If you’ve been in a department store lately, you’ve probably noticed plastic pumpkins, screaming skulls and princess costumes already filling the shelves. Just like with Christmas, Halloween starts earlier each year, too.
That’s not such a bad thing. Halloween is a sort of miniature Christmas, pumping a lot of money into the economy. Just ask the Winnetka, Ill.-based Haunted Attraction Association. The association says that U.S. residents travel to more than 2,500 haunted houses, hayrides and other Halloween attractions each year.
And today’s haunted attractions don’t rely on hanging skeletons or teens with sheets over their heads. As Patrick Konopelski, president of the Haunted Attractions Association, says, today’s haunted houses benefit from “innovative thinkers and modern technology.”
One of the innovative haunted houses this year is the Zombie Killer Black Ops attraction at Saint Lucifer’s Haunted Asylum in Flint, Mich. Visitors to this attraction wear protective gear for a paintball battle between zombies and humans.
Philadelphia features the Terror Behind the Walls attraction in the abandoned Eastern State Penitentiary. This year, visitors can choose a more interactive attraction. They might be grabbed, held back and sent into hidden passageways.
In the Prison of the Dead Escape in Reading, Penn., located in the condommned Willow Glen State Penitentiary, visitors can choose to become a flesh-eating zombie and chase down other visitors.
Then there’s the ScareHouse in Pittsburg. Instead of letting visitors tour the house in groups, no more than two people at a time will be allowed to enter The Basement.
Haunted houses, of course, aren’t the only money makers this Halloween. The National Retail Federation says that 170 million U.S. residents celebrated Halloween in 2012, and that these people spent almost $80 each on decorations, costumes and candy. In all, spending last year on the holiday came in at about $8 billion.
