Great Horror Campout

this was awful. wasted time and a lot of amount of money. there is nothing great nor horrific about it. thoroughly disappointing. poorly executed. cheap sloppy and pathetic. rude angry aloof and disgruntled staff who could suck the fun out of anything. i cannot say enough bad things about this. avoid it. do not waste your time, money, or nights sleep on this aggressively boring disaster. it is the exact opposite of enjoyable.

I was soooo excited to try this out since seeing it on shark tank. I literally waited years for it and jumped at the chance to go when I saw it for 2015. And… drum roll… it was just okay.
Am I happy I went? Yes! I enjoyed it, it was something different and it got me to LA.
Will I go again? It’s possible… but I’m hoping there are improvements.
Needs improvement:
*Long lines for EVERYTHING, spent more than half my time in line.
*Wasn’t that scary. I wanted soo bad to be terrified and I wasn’t except for 3 times when Monsters jumped out of something. Them just walking around is not scary. At all. Also: Some scary choices would be serial killers, not aliens and inbreds.
*Scavenger hunt for scag– this is what really lacked, I didn’t want to have to compete for everything, especially with those lines.
Things I liked:
*Good actors, especially the guy in charge (ringmaster/​hellmaster/​who cares)
*Great location– some real potential!
*Fake puke stuff was disgusting but totally put you out of your comfort zone, which this campout should do
Maybe next year will be better?

The absolute worst. No monsters, no atmosphere and no fun. What a waste of time & money.
I’m calling out Melissa Carbone to explain why she thinks it’s okay to rip off fans of this event. It’s my opinion that GHC is in dire financial straights and this year’s event was a callous last gasp money grab.
Join me in spreading the word here on Unilocal and elsewhere: do not spend your money on TEN31 Productions! Boycott future Great Horror Campouts, the GHC movie nights and the upcoming Haunted Hayride.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This is not a haunted/​horror attraction, it is more of a horror themed event. I will admit that this is a unique experience, but not a great one. I really love horror and monsters but this event did not live up to my expectations.
It was extremely disorganized, I paid extra for a two person tent but was placed in a four person tent. It was nearly impossible to find someone to solve this problem (they have no service center to go to). And when I did find someone who worked there they just told me to find a tent that looked empty and take it…
The main goal of the night is to gather enough SCAG (stuff campers all get). If you get a lot of SCAG then you could win and be named the Hell Master. There are a lot of ways you can get SCAG: by completing the games, finding it, or the monsters can give it to you. Because of this, the monsters are no longer scary. You are seeking them out to try and get their SCAG items, instead of avoiding them like you would be if this was a real horror campout.
They have one really cool idea of a van that drives around and kidnaps people away from camp. But instead of waiting in line and all of a sudden someone grabs you from behind and throws you in a van (like it should be), people see the van and are jumping up and down saying «pick me! Pick me!» because they want the SCAG that they would give you at the end. The horror and terror is just lost.
Most of the games are really lame, they are a mix of camp games, kindergarten games, and cheesy versions of challenges you see on ‘Survivor.’ We spent A LOT of time just waiting in line to do a game, and most times you have to do it more than once. What makes the games «horror» is instead of using water, the dye it red and call it blood, or green and call it vomit. Another problem is that most of the games involve getting wet, but its the middle of the night and 50 degrees outside. No thank you.
We knew the winner would be announced at 7am, so we thought we had until then to collect SCAG, but we walked up to a game at 3:30am and were told that it was over. So everyone had to turn in what SCAG they collected (to be honest people just gave away items to other people who were close to Hell Master status because it is IMPOSSIBLE to have enough time to gather that many items). Then you just wait around for 3 hours until the winner is announced at 7am. We gave all our items away, so we knew we weren’t going to win, so we just left early.
To sum it all up, no it is not anything amazing, I can’t even say I would recommend it, but it is unique and some people do really like it. I just thought it was cheesy. The costumes and makeup were not very good and the sets and games were basically falling apart (which is surprising based on how expensive tickets are). If you MUST go try to find discount tickets on goldstar or living social. It is not worth full ticket price ($ 200+).
Tips/​Things I wish I knew– Know the monsters and know their rules. Bring a flashlight! Bring food! You will be there for 12 hours and will get hungry. Bring a change of warm clothes, a towel, bandaids, and baby wipes. Learn what poison oak looks like and avoid it. The people who run this have no idea and will lead you straight through a bush of it. Best to have a group of 4 (including yourself). A lot of the games require teams of 4 people. Expect to get hurt. There is no safety team, and there is no emergency center. To exit some games you have to jump down a 8′ wall, or crawl through a tunnel full of sharp rocks and twigs, or get your head smashed because you are upside-​down in a rolling ball.

