, but its owners are planning to dunk the building’s nightmarish scene into a cup of holiday cheer for its final two weekends. Yes, customers coming for a pre-Halloween scare on Friday or Saturday even will have the option to experience its new Christmas Town section, too.
“It’s something (people) can do before they go into the haunted house or as they come and go,” said Rob Dunfield, co-owner and chief operating officer of Fear Factory. “I think it will be a hit. I think people will like it.”
It’s the first time the haunted attraction has combined Halloween and Christmas since it began scaring people out of the old Portland Cement Works building in 2011. A similar setup will be available Nov. 1-2, as many people shift their attention from Halloween to Christmas.
The idea didn’t come from the expansion of the Christmas season or from works like “The Nightmare Before Christmas” but instead through a peculiar trend that Dunfield observed from his business’ faithful patrons.
Fear Factory has long set up interactive stations for patrons to take photos or selfies with characters or in front of the grungy, haunting scenario. It was aimed to give people the perfect Halloween social media post, but he saw more and more customers using their photos in other ways.
“We saw some people were taking their pictures … and using them in their Christmas cards,” he told KSL.com on Tuesday. “We thought that was kind of interesting and very creative of some of our horror fans, so we thought we’d take it a step further this year.”
The Fear Factory team began piecing together ways to create an experience that stitches the normally contrasting holidays together. They created a winter wonderland inside the old factory filled with nearly a dozen Christmas trees, tin foil, candy canes, snowmen, special effects and fake snow. The whole scene will be capped with a large chair and Santa Claus.
Of course, it’s still a haunted house, so there will be some spooky elements, including characters roaming around, like Krampus and the factory’s “caretaker,” Karl Mossman, interacting with people.
It’s unclear yet if it will be a one-time thing or a new tradition for the haunted house, which has been praised as one of the top Halloween attractions in the country by outlets like Buzzfeed, USA Today and Travel Channel. Dunfield said he’ll see how it goes before making any future decisions, including any potential to expand the operation hours deeper into the Christmas season.
“We’ve toyed with ideas,” he said. “The difficulties here in Salt Lake is that it just gets so dang cold, and a lot of our business is outside and in the buildings that are not heated, but you never know with the future.”
But for now, people who have used their Halloween photos for Christmas cards will have a new option.
General admission tickets start at $30 on weekdays and $37 on weekends. The November offering will coincide with Fear Factory’s annual “blackout blowout,” where the lights are turned out and customers are given a tiny finger light to guide them through the building.
The company will also have its Zombie shuttle bus available, where people can park at the Gateway and ride the bus for free.
