Love Bites Saturday, February 10th!
Valentine's @ Awaken, Dinner and a Scare, 2023 Recap, Dan Sperry May 18th & More!
Hello Awaken Fans!
Our exciting Valentine’s Day celebration is just a little over two weeks away!
Please join us for one night only on Saturday, February 10th for a blend of lost loves, tragic endings, and dark scary secrets! You don’t need a date for this Valentine event, but we strongly recommend that you don’t come alone. You and your group will be provided one flashlight as Awaken turns down the lights to pure black*.
Yes, you heard that right...one flashlight to travel into the depths of our horror-filled haunt. This means the corners will be darker, the shadows deeper and the fun and scares even scarier. Your imagination will run wild for this fun, exciting and terror filled Valentine’s Day event!
Tickets are available online or in person at our box office. Love will be in the air at Awaken and rumor has it that Cupid himself might be making an appearance!
*Technically, there will be a few areas with some background light, etc.
Did You Know?
Our Valentine’s Day event is your last chance to see this year’s completed haunt before our offseason (Feb-Sept). Once Valentine’s is over, our staff will get to work on adding, changing and improving Awaken before next year’s haunt season. So, if there’s a specific theme or room you loved from last October, this may be your last chance to visit it.
Dinner and a Scare in Leslie!
We’ve teamed with Leslie’s own Boss Cider for a decadent and delicious date night for Valentine’s Day. Enjoy dinner and and a drink (Boss now serves cider, beer and more!) in downtown Leslie before heading over to Awaken for an exciting scare. All for one amazing price!
Leslie’s own Boss Cider serves an amazing assortment of delicious ciders, beer and tasty fare.
Dinner and a Scare will include a fantastic 4-course meal and includes:
2 Fast Pass Tickets to Awaken's Love Bites Total Blackout Valentines Day Event
2 Four Course Dinners at Boss Cider and Brews that include:
Course 1- Bruschetta Or Shrimp Cocktail
Course 2- Caesar Salad Or Michigan Salad
Course 3- Blackened Chicken Alfredo Or Quinoa Vegetable Bowl
Course 4- Chocolate Covered Strawberries
One 12 oz Pour of your choice with meal
***Times for dinner at Boss is between 5pm to 8:15pm. You choose from the remaining dinner times when you purchase your tickets.
***Times for Awaken are 7pm to 11pm
2023 Recap & Look Forward to 2024
Exciting Twists, Escape Room Gets a Makeover and More!
We added a number of updates to the main haunt for the 2023 season, but there weren’t any major cosmetic or theme changes. Instead, it was mainly a year of numerous improvements to existing scares. We added a monster here, a different path there and many, many enhancements for our guests. The cumulative effect was more fun, more excitement and more terror throughout.
Overall, we’re happy to say that the feedback for this makeover was overwhelmingly positive, and we’re extremely grateful given the amount of work that was put in. Next year, look for Zombie Paintball (finally!), outdoor additions and much more. As always, we look forward to bigger and better things at Awaken in 2024!
Line Management
Every year, we make line management a priority. While lines during the busiest time of the Halloween season are unavoidable, there’s no reason they should be excessive. We won’t bore you with the details, but we again increased our line management efficiency throughout Awaken.
This meant that our lines moved faster than ever before… all night long! At the same time, we added time to our guests’ experience, still allowed groups to enjoy their own walk-thru (not be combined with other groups) and maintained separation between groups during and throughout the journey.
Don’t get us wrong. Line waits were still substantial on peak days during peak hours, but gone were the days of 3+ hour waits for our general admission. This made our guests happier and our workers happier. In fact, we’re already thinking up more ways to incorporate more line-speed improvements for next year.
Escape Room Makeover
We updated our mini-escape room for the 2023 season, and our guests loved the changes. Gone is our Dr. Cyclops mad scientist themed 5-minute escape room, replaced with the Meekerville Barber Shop.
“Hank the Barber’s preferred tool is the scissors. Oh, he aint the fanciest barber,
but he’ll get you in and out of the shop with a clean cut faster than anyone. Smooth and trim with a shave if you want, and not a nick or scratch to be found…unless he wants to cut you, then all bets are off, or say they say.”
You’re next in line. Can you escape from Hank the Barber in time?
2023 Celebrity Guest Doug Tait
Awaken Haunt was honored to have Douglas Tait visit this past October season. Our guests had a great time and we’d be thrilled to have Doug back in the future.
Doug’s filmography includes notable contributions to hit studio films such as Jon Favreau's "Zathura, J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek," "Land Of The Lost," the Blumhouse production "Unfriended: Dark Web”’ and as the Michael Myers Stunt Double in Halloween Kills. Tait's talent has also graced the small screen, where he has had recurring roles on TV series such as "Teen Wolf," "Grimm," "Star Trek: Picard," "The Girl In The Woods," "Legacies”, and performed the motion capture for the droid character “IG-12” on Season 3 of “The Mandalorian”.
Doug and Isabel being interviewed prior to their Awaken appearance.
Doug signing autographs for Awaken guests.
Douglas Tait, hailing from Los Angeles, discovered his passion for acting and filmmaking during his grade school years, creating scary short films recorded on VHS tapes. Throughout his career, he has had the privilege of collaborating with some of the industry's top directors in both film and television.
Be sure to check out Doug and his wife, Isabel Cueva, in their upcoming movie “Angel Baby”. The psychological thriller not only stars Doug, Isabel and, actress Rebecca De Mornay, but also marks Doug’s directorial debut. People are already raving about it!
We’re already considering our options for next year’s celebrity appearance, so if you have any suggestions, please let us know in the comments. Let’s do it again in 2024!
Dan Sperry, Live at Awaken, Saturday May 18th!
Shock Illusionist Dan Sperry will perform his one man show live and up close inside Awaken Haunt. We are extremely lucky to get Dan and have barely begun promoting this event. This show sold out in previous years, and we predict seats will SELL OUT fast! So, what are you waiting for?
For those of you who don’t know, Dan Sperry The Anti-Conjuror is hailed as the most popular and in-demand illusionist of this generation. As a result of his jaw-dropping performances on multiple record-breaking international tours, numerous network television appearances, and some of the most underground viral videos to ever plague the Internet, his legion of hundreds of thousands of dedicated fans span world-wide.
Combining the art of magic with the macabre, his totally unique and edgy illusions initially capture the imagination of crowds across the globe. But it is his unhinged, shockingly eccentric humor and audience interaction that makes his live show a truly unique experience that has been dubbed, “Totally icky, yet totally awesome”, “…Left me laughing to tears. The cynical Alice Cooper of Magic”, and one that “Has audiences laughing and shuddering in equal measure”.
From starring in the best-selling magic show in Broadway history, The Illusionists, and headlining their world tours for 5 years, sky-rocketing ratings on America’s Got Talent, Germany’s hit series Das SuperTalent, The Today Show, TLC’s Cake Boss, Penn & Teller Fool Us, Masters of Illusion and more to selling out countless performance venues around the world, Dan Sperry presents a magic show for people who love magic shows but an even better show for people who hate magic shows.
Don't miss this opportunity to see Dan Sperry up close and personal!
Our Newsletter
For the latest in off-season special events, celebrity appearances, Halloween season and more, please subscribe to our newsletter.
Expect to see our newsletter about every month during the off-season and weekly when October begins to get close.
Thanks for reading Awaken Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support us.