Haunted Attraction Industry Goes Big At IAAPA 2015

Every November, more than 28,000 attraction industry leaders, decision makers, and visionaries, make their way to Orlando for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Expo, also known as IAAPA. This Expo is the premier conference and trade show for the $39.5 billion global amusement park and attractions industry.

The IAAPA Attractions Expo is the global marketplace for the attractions industry and a must-attend event for industry buyers and decision makers looking for what’s new, now, and next to drive their business,” said IAAPA President and CEO Paul Noland. “The trade show floor is massive. In fact, you’ll walk more than nine miles of aisles if you want to see all of the great, business-changing innovations featured at this year’s Expo.”

These professionals all get together to view the latest innovations, learn from each other, network, and plan for the future.

Although the show is geared primarily towards amusement parks, theme parks, and fun centers, over the last few years there has been a heavy influx of support and innovative products at the show for the haunted attraction industry.

This influx is not only from dark ride manufactures, but also haunt lighting companies, haunted house designers, and even escape games. Over the course of four days, we traveled the nine miles of show floor space seeing what new and innovative products the folks from the haunted attraction industry had to offer.

One of the biggest haunt inspired booths at the show was the gigantic church / mausoleum that played home to Gantom Lighting and Controls.

When it comes to LED lighting, Gantom, (formerly known as darklight) is a household name in the theme park, museum, and haunted attraction industries. Gantom is an award winning manufacturer of ultra-compact specialty LED lighting and controls serving themed entertainment, theatre, haunted attractions, museums and architectural markets. The general public may not all be aware of who lights some of the amazing attractions, museums, and dark rides they are enjoying, but Gantom lighting & controls are the lighting geniuses behind many favorites.

This year the guys at Gantom collaborated with the 13th Floor Entertainment Group (who design and build world class haunted attractions) to build a world class tradeshow booth. The booth was built to demonstrate Gantom’s interactive flashlight called the Gantom Torch. Watch the video below as we take a walk around their haunted masterpiece.

Gantom / 13th Floor Entertainment Group

Gantom has won numerous awards since their inception including multiple awards from the Haunted Attraction Association, the PLASA member’s choice award at LDI 2013 and they were also a Brass Ring award winner in 2011 at IAAPA for “Best new Product”. In 2015 they won the TEA award (themed entertainment award) for their Gantom Torch Technology.

Gantom wasn’t the only booth at IAAPA that went big. Other companies such as Pale Night Productions, ScareFactory, Halloween Productions, Hauntrepreneurs, and even the Sally Corporation all brought amazing booths to the show!

Halloween Productions & Blacklight Attractions built an awesome zombie inspired medical lab that doubled as a haunted house walk-through. This attraction showed off some of the products and design work that the company offers. Watch the video as we take a walk through their booth / attraction.

Halloween Productions

Pale Night Productions, who also offer products and haunted attraction design services, also displayed an impressive booth. Pale Night not only builds high end video animation products, but also designs and builds complete walk-through attractions. And this year, they even offered complete escape game attractions! Check out their booth!

Pale Night Productions

Another well known company offering props and services to the haunt and attraction industry is ScareFactory. You almost can’t walk through a haunted attraction without passing a prop or product from ScareFactory in this day and age. They brought a big line-up of props and products to the show complete with a re-designed shooting gallery.

ScareFactory

If you were looking for haunted attraction consulting, Leonard Pickel was on the floor offering his services via Hauntrepreneurs.

All of these haunt vendors offered very impressive displays, but Sally Corporation stole the show for zombie nerds with their debut of the Walking Dead Dark Ride. We talked with the Sally reps at the show, and they confirmed that no one had purchased the ride yet. The new ride called “The Walking Dead: Battle for Survival“, features many of the AMC licensed zombies and sets from the hit TV show.

Sally Corp

There’s also another exhibitor that debuted something epic at IAAPA. Although this company isn’t a Halloween or haunt vendor, it is very haunt inspired. The Gravity Group debuted a new coaster car for their new roller coaster called TIMBER.

This new coaster has nothing to do with haunted attractions, but we think everyone will agree it’s very haunt inspired. Don’t be confused with the car being called SAW7. That’s a reference to cutting down trees aka timber, not the crazed Jigsaw killer…

Gravity Group Timber Car Debut

IAAPA continues to be the biggest and most important show in the amusement industry, but the haunt industry and their interactive escape games are slowly gaining some steam as being premier exhibitors at the show.

Stay tuned as we post even more articles and videos from IAAPA 2015!

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