Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group is one of the preeminent creators and operators of Halloween haunt events nationwide. They have a particular focus on Southern California with events like LA Haunted Hayride, Delusion, Magic of the Jack O’Lanterns, and Dark Harbor. All of these events were featured during their Midsummer Scream panels on Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday panel was really focused on reintroducing fans to what Dark Harbor at the Queen Mary is all about, while the Sunday panel focused on the rest of Thirteenth Floor’s offerings. Here are some of the highlights.
To kick off the panel, they stated that two of the most popular characters in Dark Harbor’s history are returning: Graceful Gale and The Captain. They’re also restoring an old carousel with new lights, horses, and a new theme featuring Scary Mary. Another character returning for 2024’s edition of Dark Harbor is The Ringmaster. Her maze is Big Top Terror, with a dark twist on the circus theme that isn’t just red, white, and clowns.
Fans of the speakeasy secret bars at Dark Harbors past are also coming back with better ways to obtain the speakeasy tokens. You can purchase them to get access to the secret bars throughout the event. There’ll be four secret bars across mazes, the ship, and elsewhere.
Lullaby and Scary Mary are coming back for 2024 as one of the three mazes on the ship proper. This maze takes guests on a path around the ship’s pool and will feature scare actors reaching out from the depths. The final maze they announced takes place off the ship and is called Breakout. It continues the storyline of Samuel the Savage from the B3 40 room.
Food options are plentiful at Dark Harbor, with old favorites like El Diablo Tacos coming back. The streets of Dark Harbor will feature chainsaws, stilt walkers, sliders, and fire slingers. Finally, for the solo Dark Harbor panel, they announced the new maze Infirmary featuring the all-new character Dr. Edwin Masters. It takes place on THREE decks of the Queen Mary.
Thirteenth Floor Takes On Sunday At Midsummer Scream With The Rest Of Their Portfolio
Thirteenth Floor started off their presentation on Sunday with Delusion. The interactive horror theater is one of the best Halloween/horror experiences you can go to. This year they’re revisiting the Blood Rite story with Delusion: The Red Castle. The storyline follows a man who’s lost his wife and raises the question of how far one would go to bring back a loved one. As for the venue, they’re moving to the Stimpson House in Los Angeles. The story is set in the ’40s/’50s at a private research institute. To close out this section of the presentation, Creative Director and Creator of Delusion, Jon Braver, suggested that guests watch Shutter Island to prepare for the event.
Magic of the Jack O’Lanterns was next on the docket, with some new additions like more pumpkins, an updated s’mores experience, and what they were touting as the coolest part of the event, the entire suite of pumpkins in the park are synchronized to music. Every single pumpkin has two modes. One is an ambient mode, pretty, lit-up, magic-ish. The second mode happens every half-hour; all the lights in the park go out and then come back up, playing synchronized music.
Following that, Dark Harbor at the Queen Mary came for one last announcement. Previously, a bunch of the mazes that were on the Queen Mary, were left on the ship. However, when the ship was closed, they were taken off and lost or destroyed. Only one maze remained, which was for The Cook. The newest maze is titled Feast, which follows the beginnings of The Butcher, who later turned into the Cook.
The last bit for Thirteenth Floor was about LA Haunted Hayride. The event has been going since 2009 and got the largest deal in the history of the show Shark Tank in 2013. They didn’t waste any time talking about updates to the existing houses like Trick or Treat and Midnight Mortuary. Trick or Treat has had 80% of it changed and the doorbells have been added back to the houses for guests to actually trick or treat. The biggest announcement for the Hayride was a collaboration with actress/singer Janelle Monae on a house called Monae Manor.
Other than the houses, the Hayride itself has seen some updates and they’ve added even more to do in Midnight Falls like mini-escape rooms, drink stalls, and an actually rideable carousel. The final addition was a new theater experience called Madame Aurora’s Seance Theater.
Overall, Thirteenth Floor had an exceptional presence at Midsummer Scream with all of their various properties. The return of Dark Harbor is a huge boon for the company. All of their other haunts like Delusion and Haunted Hayride feel like they’re getting meaningful updates.
You can check out more from Thirteenth Floor at their website.
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