Theme Park Shark got an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay’s 2024 Howl-O-Scream event. Everything from food to frights, this year at Busch Gardens celebrates 25 years of terror as their Halloween event kicks off its silver jubilee on September 6th.
Arriving at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay was an amazing experience. Theme Park Shark’s media team got a warm welcome to Howl-O-Scream’s preview event, featuring a selection of some of this year’s specialty foods, conceptualized and executed by head chef, Matt Maslowski. While many themed haunt events put a focus on the design of their maze sets, costumes, gory prosthetics, and the masterful tales of terror they try to tell through these intertwining elements, another pillar of any great themed event is the food.
The specialty foods available this year are a wide variety of offerings, ranging from pork belly over white rice to black-bun burgers to the creative concoctions that Busch Gardens Tampa Bay has cooked up for dessert.
The Ectoplasm Cupcake was one of the highlights of the menu – a yellow cake mango cupcake was an exciting and unique flavor for a dessert, and the kiwi jelly filling gave it an interesting texture while adding to the tropical fruity notes of the cake.
Other dessert options included a red velvet “blood moon” cupcake, and a chocolate-pudding filled cookie “buckshot”.
The Slaughtered Pork was delicious, but while many find the appeal of Pork Belly to be the flavorful fat, the pork belly at Howl-O-Scream was almost nothing but fat. The glaze they used was delicious, a sweet red “hemoglobin” sauce used to balance the savory pork and pork fat, and over soft white rice, the dish was almost a home run.
Hot dogs, spicy chicken tenders served over a bed of sweet corn, and shredded chicken sandwiches also made an appearance at the event, each with their own spicy twist – whether it be spicy relish or Pepper Jack cheese. No vegetarian options were showcased, but Maslowski assured us that vegetarian options would be available during the event, for those guests with dietary restrictions.
A selection of this year’s Howl-O-Scream merchandise was also on display, featuring two new themed Loungefly bags, a tee shirt displaying all of this year’s houses (with a design to kill for!), as well as event jerseys and Howl-O-Scream cups. This year, Busch Gardens is selling specialty light-up cups that are liquid-activated.
For some reason, the cups didn’t register Coca-Cola as a liquid. Don’t worry about it!
In addition to the food and frights, Busch Gardens also invited Xpress Urself Media to shoot 360-degree video of guests at the event, creating a memorable digital keepsake for those brave enough to try it out. Featuring fog and digital lighting effects, the 360 cam was a frightfully fun experience.
The Architect, this year’s newest icon and the designer of all things horror within the last 25 years of Howl-O-Scream, descended upon the event with some of his most loyal minions to terrorize guests. Miscreants, cackling clowns, and mystical witch doctors donning shrunken heads roamed the event hall, looking for their next victims as groups were picked off – sorry, invited – one by one to experience one of this year’s headliner scare mazes.
And, of course, it wouldn’t be home sweet home in Orlando without a little inclement weather. While Theme Park Shark’s time slot to walk through the maze was unfortunately rained out, the preview for this year’s Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay still promises a scary good time. And as always, parks taking measures to protect guest and team member safety when faced with dangerous conditions is always the right choice!
Voted 2nd Best Halloween Theme Park Event by USA TODAY’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards, this event will run from September 6th – November 2nd, 2024. Tickets for Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay can be purchased on their website for as low as 49.99 for a single night, so be sure to check out this event and soak up all the scares you can this season!
And of course, a huge thanks to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay for inviting Theme Park Shark to take part in this exclusive preview of their killer Halloween event!
