Pittsburgh, PA — ScareHouse came back in October 2026 after two seasons dark, without a haunted house. With The Plaza at North Shore, it ran Halloween Hangout, a month-long takeover of the outdoor venue across from PNC Park, October 1 through 31, in year one of a multi-year partnership, and year one had no mazes and no traditional haunted attraction of any kind. The Plaza’s site listed free Halloween movies and two ticketed closing nights, Devil’s Night on Friday, October 30, and The Final Hangout on Saturday, October 31, both 6 to 10 p.m.
Creative Director Scott Simmons told HAN by email in July that leaving out the mazes was deliberate.
“Year one doesn’t offer any traditional haunted attractions or mazes, but it will include plenty of thematic environments, original characters, and new experiences. The hope is that we can grow and expand this into something increasingly elaborate in future seasons.”
What Halloween Hangout Was
The Plaza sits at 151 Mazeroski Way on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, an outdoor venue open all year in the middle of the city’s stadium district. The July announcement said ScareHouse would program it for the full month with a mix of free and ticketed events:
- Movie nights running from The Rocky Horror Picture Show to Hocus Pocus to Halloween
- ScareHouse Haunt Nights, described as more frightful and intense, aimed at older audiences seeking thrills
- Community trick-or-treat and a charity pumpkin patch for families
- “Terror Tailgate” parties before and after home football games on the North Shore
- Haunted Happy Hours
- Themed food and drink from SugarBird, the restaurant at The Plaza
Between events, the plan was for décor, roaming characters, and installations to stay up whether or not something was scheduled.
“This month-long celebration is not a traditional haunted attraction but something new and unlike anything ever seen in Pittsburgh,” Simmons said in the announcement. “The same talented team of Pittsburgh-based artists, designers and performers who generated national attention with ScareHouse are thrilled to now partner with The Plaza at North Shore to present Halloween Hangout, a multi-event and multi-year celebration of haunt season in the heart of the north shore. We’re able to customize experiences so that every time you visit this October it will be something new and surprising.”
The partner was Legacy Hospitality Partners, which operates The Plaza, and its president and CEO, Herky Pollock, pointed to repeat visits.
“Besides partnering with the creators of ScareHouse, what excites me most about Halloween Hangout is that it will be a living, evolving experience throughout the entire season. No two visits will ever be the same. Even on days without a headline event, guests will find incredible Halloween décor, immersive entertainment, roaming characters, and an atmosphere that captures the magic of the season.”
Chef Ed Smith, Legacy’s Partner and VP of Culinary, was named to run the food program with Amanda Smith, Partner and Director of Fine Dining Operations, with cocktails and mocktails built to match the décor.
Where ScareHouse Has Been
ScareHouse has had coverage from Good Morning America, CBS News, ABC News, Travel Channel, The Daily Show, and BuzzFeed for its cinematic scenic design and actor performance.
HAN covered the 2019 hiatus, when ScareHouse moved out of its longtime home and ran only a remodeled version of The Basement plus an escape room, Stalked by a Killer, out of an industrial space Simmons called “The Scream District” on Penn Avenue. At the time he told me the move forced a reset.
“We realized we had to move out and reboot a lot of what we were doing. In doing that, it became immediately obvious that we couldn’t take everything down, pack it up, move it, and deliver the same high-quality show all in one year.”
In 2022 ScareHouse landed at the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills in Tarentum, adding an escape room and a pinball arcade to the main haunt, and Simmons talked about the mall setting.
“Sure, it’s kind of weird to visit a haunted house in a shopping mall, but this place has so much room for all our creepy activities.”
ScareHouse moved out of the mall in 2024 and has been on hiatus since. On November 5, 2026, its website said both the haunted house and The Basement remain on hiatus.
The 2023 season at the mall was the last time the traditional haunt operated, and it was the last time I interviewed Simmons on the record before the 2026 announcement.
What Simmons Said in 2023
I recorded that 2023 conversation on location at Pittsburgh Mills for Hauntathon. Asked where the format was headed, Simmons said the era of the very long, very intense, hardcore haunted house was fading fast, and that audiences were increasingly after a total package and something they felt an emotional connection to rather than a maximum-intensity walkthrough.
He also described deliberately abandoning conga-line design, saying the math worked out just as well at much lower hourly throughput, and trading big animations for better actors and quieter moments. He talked about dance parties, weird programming, and a giant Taylor Swift skeleton out front, and about being mildly rebellious toward the old-school view that a haunt’s only job is to be scary. His stated position was that the purpose of haunted attractions is to entertain.
Asked directly what came next for ScareHouse, he said he didn’t know.
Three years later, the answer was a month of movie nights, tailgates, a pumpkin patch, and themed cocktails, with the mazes deferred.
Other Haunts That Moved Toward Festivals
Halloween Nights at Eastern State Penitentiary, also in Pennsylvania, retired Terror Behind the Walls after 29 years of linear walkthrough haunt for a festival-style event with themed bars, a speakeasy, a vampire lounge, a dance troupe, food vendors, and fire pits. Director Erin Davis told me people kept telling her they couldn’t come because it was too scary, and now there is something for everyone.
In 2022, Cedar Fair ended Halloween Haunt at California’s Great America and ValleyScare and replaced them with no-maze fall festival programming. (ValleyScare has since returned, and in 2026 it was a separately ticketed event with all five mazes included.) The Haunted Attraction Association‘s 2025 State of the Industry seminar pointed to value-based attractions where guests can spend a whole evening on site as a way to raise the perceived worth of a ticket.
Halloween Hangout ran in another company’s entertainment district, with the hospitality operator supplying the site, the kitchen, and the bar, and ScareHouse supplying the creative, so ScareHouse did not own or lease a haunt building for it. A building crisis is what drove Nightmare Realm out of Ireland after 16 years.
Needs More Fog
The July announcement also said the ScareHouse creative team had launched Needs More Fog, a Pittsburgh experiential design and production company led by Simmons.
Its stated scope covers haunted attractions, escape rooms, themed entertainment, dark rides, immersive experiences, branded content, and social campaigns. The company says it has collaborated with Universal Studios, Legendary Pictures, Weta Workshop, museums, and attractions.
Halloween Hangout was the studio’s first public project under the new structure.
What Comes Next
The Basement has not operated since 2019, and ScareHouse lists it as on hiatus. Simmons said the hope is to grow Halloween Hangout in future seasons, without committing to a year for mazes, and I add ScareHouse’s 2027 plans here when it announces them. More on the creative studio is at needsmorefog.com.
Update, July 2026: Mars’s 2026 consumer survey found 57% of US adults believe Halloween is a full season rather than one day, My full read.
More HAN coverage
- Inside Halloween Nights 2025 at Eastern State Penitentiary
- Two Theme Parks Transition Away From Scary for Halloween
- How Haunted Attractions Are Breaking Free from Halloween Season
- ScareHouse Moves to the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills
- ScareHouse Opens 2 New Experiences in Pittsburgh for 2019 Halloween
- When Haunted Houses Open
Simmons’s comments on year one were made to HAN by email. Remaining quotes are from the July 14, 2026 announcement. My 2023 on-location conversation with Simmons is available as a podcast episode. Last updated: November 5, 2026.
