Busch Gardens Tampa to Scare Up a Modified Version of Howl-O-Scream this Fall

© Busch Gardens

Busch Gardens Tampa has announced that they will hold their annual Halloween event, Howl-O-Scream, this year running the event on certain nights from September 25th to November 1st.  The park is making it quite clear up front that this year's event will be a "modified production" and "will be unlike any other, including significantly enhanced safety and health measures at the core of the event."

 

Many parks have already cancelled their annual Halloween events in light of COVID-19 concerns, and Busch Gardens Tampa is stressing that their event will be safe and respect all current health and safety guidelines.

The event will feature only "open-air scare zones," no haunted houses, along with entertainment all with strictly limited capacity and reservations required.  Howl-O-Scream will run 18 nights this year, still as a separately ticked event, each Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 

© Busch Gardens Tampa

The park is only advertising the popular Fiends show right now and has no details up on scare zones.  The Fiends show will be moved to the expansive outdoor Festival Field Stage, with socially distanced seating for guests.

Browsing the frequently asked questions page, we can also see that the park plans to only offer "physically distant" scares this year, so no ghouls will be in your face.  Busch Gardens Tampa will also have employees making sure that face mask wearing is taking place properly.  As for the scare actors, they will indeed be wearing face coverings.

This is the first large theme park Halloween event we've seen moving forward so far, though it appears that the Six Flags parks that are operating will be holding some version of their event.