How a “creative” trend led a popular Utah haunted house to mix Halloween and Christmas

SALT LAKE CITY — You don’t have to be Jack Skellington to enjoy Christmas on Halloween this year, at least at one of Utah’s most popular haunted house attractions.

Fear Factory, 666 W. 800 South in Salt Lake City, is known for its spooky history, but its owners plan to infuse the building’s nightmarish scene with a cup of holiday cheer over the last two weekends. Yes, customers who come for a Halloween spooky on Friday or Saturday will also have the opportunity to experience the new Christmas Town section.

“It’s something (people) can do before they enter the haunted house or as they come and go,” said Rob Dunfield, co-owner and chief operating officer of Fear Factory. “I think it will be a hit. I think people will like it.”

It’s the first time the haunted attraction has combined Halloween and Christmas since it began scaring people out of the old Portland Cement Works building in 2011. A similar setup will be available November 1-2 as many people shift their attention from Halloween to Christmas.

The idea arose not from the expansion of the holiday season or from works like The Nightmare Before Christmas, but from a peculiar trend that Dunfield observed among his company’s loyal customers.

Fear Factory has long set up interactive stations where visitors can take photos or selfies with characters or in front of the grimy, haunting scenario. The goal was to give people the perfect Halloween social media post, but he saw more and more customers using their photos in other ways.

“We saw some people taking their photos … and using them in their Christmas cards,” he told KSL.com on Tuesday. “We thought that was kind of interesting and very creative for some of our horror fans, so we thought we would take it a step further this year.”

The team at Fear Factory began finding ways to create an experience that would tie together the usually contrasting holidays. They created a winter wonderland in the old factory filled with nearly a dozen Christmas trees, aluminum foil, candy canes, snowmen, special effects and fake snow. The whole scene is crowned with a large chair and Santa Claus.

Of course, it’s still a haunted house, so there will be some spooky elements, including roaming characters like Krampus and the factory “caretaker” Karl Mossman interacting with people.

It’s still unclear whether this will be a one-time event or a new tradition for the haunted house, which has been hailed as one of the country’s top Halloween attractions by media outlets such as Buzzfeed, USA Today and Travel Channel. Dunfield said he will see how it goes before making future decisions, including the possibility of extending operating hours into the holiday season.

“We played with ideas,” he said. “The difficulty here in Salt Lake is that it just gets so darn cold and a lot of our business is outside and in the buildings that aren’t heated, but with the future you never know.”

But for now, people who used their Halloween photos for Christmas cards have a new option.

General admission tickets start at $30 on weekdays and $37 on weekends. The November offering coincides with Fear Factory’s annual “Blackout Blowout,” where the lights are turned off and customers are given a tiny finger light to guide them through the building.

The company will also provide its Zombie Shuttle Bus, which will allow people to park at the Gateway and ride the bus for free.