Frightening fun: A look at what it takes to run a successful Halloween attraction
-
- Owner Robert Ethington poses for a photo at a display in the Graveyard waiting area at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- A tower sits at the Graveyard waiting area at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- Visitors prepare to enter main attraction at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- Photo scenes and concessions await visitors at Graveyard waiting area at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- Visitors take photos at a display in the Graveyard waiting area at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- A spooky display sits waiting for visitors to take photos at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- Flame pillars greet visitors at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- Visitors prepare to enter the Blind Terror sensory attraction at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- Visitors gather around a fire in the Graveyard waiting area at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- A sign, decorative pumpkins and skull sit at the exit at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- Visitors take photos at a display in the Graveyard waiting area at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- Visitors prepare to enter main attraction at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
-
- Visitors take photos at a display in the Graveyard waiting area at the Haunted Forest in American Fork on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
For many Utahns, it’s an October tradition.
Get some tickets, get bundled up, gather family or friends, head to a local Halloween attraction, then enjoy the thrills and adrenaline of the spooky sounds, flashing lights, startling appearances and creepy characters like ghosts, skeletons, jack-o-lanterns, zombies, witches and vampires.
While it may just be an hour or two of fun for visitors, it’s nearly a constant process for those whose job is making such attractions run smoothly.
One of those is Rob Ethington, who owns and runs the Haunted Forest in American Fork, and also owns the Haunted Hollow in West Haven.
“The part that is pretty difficult to understand unless you’re actually in this business is that the days of just putting on a like a mom-and-pop show where you throw a mask on and go out in the woods, those are long gone,” Ethington said earlier this week. “The customers now, because of technology, they expect way more.”
Ethington has seen the evolution of Halloween attractions, from when he decided to put together a simple production up South Fork in Provo Canyon in the early 1990s to the modern-day usage of technology to really get things moving.
“We have a lot of robotics now that can do things that people just can’t do,” he said. “There are a lot of different illusions and things that are fun to look at.”
As he glanced around at the property, Ethington admitted that the production “isn’t something we start thinking about the month before.”
He recalled how when he first started, all he did was built robotics and that one of the classes in his civil engineering program at BYU came in much more useful than he ever thought it would.
It still takes from two weeks to a month to build some of the robotic elements, Ethington said, but he and general manager Trent Bezzant still do almost all of the work themselves.
“The first robotic I built was a 17-foot Grim Reaper,” Ethington said. “It’s come a long ways. Now it’s all computer-driven, just like Disneyland, but it can take 2-3 weeks to do the programming.”
In addition to the sets and mechanics, Ethington said the Haunted Forest grows its own corn to have the dried cornstalks and its own pumpkins to make the experience even more authentic.
Once all the preparations are done and it’s time to start welcoming customers, it takes large numbers of people to keep the attraction running smoothly. Ethington estimates that the Haunted Forest has 60-70 people working on weekdays and 90-100 on weekends.
“Ours is so big that we have to have a lot of people to make it work,” Ethington said.
The attraction has extensive regulations and directions to keep both the employees and the visitors safe, but Ethington said it’s rare to have any problems.
“We may one person out of every 400 or 500 who causes trouble,” he said. “Even fewer than that are the individuals who we have to really deal with. This entire year we’ve had maybe one person who we had to escort out because they were picking on the characters. The majority of the people who come through are just here to enjoy it.”
But the payoff comes when he gets to see everyone having a great time as they walk past the haunted elements.
“To see people coming out with big smiles on their faces, or shrieking when they see one of the characters or robotics, it’s just the best feeling,” Ethington said.
He said those moments are the elements that keeps him coming back year after year.
“That’s one of the things that I enjoy most about this business,” Ethington said. “Some people think about retiring around my age but I don’t think I’m ever going to retire, as long as I can run around and do this. I think it’s fun.”
The only time he thought about calling it quits was when he had to decide what to do when he wasn’t able to renew the lease the Haunted Forest had been at for a couple of decades.
“My heart kind of sunk,” Ethington said. “That’s the problem with leasing. It’s hard to find a patch of trees in Utah Valley to do what we were doing but we ended up getting this land annexed and buying it (where the attraction is now, near Utah Lake). That was 12 years ago and it’s been great.”
He explained that he wants everyone who comes to one of the biggest Halloween attractions in the country to feel like they got their money’s worth.
“The majority of people love it,” Ethington said. ”
The Haunted Forest will have availability for the next two weeks but the show comes to an end on Nov. 8, Ethington said they following days will be spent taking everything down. Then they take some time off from Thanksgiving until early January.
“Then we start all over again,” he said.
His message to anyone considering a visit to a haunted attraction like Haunted Forest or Haunted Hollow or the others is to give it a chance.
“We have worked our guts out and we want them to come an experience an outdoor haunt that is unique,” Ethington said. “It’s a great show and we would love to have everyone come experience it.”
