While summer fun is top of mind for most right now, staff at Burnaby’s city hall are already looking to Halloween and proposing a plan for a new spooky haunted house event at Warner Loat Park.
Tourism Burnaby hopes for Vancouver’s Empty Chest Events Society to bring their Halloween festival to Burnaby this year.
The event requires exclusive use of a section of land to host 10 temporary tents for the “haunted adventure live-action role-play village,” according to a staff report
City staff have recommended a portion of Warner Loat Park, adjacent to Burnaby Lake and surrounded by business parks, to be used for the festival from Oct. 20 to Nov. 1 this year, stating that it’s not a busy park during that time.
The event, geared for people aged 14 and up, has participants interact with actors in a variety of locations, including a tavern (a beer garden, with proceeds donated to the children’s hospital).
Activities include axe-throwing, escape-room puzzles, and the outing “culminates in a battle with monsters using foam arrows,” according to the staff report.
An estimated 200 people would visit the event each night, in groups of four. The event would conclude each night at 10 p.m.
Event organizers would be expected to pay for portable washrooms.
The Empty Chest Haunted Adventure has run for multiple years in Abbotsford.
The plan needs special approval to extend the hours of the park until 10 p.m. and to allow the beer garden.
The proposal comes after a delegation of city staff, councillors and Tourism Burnaby visited “one of the world’s most famous Halloween festivals” in Northern Ireland, in 2019.