I went to the Great Horror Campout seeking a nice thrill. I saw this on Shark Tank and I was totally psyched to find out that it was happening.
I was severely disappointed with all of the long lines and pointless group activities that we forced into. We would wait forever in a line and then once we reach the front, we would be called into mandatory group activities such as «Simon says.»
Every activity was «horror-​themed,» but not scary at all. There wasn’t an immersion type of experience like those classic horror mazes. I would say most of the activities were more like college hazing. One activity involved trying to avoid getting caught with a flashlight by these «wolves.» If you’re caught, you would have to freeze and then proceed to do anything they say. Most people would have to get all on 4’s and scream «I like to eat shit.» Another activity involved us on all 4’s crawling behind each other with our heads right up each other’s asses. (Much like a centipede). The overall cast were quite mean and were constantly calling people «fuck ups» and «retarded» (which I don’t find that politically correct at all). Some cast members like in Ram Ball and Blood Tag were authoritative, but weren’t dicks about it.
Overall, I would say the event was poorly organized and the cast members weren’t scary at all and just rude. It was a total waste of money.

Listen up campers this is a lame event. Be warned that this is a scavenger hunt and NOT a horror themed camp out reminiscent of an 80’s slasher film. It’s just a bunch of simple folk literally using their heads as shovels. Yup shoveling mud with their big dumb heads and smiling all the while. Not fun enough for you? How about stripping your clothes off to win a paperclip or a rubber band? Not only do you strip, but some «creeper» gets to feel you up and if you stop them you get publicly embarrassed. There was one girl that came out in her thong and bra crying. That’s too far folks. Ladies have respect for yourselves.
I figured we could at least go and watch some horror movies on the «big» screen, that would be cool to do outside right? WRONG! Hey organizers, what happens when you shine a bright green light on a movie screen? You can’t see the damn movie! That is not even the worst part about the movie area. They set it up in a downward hiking trail. You somehow have to sit on the dirt path facing uphill to where the screen was. There was literally zero people watching movies. Movies would have been awesome had they set it up in a grassy area away from the merch booth which was in the way. Clearly they don’t want people trying to watch the movies.
We also tried the «arts and crafts» which was apparently where the employees gather to complain about being there. The African American employee with dreads really hated it the most. That’s when we left… at midnight. As we were leaving we noticed that the security that had checked our bags was long gone. No one was at the front watching the place which leaves everyone open to really scary people that wander Griffith Park at night. I’m not kidding, a real murderer could just walk into the place in costume and really do some damage. There was no one to guard the place or the hundreds of people running around the old zoo that night.
Don’t waste your time or money on this garbage. I feel that a class action lawsuit is in order.

The Great «Frustration» Campout of 2015 is the worst horror event I have ever attended — and I consider myself to be a veteran of the genre. There was no horror last night, no immersion, craftsmanship, art direction or organization. This event and its production company are con artists masquerading as serious haunters.
The entire evening is based around collecting «SCAG» in a scavenger hunt, or «Hellhunt». This is a fun idea in theory, but all the events that you must complete in order to earn“SCAG” are boot camp endurance courses that test your patience instead of courage or skill. Why does this event take place at night when most of these endurance courses would be more satisying in the daylight? I get that things are scarier in the dark, but with nary an attempt to shock in sight why bother with the extra layer of confusion?
The most insulting aspect was the amount of instances in which I was removed from a line or separated from my group. We would wait for an event for twenty-​minutes and right before it would be our turn to participate a monster would pull us out of line, lock us in a cage, make us crawl, take us to a different section of the camp, force us to scream obscenities like «I touch little boys in the morning» (honestly) etc, and then we would be forced to regroup and venture back to the line and start waiting all over again. This is not scary. This is rude and upsetting to the progression of the event. By the ninth or tenth time I was being obnoxiously thwarted from a destination I let out my first and only scream «NO!“at which point I was kicked by an actor so hard that I had to walk around camp with blood on my leg for the remainder of the night. MY BLOOD. I get that I signed a waiver that permits actors to touch me. This same system is used in far superior events like Alone, Blackout and Delusion, but it does not give the production a right to inflict violence on the willing participants. It does not give you a right to draw blood from me.
I wanted this event to succeed. I love the concept, but its execution is appalling and I hope that the city of Los Angeles chooses a more accomplished haunter other than The Great Horror Campout’s ringleader Melissa Carbone for horror events at Griffith Park in the future.
Campers beware: The Great Horror Campout is nothing but poison ivy.

