Five grand a piece for five nights of fun, frightening people isn’t a bad deal, no matter how you look at it.
After counting the receipts, organizers of Ghost Ridge Haunted House learned they hauled in more than $21,000 after turning their Albion fairground buildings into scary sets.
This year was dubbed Phobiax and focused on phobias people feared, such as spiders, even public speaking. Both had their own scenes that tried to rattle people as they walked through.
“It was awesome,” said coordinator Lorraine Bates. “You see adults, you see men screaming, you say, ‘OK, we did the job.’”
Bates said on the last evening of Ghost Ridge, Oct. 30, attendance took a dip because of the heavy rain. That may have contributed to the spooky ambience, but didn’t encourage people to line up for the show.
This year, volunteers from the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Agricultural Association, Ridge Canoe and Kayak Club, Ghost Ridge Haunted House Committee, and the Bruins ladies rugby league took turns running the show and jumping out and scaring people.
With net returns of more than $21,000, that’s more than $5,000 for each group’s project.
Students from all of Maple Ridge’s high schools also helped.
Fireworks night on Oct. 30 also turned out well.
The Maple Ridge Lions, with the help of Maple Ridge Chrysler, the fire department and the District of Maple Ridge, picked up the costs of the fireworks so people could enjoy the show, with setting off their own explosives now illegal in Maple Ridge and most Metro Vancouver municipalities.
Bates said Ghost Ridge should be in good shape for next year because volunteers are already talking about a new theme.
However, it’s possible next year Ghost Ridge could move to the west side of 105th Avenue in the Albion flats if a land exchange between Smart Centres and the District of Maple Ridge takes place, allowing Smart Centres to acquire a portion of the fairgrounds for mall development.