Cedar Point's HalloWeekends Celebrates Its 25th Season In 2022 ...

SANDUSKY, Ohio – Twenty-five years ago this month, Cedar Point debuted HalloWeekends, a modest, fall-themed festival spread across three weekends that featured two haunted houses, a spooky train ride and live entertainment.

Fast forward to 2022, and the event has morphed into a months-long, all-out spookfest, with 11 haunted attractions, themed food, kids attractions and more, drawing some of the park’s biggest crowds of the year. It begins Thursday, Sept. 15, and runs through Sunday, Oct. 30.

“You can get scared on a roller coaster and get scared in a haunted house for one price,” said John Hildebrandt, the former Cedar Point general manager who worked on those early years of HalloWeekends. “It hit the bull’s eye.”

Hildebrandt was head of the marketing department in 1997, when then-Cedar Fair CEO Dick Kinzel tasked him and others with developing a fall, Halloween-themed festival. At the time, Six Flags, Universal and other amusement parks were starting to capitalize on the growing popularity of Halloween by hosting elaborate holiday celebrations.

Among the many challenges was staffing, as the haunted houses require hundreds of extra workers at the same time many seasonal employees are headed back to school. “There were a lot of naysayers at first,” said Hildebrandt, who retired in 2013 after eight years as park vice president and general manager. “I suppose I can count myself as one.”

He wasn’t a naysayer for long. The event was an immediate hit.

On fair-weather Saturdays in October, HalloWeekends draws the biggest crowds of the year to Cedar Point. In 2019, for the first time in park history, Cedar Point had to turn away guests on one October Saturday because the roadways into the park were so jammed with cars.

In an effort to spread out the crowds, last year the park extended the event, which previously had run Fridays through Sundays, to also include Thursday nights in October. This year, the event will run Thursday evenings in September, as well.

“We know the demand for HalloWeekends is high, so we always look for additional opportunities to offer the event to as many guests as possible,” said park spokesman Tony Clark.

Every year, the event changes – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot – designed to keep visitors coming back.

New this year at HalloWeekends:

*Two new haunted houses -- Bloodbath, near Steel Vengeance, which is replacing Deprivation; and the Haunting of Eerie Estate, near Planet Snoopy, which is replacing G.A. Boeckling’s Eerie Estate.

* Several Thursday-only shows, including Scare-a-oke, Slash Mob and “The Witch Sisters’ Insult-Emporium: Witch, Please!”

* Mr. Midnight, a new host of HalloWeekend evening activities, and the lead character for 7 p.m. “Opening Scarymoanies.”

In addition, Cleveland-based musical duo Midnight Syndicate, known for their creepy, highly synthesized music, will be out with a new show, “Midnight Hour: 25 Years of HalloWeekends with Midnight Syndicate.” It will run several times nightly in the Jack Aldrich Theatre.

In addition to the new features, the event will include numerous long-time favorites, including a kids costume contest, themed food and drink, the graveyard of old rides, fortune tellers, all combined with Cedar Point’s terrific lineup of rides. (Note: not all rides will operate on Thursdays and Fridays.)

When HalloWeekends debuted in 1997, it was modeled in part after Halloween Haunt at Knott’s Berry Farm, the amusement park in southern California that was purchased by Cedar Fair earlier that same year.

Several other Cedar Fair parks also debuted Halloween-themed events in the late 1990s, including Dorney Park in Pennsylvania, Valleyfair near Minneapolis and Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, all using the HalloWeekends brand.

In his 2018 book, “Always Cedar Point,” Hildebrandt credited Monty Jasper, recently retired vice president of safety and engineering at Cedar Fair, with coming up with the term HalloWeekends. “It communicated everything we wanted,” said Hildebrandt, combining Halloween and weekend into one catchy name.

Interestingly, no other Cedar Fair park still uses HalloWeekends, all preferring Haunt instead.

Cedar Point has used Haunt, too, as a secondary slogan for the scary, more adult-oriented attractions at the event; the Great Pumpkin Fest or Tricks and Treats was used in previous years for the more family-oriented activities.

This year, however, it’s all HalloWeekends, said Clark.

“Cedar Point’s fall event is much different than other parks in our family, so we’re returning to a full embrace of ‘HalloWeekends’ to communicate that it’s an event for the whole family, even at night,” he said. “As I like to remind visitors, you can still enjoy the park in the evening as a family, as the scary areas in the park are clearly marked.”

The event starts Thursday, Sept. 15, and runs through Sunday, Oct. 30.

If you go: Cedar Point’s HalloWeekends

When: Thursdays through Sundays, Sept. 15-Oct. 30. Hours are 6 p.m.-midnight Thursdays, 11 a.m.-midnight Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sundays (except 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Oct. 9).

How much: Gate price is $89; online prices vary from $49.99 to $79.99, depending on the day.

Stay overnight: Overnight packages, including park tickets, early park entry and other perks, are available at numerous Cedar Point properties, including Hotel Breakers, Sawmill Creek, Castaway Bay and others.

Information: cedarpoint.com/halloweekends

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