I am a huge horror event fan. I attend many of the seasonal offerings and look forward to events that push the genre and offer creative and immersive experiences. I reluctantly write this review as this is a project that is unlike anything else and I want so badly for this concept to succeed. That being said, I’m disappointed to say that this event is not very good. The organizers promote this event as something that it really is not and my experience last night was more of a challenge of patience than it was anything else. I appreciate that there are a lot of moving parts to creating something like this and that it requires a lot of resources. Understanding this is another reason why this is so hard to write. This was my second time attending. I attended last year despite reading the gripes about the first year. Last year was not perfect, but my friend and I had fun and the assumption is that it can only get better. That being said, I’m kicking myself today for encouraging a group of friends to spend their money for what was given to us this time around.
Your first sign is the mixed messages about ticket availability. Savvy consumers know that telling me you’re «almost sold out» 6 months away followed with discount offers of various types is really a sign of organizers looking for creative ways to get you in. This company does this a lot. What happened to the idea of focusing on proving to the consumer that you are selling something that has the value of the price you are putting on it? That said, anything above $ 100 is outrageous. We paid ½ price. The $ 350 we paid between the 6 of us would have gotten us a decent night out doing something which wouldn’t have had us looking at each other in the face saying, «now what?» There was enough «now what?» that we left this event early.
We started with immense enthusiasm. Our group got together before the event to review the information (the dossier) that was sent. Those of us that attended clearly had the advantage and we wanted to prepare the others for the «fun» that was to follow. The dossier is supposed to inform you about the lay of the land and the activities that you will be engaging in. As a 2^nd timer, I still could not figure out how we were going to prepare ourselves. There are characters referred to and no visual aid. What does a «mephistopheles» look like? I need to know that because if I say something to him something happens. «Stickman»? — I have no clue, but apparently some horrible fate will happen if I encounter him. Later, at the event, I spent more time pulling out the dense 4 page document than I did actually being immersed in anything. In fact, the most immersive part of the event is fumbling with the 4 pages of paper that you pull in and out of your pocket. God forbid someone try to scare me. I think they did, but I was just shoeing them away so I could frustratedly find the part of the dossier that I needed.
There were activities to participate in. Some you wait in a line for and others you will be randomly sent to via a loudspeaker announcement from the Headmaster. We waited 30 minutes in one line for an activity with a person in an inflated ball and were called out via loudspeaker to get out of line and go to another event which required another line to wait 20 minutes to play hide and seek with a monster with a squirt gun. According to the dossier, there were 3 levels to this activity but for whatever reason it was over after 2. I ‘survived’ and won a piece of SCAG (S*#t Campers All Get) — SCAG is pretty much all you were focused on during this whole experience and is only important if you are one of ten people who qualify to receive the status of Hellmaster. Anyone who cares about what that is, don’t worry… no need to bother as there are more than ten people who are more enthusiastic about all of this stuff than you are. The point is that there is no point to SCAG unless you are one of those ten. After the ‘hide and seek’ event we walked back to the inflated ball activity and waited in the line which was slightly longer now. 20 minutes of waiting in line later we were called out of the line to go back to our tents. The waiting in a line and being pulled out of a line seemed endless. At our tents we were led in a version of ‘Simon Says’. I’m not kidding.
Where was the horror in any of this? Where were all of the elaborate themes and monsters that we saw the year before? Something was amiss. These folks need to figure out what they are selling us. This is a scavenger hunt/​boot camp experience and very little horror. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to engage in one of their «experiences» and was told that I need to «read your f*#&in dossier». I then would pull the folded document out of my pocket to figure it out… and often without success. I’m not stupid, but this event made me feel that way. However, I don’t know if there is anything more stupid than the tossing away of $ 350 for a night of frustration and angst.

