Valencia, CA — Fright Fest presented by SNICKERS returns to Six Flags Magic Mountain for its 33rd year on select nights from September 18 through November 1, 2026. The park revealed its full 2026 lineup at its Midsummer Scream panel: seven haunted mazes, seven scare zones, and four shows, led by two new mazes, a Final Destination maze and the werewolf-themed Wolves’ Blood from Knott’s Scary Farm designer Gus Krueger. This guide is the standing reference for the dates, the full lineup, tickets, and policies.
Event details
- Event: Fright Fest 2026 at Six Flags Magic Mountain, 33rd year
- Dates: Select nights, September 18 through November 1, 2026
- Location: 26101 Magic Mountain Parkway, Valencia, CA 91355
- Presenting sponsor: SNICKERS
- Mazes: Require a Haunted Attractions Pass, which is not included with daytime admission
- Age guidance: Not recommended for children 12 and under. A chaperone at least 21 is required for guests 15 and under after 4 p.m.
- Tickets: sixflags.com/magicmountain/events/fright-fest
The 2026 haunted mazes
Seven mazes run in 2026. Two are new, The Conjuring is rebuilt from the ground up, and four return with enhancements.
New for 2026: Final Destination and Wolves’ Blood
The new IP maze, Final Destination: Death’s Playground, drops guests into the film series where, as the park puts it, “death itself is the antagonist.” It takes over the space long held by Condemned, a longtime Fright Fest maze. “Condemned was obviously a staple of our attraction for a long time, and we knew we couldn’t just walk away from that without going big with something else,” said Mike Ostrom, the park’s manager of entertainment. Guests are “chased by Death” through the maze, he said, and he hinted at graphic effects. “Wood chippers are just not fun to look at.” The maze extends the park’s ongoing partnership with Warner Bros.
The second new maze is an original, and it comes from a Knott’s Scary Farm designer. Gus Krueger created Wolves’ Blood as a guest collaborator, a cross-park pairing in the Southern California haunt scene. It takes over the park’s largest warehouse maze space, replacing Truth or Dare.
The story follows a remote town called Daylight’s End, secretly home to werewolves, and an underground werewolf rock band, Wolves’ Blood, playing its first show at the Grand Valdonian Theater. Per the park, guests move from the town’s bus stop through ransacked stores and bar-rooms and past an abandoned cemetery to reach the concert. Krueger built in a record store called Rainbow Records and brought back a bar, Red’s Revenge, from an attraction that stood in the building before Truth or Dare, along with the overhead “jumper” effect fans knew from that maze.
Krueger traced the concept to his own tastes. “Werewolves are cool,” he said, and “I was a metal kid growing up.” He designed the maze himself. “There is certainly a little bit of my flavor in it because I designed the darn thing,” he said. “I am where all of my dumbest ideas get to be brought to reality by skilled people. And wow, what a world,” he said. “Nothing’s better than seeing people enjoy something that started on your computer or on your post-it doodle.”
A Rebuilt Conjuring and Four Returning Mazes
The Conjuring Universe returns, but the team is rebuilding it from the ground up. “We are transforming this maze completely, adding even more of the actual legendary characters from the universe and all new scare tactics,” said Mark Wing, the event’s senior creative supervisor, who added that the year marks “a new era with Fright Fest.” The reworked maze folds in more of the New Line Cinema franchise, including the ferryman, the crooked man, and Annabelle.
Four returning mazes complete the seven. Trick ‘r Treat moves to the former Saw maze location, bringing its Candy Trail nightmare to a new spot.
Carnage presented by M&M’S, the origin story of the event’s evil clown, returns with more fire and effects.
Vault: 666 Unlocked sends guests through a demonic antique shop and its abandoned vault of cursed relics.
Willoughby’s: Resurrected returns to the Willoughby family’s Victorian mansion, descended from the park’s original 1993 maze. To make room for the new builds, the park retired Condemned and Truth or Dare, along with a few other mazes.
Seven Scare Zones Return With Updates
All seven Fright Fest scare zones come back for 2026, each with changes. Devil’s Triangle moves out of the main gate to a darker new location, which opens up a retheme of the park entrance.
City Under Siege, the clown city tied to Carnage, returns with more fire and effects.
Thunderbolt Alley, the 1950s rockabilly zone that debuted last year, gets a facelift and new entertainment.
Nightmares: Reign of Blood, a twisted Wonderland ruled by the Queen of Hearts, adds characters this year.
Underworlds of Oz takes guests through the dark side of the Emerald City, also with more characters.
Plaza de la Muerte stages a Día de los Muertos celebration, and Exile Hill returns at the top of the park with the Willoughby family curse and more cast.
New Shows and a New Opening Icon
Unleashed, the opening scaremony, relocates to the main gate, and Wing unveiled a new event icon for the year, a demonic “portal master” named Kurvatu, who opens the portals into the park’s nightmare worlds each night.
Nytewalkerz is a new-for-2026 show at the Full Throttle Stage, a zombified extreme-sports spectacle of undead dancers, skaters, and trampoline artists staged with All Wheels Sports.
Margo Rita’s Monster Ball, the drag-inspired revue hosted by Margo Rita and her sister Tequila Sunrise, returns bigger and moves to the Gearworks Theater with new music.
Sliders of the Night: Streets of Mayhem, the slide-or-die show, returns revamped.
Daytime and concurrent events
Tricks and Treats, the family daytime event, is expanding for 2026 with a new Looney Tunes show, interactive walkthroughs, crafting stations, and live music. The adult-oriented Oktoberfest also runs on select dates. Both are separate from the after-dark Fright Fest.
How the Six Flags Magic Mountain ticket model works
Six Flags Magic Mountain is the only major Southern California Halloween event that runs its mazes as a paid add-on rather than as part of the main ticket. Regular daytime admission or a season pass covers evening entry, all scare zones, all shows, and rides in the dark. The mazes require a separate Haunted Attractions Pass on top of that. The product structure includes single-day admission, the Haunted Attractions Pass and an Express version for priority maze entry, season-long maze passes for passholders, an admission-plus-maze bundle for non-passholders, and the V.I.SCREAM VIP tour. Six Flags uses date-based dynamic pricing, and 2026 dollar figures are set inside the purchase widget. This guide will note published prices as they appear.
The chaperone policy
Guests 15 and younger must be accompanied by a chaperone at least 21 to enter or remain in the park after 4 p.m. during Fright Fest, through park close. Chaperones must present valid government-issued photo ID with date of birth, are limited to one per 10 minors, and must stay in-park and reachable by phone. The park introduced the policy in 2024 and stepped up enforcement in 2025.
Where Fright Fest fits in the Southern California Halloween market
Fright Fest is the value-and-thrill hybrid of the region’s three major haunts. It is the only one that keeps world-class coasters running in the dark, and the only one that includes scare zones, shows, and rides with regular daytime admission, monetizing the mazes separately. That structure typically undercuts Knott’s Scary Farm and Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood on total cost, while running a smaller maze count (seven in 2026). Geographically, the park is the northernmost of the three, in Valencia in northern Los Angeles County, roughly 35 miles north of the Anaheim and Hollywood cluster, which makes it the natural gateway for guests coming down the I-5 from the north.
More Six Flags Magic Mountain coverage
Franchise coverage: See our Fright Fest 2026 guide to all Six Flags parks for dates and ticket structure across the chain.
This event is part of our Haunted Houses in California 2026 guide.
