It is a dark, moonlit night. You’re walking with your lover snuggled in close and suddenly the two of you are surrounded by zombies! You break away and head towards an area of light, and stumble upon four “houses” circling a green space. One seems to be something out of an alien invasion, another just looks plain creepy. Hearing a chainsaw behind you, you are forced to choose between wandering through the dark or going into what appears to be a circus. You choose the circus because clowns can’t hurt you, right?
Wrong. Welcome to Screamfest!
“We provide entertainment, and that comes in the form, for some people, of fear, and for others in watching [others] get scared. We don’t have to make you jump to have a good time,” Screamfest owner Mike Sheppard told GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine.
Screamfest runs from October 17th to November 1st and is a combination of six attractions – four haunted houses, a maze, and the “Fest-evil” tent, which offers carnival games and a second maze. Dubbed “The Bowels of Hell”, admission to the maze costs $2 and all proceeds go to the Crones and Colitis Foundation. The fastest time for the event wins $1000.
“We wanted to involve a charity with the company. My brother has colitis, and his son has crones. Last year we raised $10,000 for the foundation.”
This is the third year that Screamfest has haunted Canada Olympic Park, and the company also runs “Fright Nights” in Vancouver. However, this year almost didn’t happen - a massive warehouse fire in April nearly brought both events to a halt.
“It did a lot of damage, destroyed our building. When it first happened we said, okay, what do we do? We still don’t know what we are going to do for the future of the company, but we had commitments and contracts signed to do events in Calgary and Vancouver. We can’t back out on those. So we decided to do everything we can to worry about this season, and we will worry about the future of the company after that. We don’t know what will happen after this year, but the fire losses were a big hit to our company.”
Sheppard, his family and team, regrouped and focused on rebuilding.
“Luckily none of the haunted houses were burned, they were all trailers stored outside. What we lost was supplies, tools, all of our inventory. We do not make the t-shirts and prizes for the games so we had to buy a lot of it again. We’ve had extra staff on this summer to rebuild, and had to buy extra props to replace stuff.”
Screamfest employs 4 full time staff, year round, which balloons to 250 between the two cities for the actual events. We caught up with Josh Gilmour, who has worked for Screamfest since its inception, and asked what appeals to him about working there.
“I have never been able to be scared when I go to a haunted house, so it is scare or be scared for me. You can’t be nervous or shy to work here. You have to be able to scream and not care that you kind of look like an idiot.”
“Our employees have a love of the game. The majority of our employees are not here for the money. They have other jobs or go to school full time,” added Sheppard. “It is just a fun job and a quick way to make extra money. Over the years people have come back and told us it is their most memorable, favorite job.”
“I am hyperactive, insane, crazy. I will jump off things, I have climbed into parents’ cars because they have unlocked their doors so I can get their kids; made full-grown men run out the front door screaming, to their cars,” recalled Gilmour. “I made one woman fall to the ground and pray. I make people soil themselves, run screaming and peeing at the same time. I have had people faint, you name it and I have scared somebody to the point where they have done pretty much anything.”
So why go to Screamfest?
“[People] should come because it is a once-a-year chance, there is nothing like it. We do everything we can to make it very unique from the actors we hire to props and lighting. The prizes in the carnival games are prizes you will only find at our event, you won’t find them at the Stampede or other fairs. Definitely come early, most people wait until the last three days and end up spending a lot of time in line,” advised Sheppard. Josh Gilmour’s response was remarkably deep.
“People like to be scared. It is as simple as that. People go to horror movies to be scared, they come here because they want to step out of reality. People go to work, or go to school, they go home, do whatever they do. This is a step out of human reality. You come here and there are zombies and insane clowns and morticians and aliens, it is not your life.”
Screamfest
October 17th – November 1st, 2008
Canada Olympic Park
www.screamfest.ca
