Six Flags Great Adventure delays full Fright Fest for "unforeseen circumstances"

I was told they are having permitting problems. Not sure how they skirt that with calling it a "preview" but I have seen weirder things when it comes to permits.

I believe the issue is "some of our haunted mazes" implying that a number of them are not available.

According to local news the past two weekends they only had two houses…

Which I can only imagine the lines for, not that I would pay to go to Fright Fest…

I have to wonder if, like many other issues, this may be driven by staffing issues. Haunted houses require a lot of staff to run properly.

But they will open in 2026! Welcome to your new Cedar Flags Entertainment Corporation!

Not one to pay too much attention to the details of this particular park since our misadventures back in 2006.

How does their Halloween event typically compare to Cedar Point's and Kings Island?

I've always thought of Great Adventure as a "flagship park" (pun intended) of that chain, when it was its own chain.

If Great Adventure could support a Fright Fest, it would already have one.

Further clarification... The permitting problem is for some of the temporary structures (haunted houses). So to not advertise a full event and not be able to provide everything, they labeled it a "preview" and only offered what they were able to. Unsure on what the problem is that is keeping some areas from getting the permit needed to open.

If memory serves, this was the park that had a fire in a haunted house several decades ago that killed patrons. I'm sure inspections today are rooted in that sobering past.

Six Flags Great adventure haunted houses or Rip Ride Rocket??

I've always thought of Great Adventure as a "flagship park" (pun intended) of that chain, when it was its own chain.

Well this was supposed to be the big year of the addition of IP houses like HHN (Stranger Things, Saw, a few others) and GrAdv being one of the Flagships was supposed to get the full roster like Magic Mountain (Which opened on time and are getting ok reviews). Of course in LA you have HHN and Knott’s, and Disneys ever bigger but softer stuff.

Here you obv also have Hershey and Dorney, the Prison in Philly, and I know most people prefer all the above to previous SF Fright Fest. I just find it funny under CF GrAdv still can’t catch a break.

Fun:

If memory serves, this was the park that had a fire in a haunted house several decades ago that killed patrons. I'm sure inspections today are rooted in that sobering past.

Was reading an article about that not too long ago and that fire totally changed how the state regulated those attractions. New Jersey had several of these really elaborate haunted walk through structures on some of the pier parks. The regulations required structure and and sprinkler changes that were too expensive for most of the operators and sort of ended that.

When we got cable tv in the late 70s remember commercials for these would be played on the New York stations during after school cartoons. They were really scary, especially the one for Long Branch Haunted Mansion and definitely messed up some gen x trying to watch Woody Woodpecker. They're on youtube if you're curious.