Can’t seem to stop talking about Halloween

We all just celebrated Halloween here a couple of months ago in Seattle, and like previous years, it was a FUN time for all, especially the children.  Trick or Treat is an event the children and many adults look forward to each year.   Before this Halloween even ends, the anticipation for next year’s Halloween has already begun.  

Halloween turned into a tremendous success at Ocean Park and I have enough experiences to share in many more articles.  Just cannot seem to stop talking about Halloween.    At the Park, we were confident that an event with ghosts and goblins would be fun and would create a unique selling proposition to drive attendance.   Initially, there were concerns about the main theme being “scares” and there were an abundance of sceptics.   It took some work to convince our Chinese team, especially the most ardent sceptics on the fun element of ghosts and goblins.   Many came to me to say “…we are Chinese, very superstitious,  and we don’t like to talk about ghosts…”  I recall one of my vocal comments at the time was “…don’t worry, they are Gweilo (Western) Ghosts…”

We were delighted to see Halloween being accepted and supported immediately by the team and the community, particularly the younger audience.   With the success that very first year in 2001, we knew that its popularity would only grow with time from strength to strength.  

With the confidence established from that first year planning began for the second year, and the creativity amongst the entertainment team expanded dramatically.

There was some irony in the planning.   While many Chinese did not like to talk about ghosts, there were many, many Chinese ghost stories in Hong Kong.   The enthusiasm about the home-grown ghosts as opposed to western ghosts was tremendous and overpowering.   Everyone agreed that the local Chinese ghosts were much more haunting, scary, and charismatic.    Unanimously, the team decided to put more focus on local stories, legends, and lore because they would be more recognizable.   There was so much material to work with right in our own back yard.   Yes, there was a great deal of horror material at home.  With that decision, Dracula and his cohorts were retired giving way to Chinese ghosts.  The Chinese ghosts even spoke Cantonese.

One such story which was a hit involved a “Bride and Groom.”  Seems something went wrong on that eventful matrimonial night and the departed bride came back from the other side to haunt those who caused her demise.   It was a simple story with a simple theme.    To play the part, the team discovered a talented young lady from a famous theater and dance school in Hong Kong.   She was MAGNIFICENT, yes, that is the word to describe her.   Dressed in a white, flowing gown, and with award winning make-up and lighting, she was exactly the spirit everyone expected.   Her strong talent was her ability to move, slide, glide so smoothly that she created an illusion of movement on a cushion of air.   It appeared that she was floating in air as she moved forward, backward, and side to side.   Her feet seemed never to touch the ground.  She was beautiful, frightening and the star for that second event.   It was easy to fall in love with her and she provided a performance that garnered chills, thrills, and SCREAMS every night. 

For the next 20 years since the bride graced the grounds of Ocean Park, every year brought on new, fresh Haunted attractions based on local stories and legends.  

Imagine that to this day, the legends have not been exhausted and there are so many more stories to contribute to future Halloween events.

Our CEO taught us to “always be relevant to the market you serve,” and this philosophy drove the team during my 15 years.   What could be more relevant to the market than to develop ideas and themes based on  local stories.   Many knew and grew up with the stories being presented and it was uncanny how knowledgeable they were of these legends.   So ironic that while the audience was   supposedly shy of the ghosts, they were so familiar with them.