The setting for Halloween Nights is unparalleled. Eastern State Penitentiary was once the most famous prison in the world, but stands today in ruin, a lost world of crumbling cellblocks and empty guard towers. This gothic structure, with soaring 30-foot-high fortress walls, is intimidating enough during the day. At night, the cellblocks fall into darkness and the penitentiary takes on a different energy.
Photo courtesy of Eastern State Penitentiary
Halloween Nights brings visitors into the penitentiary’s cellblocks, exercise yards, workshops, outdoor courtyards, and hidden nooks. Nearly every inch of the penitentiary complex is activated for the event, which features five haunted houses, live entertainment, and themed bars, as well as night-time historic tours and museum experiences.
Halloween Nights at Eastern State Penitentiary returns for its 2022 season on Friday, 23rd September. The annual event, which runs select nights until 12th November, will feature three new attractions- two haunted houses and an immersive, themed bar. ‘Nightmares’, will bring visitors face-to-face with the creatures that lurk in the shadowy corners of their most unsettling dreams . ‘Big Top Terror’ winds through the grounds of a twisted carnival with menacing characters at every turn. Continuing their carnival-themed adventure, visitors can stop for a drink and light fare at the ‘Bizarre Bar’ where fire dancers, knife throwers, and other acts will be on hand to entertain.
Photo courtesy of Eastern State Penitentiary
Halloween Nights will also bring back the popular option to “opt in” for a more intense experience for the first time since 2019. If they choose, visitors can pick up a glow necklace at the entrance to any haunted house. Anyone wearing a glow necklace may be grabbed, sent into hidden passageways, and even temporarily separated from their group.
Night-time History and Museum Experiences
Within the festival is an area for the historic site’s flagship history and museum experiences. Visitors can take a break from the scares in the Fair Chance Beer Garden, operated in partnership with Triple Bottom Brewing Company. This area includes Eastern State’s award-winning Prisons Today exhibit which covers the the root causes of mass incarceration, and a history highlights audio tour narrated by actor Steve Buscemi that illustrates patterns of incarceration with a dramatic 16-foot-tall bar graph on the prison’s baseball diamond. A guided flashlight tour takes visitors into Eastern State Penitentiary’s historic Cellblock 3, the Hospital Block.
Ticket prices start from $34 and are on sale now at www.HalloweenNights.org
For more information on spooky fun in Philadelphia click here.
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