I received tickets as a gift as me and my boyfriend are big horror fans, and we had as much fun as we possibly could. However, I agree with many of the other reviews that this event was more of a scary themed, boot camp themed, scavenger hunt with lots and lots of cussing and insults from a rather small cast. A couple of the challenges were fun but there were no sets and no haunted houses. All demons and actors spent the entire night cussing and belittling you while you tried to beat other campers to earn objects, and every time you waited for a challenge you would get called out for a «mandatory» challenge forcing you to leave the line, and then wait all over again, including the infamous game of Simon Says at the tents. Many of the challenges relied to heavily on «gross out» tactics rather than scares.
Me and my boyfriend spent half the night trying to avoid an especially frustrating creature name Hellion. I was captured by her twice and subjected to a very lengthy challenge that always involved lying face down on the grass or pavement for 20 minutes while she yelled at you, the second time we were put in a very cramped truck for an additional ten minutes before being released with a jelly bean and a worm SCAG. The third time Hellion tried to capture us I used the safe phrase because we were frustrated and wanting to check out the Mass Grave, it felt impossible to get to this attraction since Hellion always patrolled the path that led to it (the second time I was captured was also on my way there). Once I used the safety phrase, she did not «vanish» as the host had promised, instead she insulted me again, and told me that I could not use the safe words because they were only for an emergency. Luckily, just then a very boisterous guy came by flinging insults at her, prompting her to release us and pursue him. Overall it felt like a psychological test in mass submission. The more I think about it the scarier it seems, but not in a good way :/

Review on Great Horror Campout 2015
Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of horror events. I attend quite a few each year. It’s one of my favorite things to do.
This was my 3^rd and will be my last time attending Great Horror Campout. The first year was rough — but showed promise, The 2^nd year made a lot of improvement and led to my attendance this year — which was by far the most disappointing experience I’ve ever had at any horror event.
It takes a lot to get someone to spend the time writing a review… especially a bad one. Yet, here I am at 3am; having left early at 130am due to my disappointment and frustration with GHC.
The event promotes itself as being «highly immersive», «scary», and «intense» — By reading many of the other reviews posted here (along with this one), GHC definitely falls completely short on those claims.
Where to begin…
There are no immersive environments, constructed sets or areas to walk through. Any attempt to create a theme is always poorly and cheaply executed. I’m led to assume the producers thought, «we’ll just put some tents in the woods, people in masks, and keep the idiot guests occupied with games and activities developed to the extent of primate enjoyment.»
There’s never any moments of suspense, which is shocking for a horror event… The actors were also underwhelming this year, as well as the costumes; Which I found both to be impressive last year (i.e the «Hellraiser» type characters that would write on your head in blood). What ever the reason may be, Ten Thirty One Productions does not seem to have the resources or imagination to execute what they are advertising.
It is troubling to think the Producers believe having attendants play poorly constructed games involving dipping your head into a dingy kitty pool filled with Mud to Fill the bucket in the middle of an open field, embodies any of the qualities the event claims to have… Another point of the night, we tried playing «Blood Tag». Some guy in a janky Big Foot costume just walks around, squirting everyone with a super soaker filled with Kool-​Aid. Wow… You’re really pushing the envelope, folks.
Later in the evening, while looking for another «activity», we were randomly halted by one of the dozen halfwit, militant scare actors dressed in a cheap looking costume (this one was supposed to be a demon… wearing adidas shoes), forced me and my group to lie face down on the floor for about 20 minutes — only to then to be hurdled into a cargo truck along with 20 other people for a ride all the way back to the entrance of the event. I’m confused… Is killing time and re-​walking around the park supposed to be a thrill? Because you can do that at Griffith Park any day for free.
And there are 2 or 3 cheesy «Epic Symphonic Butt-​Rock» songs that repeat non-​stop all night… And it’s anything but immersive. Wouldn’t it make more sense to use simple ominous & creepy, effective sounds? (Like in horror movies…)
GHC doesn’t seem to know what type of event it wants to be… Tonight, it more-​so bordered on the line of a sub-​par «boot camp» rather than making me feel as if I was in a horror movie. And to that point, I want to state that I would have no problem getting wet and muddy, if it made sense conceptually. But I feel the creators insult the intelligence of all attendees, trying to distract us with poorly put together games because of nothing substantial, truly scary or entertaining to offer.
I’ve saved this tidbit for last because it did not greatly affect my opinion of GHC — Mistakes Happen. But The night started with one of the members of my group getting pegged in the eye with a wad of Mud by one of the Scare Actors. We spent an hour with a medic squirting syringes of water into his eye cleaning the large amount out… This was the only time a person in my group was truly scared the entire night — obviously him, concerned his eye was damaged.
Bottom line — Throwing mud, yelling all night at people, making them lie/​crawl on the ground, act out a small amateurly thrown together horror movie scene on stage, or constantly pinned to figure out widely stretched riddles with google searches on your phone… is not scary and for the most part boring and/​or annoying.
For the price charged, guests deserve better. Ten Thirty One Productions is better off saving its budget for making their Haunted Hayride every October stronger.
I highly discourage anyone from attending Great Horror Campout. There are plenty of horror event options to choose from in LA that run year round that are truly «Highly Immersive, Scary, & Intense».

