Scarefest has an indoor attraction known as the Castle of the Dead. “We don’t want to be Erebus, we’re different.” “I want us to have the same notoriety as Erebus,” Lauren said, of Pontiac’s famed attraction. Today, the Marino family’s Scarefest Scream Park, which sits tucked away among the trees on a 52 acre farm in Lenox Township, has grown to become one of the area’s biggest attractions. “Sometimes I would bring my friends, sell tickets or I would dress up and come as one of the characters.” Halloween provides the perfect stage for this actor, who is one of many monsters working at Scarefest Scream Park. So, it’s no surprise that Lauren would be “super excited” when her parents told her they were buying a farm and turning it into a haunted attraction. “My dad’s birthday was on Halloween and I grew up around a house that was always decorated.” “It’s just nuts,” Linebrink said, although he totally gets why. In November there’s ‘Lights Out,’ followed by Scary Krampus in December and the Zombie Prom for adults in the spring. “Haunted attractions are now so much more than purely a Halloween-centered event,” Linebrink said. GINA JOSEPH/MACOMB DAILY FILE PHOTOįor some folks this is yearround revenue. A zombie lurking in Scarefest’s Castle of the Dead. This year’s projected revenue for Halloween attractions is expected to reach $4.5 million with $65 million in ticket sales. “It’s been incredible,” said Alex Linebrink, CEO and founder of Passage, whose event ticketing company in Detroit that generates ticket sales for small to medium-sized companies operating seasonal attractions like haunted houses and hayrides. For information, call (248) 332-7884.But people have a passion for silly, scary fun that makes them want to run and that’s what drives ticket sales and the desire to operate a haunted attraction, which, according to a report by HauntPay has become one helluva industry. To help capitalize on all of the extra foot traffic many of the downtown's businesses are operating with a Halloween theme, such as serving pumpkin beer.Įrebus is open from 7 to 11 p.m. The haunted house attracts thousands of people to downtown each year. "It depends on how fast you're running," says Ed Terebus. This year the haunted house occupies 40,000 square feet of the building and can take up to 45 minutes for people to make their way through each terrifying room. Each year, the Terebus brothers try to expand a little bit more into the structure. Since then they have enjoyed lots of success, with people often lining up around the block to go through it.Įrebus -named after the mythical Greek darkness the dead had to pass through immediately after dying before they reached Hades- sports a new dungeon section in the front and a "nuclear Jurassic Park" section in the bowels of the building. Brothers Ed and Jim Terebus opened the haunted house in 2000 in a long-abandoned building that once housed everything from office space to a bowling alley. The attraction now occupies almost half of the 100,000 square feet of its multi-use building on Terry and Water streets. The Guinness Book of World Records holder for largest walk-through spook house has expanded even more for this Halloween season and that has inspired downtown Pontiac to become a Halloweentown of sorts. As Pontiac's Erebus Haunted House grows, so too does the downtown's infatuation with it.
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