For Halloween this year, Gov. Phil Scott said Vermonters should expect “some sense of normalcy,” with the understanding that it’s not going to be exactly like last year.
At his press conference Friday, the governor called on Vermonters to celebrate the holiday by using common sense to prevent the spread of the virus — though Scott didn’t call off trick-or-treating.
“We all need to find ways to balance the seriousness of the pandemic with some fun,” said state epidemiologist Patsy Kelso. “And if Halloween is your kind of fun, you can find safe ways to celebrate.”
Kelso urged Vermonters to keep three things in mind this Oct. 31: Keep 6 feet of distance from others, even if that means getting creative with ways to pass out candy; wear a mask, even if it doesn’t match your costume; and be aware of how crowded your destination is, even if it’s outdoors.
“If you’re trick-or-treating and one neighborhood seems too busy, skip it and move on to the next one,” Kelso said. “And as always, if you’re sick, please stay home and just eat the candy you bought. Just don’t tell our nutrition staff.”
But it’s not just trick-or-treaters who are feeling the impacts of the pandemic this Halloween. Across the state, haunted houses, corn mazes and hayrides have been called off to avoid any unnecessary spread of the virus.
Nightmare still available
However, a few key Halloween holdouts have found ways to remain open — though often, that has required some pretty serious adjustments.
At Nightmare Vermont in Essex Junction, director Jana Beagley said the organizers talked about canceling their production, but changed tacks during the summer and decided they could put on a worthwhile show online.
Beagley said once they realized most of their competitors would close, it became clear that people would be looking for this kind of show, even if it couldn’t be in-person.
“With everybody shutting down, that was going to be a disappointment for the community,” Beagley said. “And we’ve always had this identity of scrappy, evil geniuses who make a different show every year, so we were in a unique position to make something that would help people keep Halloween traditions alive.”
Beagley said the organizers were trying to avoid anything that would resemble going through a haunted house with a GoPro. Instead, she said, the show will be all about audience participation, so much so that everyone who registers in advance will get a packet in the mail full of clues and props that they’ll need to participate.
“We realized that a lot of the scares that make a great experience are proximity scares that work only if you’re standing in the actual environment,” she said.
Beagley said usually, Nightmare Vermont has around 4,000 tickets available. This year, it reduced that number to 800. But, Beagley said, since most tickets have been sold in pairs, this year’s price went up from $15 to $30, to try to offset some of that loss.
“Plus, we really want people to engage with the show with other folks,” she said. “We’re firm believers that scary experiences are really better when they’re shared.”
Get lost, but wear a mask
But, not every fall event organizer decided against an in-person form.
The Great Vermont Corn Maze in Danville remained open, though it gave a nod to the world outside by spelling out — in corn — a giant thank-you to the pandemic’s frontline workers.
“And by frontline workers, we mean nurses, doctors, delivery people, the poor people at Home Depot that have to deal with the idiots that don’t wear masks,” said Mike Boudreau, who runs the maze.
Boudreau said if the federal government had taken a strong, early stance for everyone wear masks, the corn maze folks would have known months ahead of time how to safely structure the maze, and wouldn’t have had to spend thousands of dollars on signs to make sure that, even if the government’s messaging on mask-wearing wasn’t effective, their customers were still being safe.
“The pandemic was obviously a problem, but the federal government calling it a hoax was a massive, massive problem for us,” he said.
As for financial implications of the virus, Boudreau said the corn maze was able to sell out for almost the entire season, but because the maze was limited to a third of a normal year’s capacity, it was still a really tough year.
“It totally devastated us financially,” Boudreau said. “But we didn’t want to be the maze with the Covid outbreak.”
Even once they switched from their summer maze to their October “haunt,” Boudreau said many precautions had to be added. No more getting up in people’s faces and screaming. Instead, the scary effect will come from chainsaws and other noisemakers.
Boudreau said this is the first year the maze has ever asked its customers to make reservations ahead of time, and to wear masks when they arrive, but he said that, mostly, the maze was just “so un-busy, it really wasn’t an issue.”
“By design, what we do is social-distanced,” he said. “We have a 24-acre maze; it’s the largest in New England. What we do can be done very safely.”
