Spring looks a little different this year in Athens, with the first week of April bringing blossoming flowers, chirping birds and ghastly ghouls. Horror fans and appreciators of the odd and eclectic can rejoice that HauntFest has returned with an “April Ghouls” installation of its off-season Halloween-themed festivities and year-round spooky season spirit.
After a successful debut of HauntFest Mayhem last May, founder and CEO Roseann Harpold has expanded the festival to two days this year, Apr. 6–7, utilizing Southern Brewing Co.’s expansive space to include more attractions, vendors and fun oriented for all ages. Feedback from last year’s attendees suggested catering more to children, so each day of HauntFest, from 5–6 p.m. on Saturday and 4–6 p.m. on Sunday, will begin with a “family hour.” The haunters will be safely locked away until their release at 6 p.m., so children can freely enjoy trick-or-treating, pumpkin painting and browsing the section of kid-friendly vendors.
The full slate of entertainment includes snake encounters with the Georgia Reptile Society, a kitten meet-and-greet with Circle of Friends Animal Society (to calm your nerves), horror art and oddity vendors, ghost stories around the fire led by local authors, freak shows for ages 18 and up, a weight-lifting blacksmith doing live demonstrations, Harpold Manor s’mores by the fire, body art and classes, old-fashioned hayrides, a haunted car show, Terror Trivia on Saturday and a separately ticketed haunted trail that begins at 9 p.m. each evening.
“I wanted to expand it to a full weekend because… I thought that was the big step that I needed to take to make it bigger. But I’m realizing that’s not necessarily true because there’s a lot more things that I’m doing that are different that are making it bigger,” says Harpold. “That’s why a lot of the activities were added, because I want it to be like a party, you know, where you want to stay and hang out and just meet people and chat.”
Live music is another component of HauntFest that is close to Harpold’s heart, and the weekend will showcase a total of 15 bands setting the vibe from open to close during the festival. Saturday’s lineup includes Karma Kat (5:10 p.m.), Beat Up (6 p.m.), Tattoo Logic (6:55 p.m.), Nix the Scientist (7:50 p.m.), The While (8:45 p.m.), Florence Cardigan (9:40 p.m.), House Guests (10:35 p.m.) and First Jason (11:30 p.m.). Punk rock and metal band First Jason is led by none other than Ari Lehman, known as the actor who played the first Jason Voorhees as a child in the original Friday the 13th horror film. Lehman will be hanging out both days offering autographs, pictures and other merch. Sunday’s lineup will pick up with The Young Frankensteins (4 p.m.), Jacket (5 p.m.), Hypersleep (6 p.m.), Swear Jar (7 p.m.), Parking Garage (8 p.m.), Second Nature (9 p.m.) and Roomate (10 p.m.).
Speaking with Harpold about all the pieces of HauntFest that have come together, she says that several of them, like Cyanide Suspension hosting the freak shows and the farmer running the hayride, “fell into my lap.” Lehman’s presence at the festival this year is another such instance. Harpold and her business partner, HauntFest COO and music coordinator Abigail Sullivan, had been reaching out to celebrities in the horror world to add an extra draw to the festival. However most were either located too far away or out of budget. Then, Lehman’s wife cold-called Harpold’s cell.
“I said, ‘Did we reach out to you?’ She said, ‘No, I just found you.’ I was like, ‘What?’ But apparently he’s just super into supporting community events; he hates corporate entities. And so he was like, ‘I needed to find something that the little guy was starting, and I wanted to be a part of it,’” says Harpold.
The “little guys” behind the festival are Harpold, Sullivan and HauntFest CFO Erik Gou, who handles the Excel spreadsheets according to the festival website. However Harpold also highly praises the help they’ve received from, in addition to the large volunteer pool, her family. In particular the haunted trail means a lot to Harpold because her father has been building it.
“He’s what got me into this in the beginning,” says Harpold. “My dad raised me in a haunted house. Every year we threw one for the community in our home, and so it was my favorite thing to go out in costume and scare. I love doing that.”
HauntFest was sparked from a dream to own a haunted theme park, and at the beginning of last year Harpold took that inspiration as a UGA junior studying biology and psychology to the Terry College of Business’ Idea Accelerator Program. Harpold says she’s always had a creative mind and loved art but never knew what to do with it, and the education path into the medical field that her parents steered her toward wasn’t something she was passionate about, so she decided to join the entrepreneurship program. In the accelerator program, she was challenged to test the theme park idea by seeing if there was widespread interest in a year-round Halloween attraction. Harpold says the program was one of the hardest months of her life, with only about a quarter of the students finishing it as a testament to the grueling process. But it pushed her to finish a lot of the work required quickly, and with four months to plan it, Harpold launched HauntFest that May to test public interest.
Leading up to this year’s event, the HauntFest team has organized a plethora of auxiliary events to improve outreach and help foster the local community of horror fans. HauntFest pop-ups, horror trivia nights and flash dance mobs over the past couple of months have been fun marketing tactics to draw interest in the festival, but Harpold sees value in continuing one specific event after the hard work of April Ghouls is over. On Tuesday evening at Southern Brewing Co., HauntFest has been hosting a weekly Horror Enthusiasts Meet-and-Greet that invites the community for a casual evening of games and getting to know each other. Harpold says that the people she’s been able to meet through these events are “all-in” when it comes to their common interests.
With graduation in sight for Harpold in December, she’s eager to move on to producing HauntFest full-time. Ultimately, the goal is to continue an annual festival in Athens and travel with the event similarly to how fairs operate, moving from state to state with her attractions. Harpold has booked a venue to host HauntFest in South Carolina this December, working with someone who already has a haunted attraction who would run their haunt with the addition of Harpold setting up live music, vendors, entertainers, etc.
From the beginning of planning and executing HauntFest, Harpold says the thing that has surprised her the most is the passion that everyone involved has for creating this experience. The volunteer scare actors will drive hours just to meet and discuss the project, says Harpold, and a lot of vendors and other people involved would do anything to support the success of the festival.
“I have a lot right now that are helping me on the sidelines, and I’m just like, you don’t even know me. This is so cool that you’re willing to do all this and reach out to these newspapers and talk to all the people. So, I don’t know, it just puts my faith back into humans,” says Harpold.
For more details about individual vendors, entertainers and activities or to purchase tickets, visit hauntfest.us.
WHAT: HauntFest
WHEN: Apr. 6, 5 p.m.–12 a.m. Apr. 7, 4–11 p.m.
WHERE: Southern Brewing Co.
HOW MUCH: $15/day or $25/weekend (adv.), $20 (door)
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