2019's Haunt (Night)

2019: Creepy Carnival

When my brother and I started Haunted Hill, Inc. in the early 2000s, we made an active effort to avoid clowns and zombies, since those concepts, we felt, have been overdone. In 2017, my office selected a circus motif for its annual decorating competition, which forced me to confront one of the themes. Drawing inspiration from turn-of-the-century travelling shows, I focused more on a carnivalesque scheme rather than a circus. To my surprise, the display worked extremely well and possessed very few clowns. In 2019, the haunt’s venue forced me to once again return to the circus theme. Working from my experiences two years prior, I expanded on the carnival attributes. Interestingly, the haunt almost didn’t happen. Colorado (and much of the nation) experienced a cold front that dumped inches of snow the night before and kept temperatures below 40˚F throughout October 31. Having missed 2018’s Halloween due to my parent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, I was determined to haunt. Thankfully, so was the venue and we spent much of the morning plowing snow before finally erecting the circus tent and all its spooky entrails. Presented here are images of the haunt in all its nocturnal glory.