Fright nights stretch longer to ride the vibe

Eunice Lam

Halloween Fest returned to Ocean Park yesterday till October 31 as the theme park extends its opening hours to close at 11pm in support of the government's Night Vibes Hong Kong campaign.

This year's Halloween Fest is themed: "The School of Unending Horror", which features six haunted houses, two more than last year.

But the haunted houses will only be opened between October 13 and 31, on 11 designated dates, October 13 to 15, 20 to 23, 27 to 29, and 31.

The park will also extend the closing time to 11pm on these 11 days.

Ocean Park's chairman Paulo Pong Kin-yee said this year's Halloween Fest has been the largest scale ever since the pandemic and was confident about this year's ticket sales.

He said the park saw a month-on-month double-digit percentage increase in visitor numbers compared from June to last month with those during the same period last year.

"We have six attractions for our visitors, and I think these attractions are absolutely spectacular. We believe we will attract a large number of visitors to come this year," Pong said.

"We find the overseas visitor numbers to be very positive as well. We are experiencing about 80 percent of FITs [Fully Independent Travelers], and 20 percent of tour groups in terms of our overseas visitors. But this only reflects half of our overall visitors."

He said that half of the tourists were mainlanders, and expected the number of visitors to further increase during the National Day Golden Week holiday starting today, and will be similar to those during the summer holiday.

The park also saw four corporate reservations from last month to early next month, while those who joined the combo ticket presale were mostly locals, Pong added.

Asked if the park would increase its entrance fees or adopt a dynamic pricing mechanism that was used by Water World, Pong said the park would adjust the ticket prices according to market reactions, and said the park's financial stability is of paramount importance.

Adding that the park's entrance fee is HK$388 for adults and HK$233 for children.

The park offers a HK$280 trio ticket combo this year, in which visitors can either enjoy three haunted houses - "Spirit Boarding School", "Demon Grove" and "The House of Wraith Puppet II" - at The Waterfront, or enjoy the other three on the Summit, namely "Bad Dues", "Netherworld" and "180 Laboratory."

This means an adult will need to pay HK$948 to enjoy all six haunted houses.

For those who do not want to queue, they can pay HK$380 for standard Ocean FasTrack, or HK$620 to enjoy priority access for seven designated rides and attractions.