Europe’s most-awarded Halloween attraction says it was offered “an opportunity abroad” after a four-year search for a permanent Dublin home hit a dead end.
Dublin, Ireland — The Nightmare Realm, the Ireland-based haunted attraction widely described as Europe’s most-awarded, announced on LinkedIn that after 16 years it is leaving Ireland. Owners Karl and Sylvia O’Connor said they had been offered an opportunity abroad and had decided to take it after years of failing to secure a suitable permanent building at home.
“For the last 16 years we’ve faced immense struggles finding suitable buildings to house The Nightmare Realm. It has always been the hardest part of what we do as a business,” the O’Connors wrote. “The hardest part of operating The Nightmare Realm has never been building the event, creating the stories, the monsters, the costumes or the sets. It’s finding somewhere to put it.”
The destination country has not been disclosed. The O’Connors said they intend to return to Ireland if the right opportunity arises.
Update, July 26, 2026: A third case landed two weeks later. An electrical fire destroyed three of the five haunted houses at Field of Horrors in Brunswick, New York. The owner told the Times Union the buildings were uninsured, and plans to rebuild in time for a September opening anyway.
This is the second major independent-haunt closure story of the week, after FrightWorks announced its indefinite closure in East Tennessee following the sale of its building. As I noted in this week’s newsletter, buildings and insurance are the two existential threats for independent haunts. This is a profitable, award-winning attraction with international celebrity guests, a Fanta sponsorship, five newly built mazes each season, and 150-plus live performers. And it still could not secure a permanent Irish home after a four-year effort.
What the O’Connors said
The O’Connors’ post described the venue struggle as the defining challenge of running the business, above every creative and operational difficulty. “People ask us every year, ‘Are you opening this year?’ The truth is that it’s a question we ask ourselves too. Sometimes as late as June we still don’t know if we have a space,” they wrote. “That leaves very little time to bring an event of our size to life, yet somehow we’ve always managed it with the help of our incredible team.”
They said they had spent four years working with Irish stakeholders on a permanent solution. “We explored buildings, sites, long-term solutions and future possibilities. We aren’t really the type to moan about things. We are doers. We get on with things and bring the best we can every day that we can. But the truth is that the infrastructure needed to support an event of our size simply isn’t there right now.”
The O’Connors credited Dublin City Council for its support during their run at the Fruit and Vegetable Market and the Land Development Agency for its support at the Royal Liver Retail Park. They said they had explored proposals to invest their own resources into creating a permanent home for immersive entertainment that would also serve cultural and community use, but that those opportunities were not available.
“We have been offered an opportunity abroad that allows The Nightmare Realm to survive. We didn’t go looking to leave Ireland. We went looking for a way to stay,” they wrote. “If there was a way to continue growing The Nightmare Realm here, we would take it. But after years of fighting the same battle, we have to make the decision that allows the event to continue. We fully intend to return when the right opportunity exists.”
Sixteen years, five venues
The Nightmare Realm launched in 2009 in Tralee, County Kerry, self-financed by Karl O’Connor on a credit card. It later moved to Cork city, where it operated for roughly seven years, including two years running Cork and Dublin simultaneously. According to Sylvia O’Connor’s remarks to the Irish Examiner during the Cork exit, the venue became unavailable and the operators could not find a suitable replacement in the city.
From roughly 2017 the event ran at the RDS in Ballsbridge, Dublin. It moved to the Dublin City Market on Mary’s Lane, the historic Victorian Fruit and Vegetable Market building, for 2022 and 2023 with Dublin City Council support. In 2024 it ran its 15th-anniversary “Village of Fear XV” at the same site before moving to the Royal Liver Retail Park in Inchicore, Dublin 12, for the 2025 season.
The Royal Liver site was always short-term. The Land Development Agency acquired the 3.79-hectare site in January 2025 as part of its land-bank strategy, with plans to deliver over 1,200 cost-rental homes on the property, including an initial phase of at least 465 homes. That redevelopment trajectory made a permanent Nightmare Realm home at the Inchicore site impossible.
An award-winning attraction
By 2025, The Nightmare Realm was running approximately 21 nights each October on a 7,000-square-meter indoor and outdoor site, with five newly built mazes, an expanded HalloweenTown festival village, and more than 150 live performers. The event rebuilds entirely from scratch every year, cramming roughly 11 months of preparation into a three-week build cycle.
The attraction has been recognized at the ScareCON SCAR Awards, the UK-based awards ceremony that judges the European haunt industry, as Best Scream Park in Europe in both 2022 and 2023, and Best Immersive Indoor Scream Park in Europe in 2024. It won Best Costume and Make Up at the 2025 SCAR Awards and remains a repeat nominee in the Best Scream Park Event – Europe category, including a 2026 nomination. It has hosted celebrity guests including Megan Fox, Machine Gun Kelly, the cast of Wednesday, Little Mix, the Beckhams, and Chloe Grace Moretz. Fanta is the event’s sponsor.
The Dublin context
The departure lands amid a widely reported crisis of disappearing cultural and event space in Dublin. The Complex, a Dublin arts centre, was served a notice to quit in December 2025 and permanently closed when its lease expired on January 14, 2026, despite a Save The Complex petition with more than 16,600 signatures and Dáil intervention attempts. Other Dublin closures cited in recent coverage include Jigsaw, Block T, Mambos, the Tivoli Theatre, Hangar, and the Bernard Shaw.
The Nightmare Realm’s exit adds a high-profile commercial data point to a story that has largely centered on grant-dependent arts spaces. This is a profitable, tourism-generating operation. It still could not stay.
What we do not know
As of publication, the destination country has not been disclosed and no arrival venue has been announced. The company’s own website still shows a placeholder 2026 Irish season with a note that the venue address will be updated. Whether a 2026 Nightmare Realm season will run abroad, and on what timeline, has not been confirmed. The O’Connors’ stated intent to return if the right opportunity exists suggests the door remains open.
HAN has reached out to Sylvia O’Connor for comment and will update as details are confirmed.
Disclosure: HAN’s editor produces the OSCARES Halloween Industry Awards and covers the broader European scare-awards ecosystem in which The Nightmare Realm competes.
