Haunted house trade to lose the nation’s ‘No. 1′ attraction
A frightful farewell: The 2006 Halloween season will be the last for the Rocky Point facility in South Salt Lake.
Like a network executive pulling the plug on a sitcom at the height of its ratings, Cydney Neil will close Rocky Point Haunted House after its 2006 season.
Neil said Monday the event has reached the end of its natural life, and she couldn’t possibly sell “her baby” to another fright master. She plans to go out with a bang and then give her progeny a proper burial.
The 26th and final season will feature a “Pirates of the Scaribbean” attraction, which replaces a “Lord of the Rings” set, in addition to its mainstay sections. They include a slasher wax museum, Freddy Krueger’s neighborhood and a haunted mansion. The season begins Sept. 1 and closes Halloween night, but Rocky Point will reopen in May for “Scream Break,” a two-week run of the haunted house, and a big funeral.
Neil has run the haunted house, which her brother started in Pleasant View as a neighborhood spook alley, for 20 years. Now at 3400 S. State St. in South Salt Lake, Rocky Point has become one of the most recognized commercial haunts in the nation, with about 55,000 people visiting each year.
“It’s not the No. 5 or the No. 10 event. It’s the No. 1 event. People in this industry know that,” said Scott Broad, editor of Haunted Media DVD Magazine, a trade publication based in California. “We’re going to miss the event . . . at the same time, [Neil] is going out at the top of her game.”
The house features Hollywood-style sets, costumes and makeup and has become a training ground for wannabe scare artists. For the past 10 years, it has been run as a Boys and Girls Club program. About 300 youth participate each year as actors, and the event’s profits, typically $25,000 to $50,000, are donated to the nonprofit group.
“We have benefited greatly from our partnership with Rocky Point Haunted House,” said LeAnn Saldivar, director of the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Salt Lake. “In a way, it seems fitting that if Cydney is done doing this, time is up for the haunted house. It was more than a haunted house, it was a youth development program.”
Greg Andersen, co-owner of Solar Shock Pictures in Ogden, has been involved with Rocky Point for 17 years, first as a teenage actor and later as a sound engineer for the event.
His wife and daughter work in the house’s concession stand during the Halloween season.
“To have [Rocky Point] end is almost like losing a family member,” Andersen said. “I’m sad to hear that, but at the same time I can understand, too. [Neil] has been doing this for 20 years.”
Neil works 18-hour days, seven days a week, six months of the year to keep Rocky Point going. In explaining her decision to close, she said only that her time at the haunted house has been a “calling” that is complete. She senses a new opportunity ahead, but isn’t sure what it is.
“The purpose of Rocky Point Haunted House was to create a place that could nurture a lot of kids who otherwise would not have had a place like it. They’re prepared to go out and create their own valuable lives, hopefully in ways that can benefit others,” Neil said. “I’m just going to cherish every single second I have left here.”
http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_4034957
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 13th, 2006 (Current Mood: 
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