San Jose, CA — Festival Fright Nights returns to the Winchester Mystery House on select nights from September 18 through November 1, 2026, and the 2026 discount presale is open now. Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group used its Midsummer Scream panel to reveal the season’s biggest change: the event drops last year’s linear, one-way haunt for an open festival format that lets guests explore the estate in any order. For the full story on the reveal, see our report on the 2026 open-festival overhaul.
What is confirmed for 2026
- Dates: Select nights, September 18 through November 1, 2026.
- Location: Winchester Mystery House, 525 South Winchester Boulevard, San Jose.
- Format: An open festival across four zones with 13 attractions and experiences.
- Story: Set in 1926, four years after Sarah Winchester’s death.
- Tickets: Discount presale open now, sold exclusively online.
An open festival, not a linear haunt
The 2026 event abandons the linear, act-by-act route it ran last year. In its place is an open festival: four immersive zones holding 13 attractions and experiences that guests move through in any order to build their own path. Thirteenth Floor has written the stories to connect, so clues, characters, and details cross between attractions and add up to a larger mystery about the evil consuming the estate. The company frames the result as a true festival rather than a single walkthrough, part of a wider industry shift toward explorable Halloween festivals that HAN has tracked from ScareHouse, which returned in 2026 without building a traditional haunted house at all, to Eastern State Penitentiary’s Halloween Nights.
The 2026 story and characters
The season is set in 1926, four years after Sarah Winchester’s death, with something newly awakened at the estate. A new cast has moved in. Sarah’s loyal butler stays behind and tries to keep the house under control; his son, Henry Harker, goes missing during a game of hide-and-seek; Nina Nightshade tends the plants in the greenhouse; and The Collector patrols the darkest corners, dragging a heavy sack behind him.
The 2026 attractions
Main haunted attractions, included with all admission:
- The House of Spirits (new for 2026). With Sarah Winchester gone, her loyal butler stays behind and uses curious ghost traps to fight the spirits overtaking the mansion as the house slips beyond his control.
- The Final Descent (reimagined for 2026). The estate has fallen, and the staff who once cared for it, consumed by the darkness beneath the grounds, now stalk the halls.
- The Root of All Evil. Inside the greenhouse, twisted roots and strange growth reveal an ancient evil that has fed on the estate since before Sarah Winchester arrived.
Additional experiences, which may carry an extra charge depending on admission type:
- The Underhouse. Follow the lantern light as The Collector drags his burden through the shadows, and find your way out of the dark before he claims you.
- Harry Houdini Presents: Do Spirits Exist? A live seance in which the world-famous skeptic challenges the supernatural inside the estate.
- The Seance Society Speakeasy. A hidden bar tucked behind Houdini’s traveling camp, where skeptics, socialites, and spiritualists trade tales of the supernatural after dark.
Thirteenth Floor also announced a new interactive add-on at its panel, Hide and Seek: The Lost Children, which sends guests into the mansion’s long-forgotten attic to search for the missing Henry. The festival zones also add seasonal food and drink, photo ops, and midway games.
Tickets
Festival Fright Nights sells tickets exclusively online, and the 2026 discount presale is open now. Thirteenth Floor has not yet broken out final nightly pricing, nightly hours, or the exact event-night count. This guide will be updated as those details are posted.
The Winchester Mystery House
The venue does much of the work. Sarah Winchester inherited the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune, bought an eight-bedroom farmhouse in 1886, and kept building it for 38 years with no master plan before her death in 1922. The house opened for tours in 1923 and has drawn visitors from around the world since. Its real corridors, basements, and attics give the event a permanent, non-replicable set inside a nationally famous historic property, something few Halloween events can offer and the reason the estate reads as a ready-made haunt.
Event details
- Event: Festival Fright Nights 2026 at Winchester Mystery House
- Location: Winchester Mystery House, 525 South Winchester Boulevard, San Jose, CA 95128
- Dates: Select nights, September 18 through November 1, 2026
- Tickets: Discount presale open now at festivalfrightnights.com
HAN prior Festival Fright Nights coverage
- The Winchester Mystery House’s 2026 haunt drops the linear format for an open festival
- Festival Fright Nights Turns Winchester Mystery House Into a Full-Scale Halloween Event
This event is part of our Haunted Houses in California 2026 guide.
