Some ghoulish new residents are moving into Canby next month, as the Clackamas County Fairgrounds presents “Scare Fair,” a drive-thru Halloween experience running every Friday, Saturday and Sunday through October.
The fairgrounds announced the first-time feature on its Facebook page Tuesday, where it also revealed it is partnering with scare-masters Fearlandia, Davis Graveyard, The Nightmare Factory and Creatures of the Night to transform the Clackamas County Fairgrounds into a (PG-13 rated) fear fest.
“We were just thinking about ways we could do something for Halloween while still fitting within the rules,” said Fairgrounds Events and Marketing Coordinator Tyler Nizer, referring to the county’s phase 1 coronavirus guidelines.
Fearlandia is a top-rated haunted house, attraction, production company and prop maker based in Tigard. Davis Graveyard is a free Halloween attraction produced by the Davis family at their home in Milwaukie each year.
The Nightmare Factory in Salem is Oregon’s longest-running haunted house, now in its 35th year. Creatures of the Night is a company that produces haunted attractions as well as handling, costumes, makeup, special effects and storytelling from their headquarters in Marylhurst.
Nizer said he reached out to one of the haunted attraction companies to see if they’d be interested in producing the unique experience at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds. They reached out to the other creative teams, and it “kind of snowballed from there.”
“Since most of them weren’t really doing anything this year, they were interested,” Nizer explained. “It’s cool because they’re mostly thinking outside the box of what they normally do.”
Nizer said the decorations will be automated or static, but will not involve live actors. The different creative teams are working somewhat independently to produce the half-mile drive-thru experience, but will ultimately culminate in a cohesive “story.”
“They’ve each kind of got their own themes they are working on, but they’re trying to unify the whole thing,” he said. “We’re excited to see what comes of it.”
Individual ticket price is $11 or $20 per car. The “Scare Fair” will be presented every weekend — Friday, Saturday, Sunday — the only Thursday being Oct. 1, and going through Nov. 1.
Tickets are available now and space is limited. Visit ClackamasCountyFair.com and click “TICKETS” to purchase yours now.
After a summer that has been much quieter than is typical for the normally busy events center that draws upwards of 250,000 visitors to Canby each year, the Clackamas County Fairgrounds has pivoted nicely in recent weeks.
It presented the Taste of Fair food court, which was successful enough to bring back and expand for more weekends this month, and this weekend officially launched the much-anticipated Fairgrounds Features drive-in movie theater.
The 26th annual Cutsforth’s Cruise-In, held this past Saturday in modified fashion, was also highly successful, drawing more than 500 classic cars and other vehicles for display, as well as an estimated 2,000 more to enjoy the drive-thru experience.