Lame. Very lame. Really has nothing to do with horror in any way. It’s a scavenger hunt. The idea is great: living one night in a camp slasher flick (basically), but the execution is horrible. Activities like shoveling mud with your head to earn junk like paper clips has nothing to do with horror or horror movies. At one point, for no reason at all, you’re told to strip down to your underwear to have your body groped and painted on by strangers. When I said, «no thanks,» I was looked at like I just spouted a bunch of madness and went rooting through a trash can. All of these activities to earn «SCAG» are dumb. Also, SCAG is dumb. This is a scavenger hunt selling tickets under the guise of a horror camp out. That’s all it is. A scavenger hunt. I read all about the «hell hunt» but didn’t assume that’s ALL it was. The best part of the night was when I left early and saw a coyote while walking back to my car.
Ideas to improve: watch summer camp horror movies like Sleep Away Camp and Friday the 13^th. Learn from them. See what makes them scary. Have counselors that are like camp counselors in these movies, i.e. Not concerned that there is a murderer or monsters lurking somewhere. Have mandatory camp activities, but during said activities someone is «killed» by a monster of some sort. Make this more of a «who done it/​oh sh*t we should get out of here» situation. Camp sing-​alongs, camp activities and games, all welcome, but then shift it to an actual scary event. Like living in a camp slasher movie, as promised. I wanted to like this event so bad. I dragged friends to it and still have to live it down.

I love almost any horror attraction. The fact that this is something that goes on during the summer and not just during October is even better.
I went the very first year when it was only in L.A. and I went last year during the tour at the Bates Nut Farm location. My first year was by far the best. It could be because I had never experienced anything like it before, so I was extremely excited. I thought the Hellmaster the first year was better than the new one. The stunts with motorcycles added another elememt of scare instead of just the candy van. Waking up to the sounds of heavy metal and Shania Twains“Your still the one” was pretty hilarious. These are a few elements that were missing from GHC at Bates.
All of the monsters makeup looks great and the actors do do their best at trying to scare us. As a horror fan I really appreciate the effort behind this project and I hope it continues.

All I have to say is; stick to the one thing you’re decent at/​have been decent at, The Haunted Hayride.
Sure, people will drop bank on horror events, especially here in Los Angeles, but they (myself included) will damn sure spread the word if it’s a flop and Great Horror Campout has been, every year since its induction. Not only as someone who works in the industry and applied for behind the scenes work was i rudely addressed and basically ignored, but when I was talked into going the following summer, I regretted it, as I did the first time. It’s unorganized and just STUPID. It’s like walking through one of those silly stupid haunted houses at the fair, at least those places have legit carnies which can be creepy.,
All in all GHC has done nothing but hype itself up, hike it’s ticket prices up and bash down the talent and any level of fun (if there ever was any because personally the first two times I went, I couldn’t wait to leave).
Don’t waste your money on a company that’s only in it for the $$$, the worst part is that this is such a brilliant concept that if it were done right, and prices right would be one of THE hottest events in LA.

I’ve read the negative reviews to try and understand why someone would trash this awesome event, and found out that (big surprise) people just don’t read the details. Not fine print details here, details that are very clearly communicated on the website, thru emails, during ticket purchasing and confirmation, etc. So, rude disclaimer: if you’re an idiot, then this campout is obviously not for you. (see bottom of review for main points if this is too long to read)
There are far too many incredible things to say about the campout to write here. Suffice it to say that I’ve gone every year so far, and each year keeps topping the last.
(I’ve only been to the Los Angeles campouts, so I can only speak for the locations chosen around that area.)
The actors are so well committed and so eerily fun (not fun like jovial or «in-​character», more like «holy sh*t, my life is in danger and I need to run NOW»). The scare factor is much more about «getting out of it what you put into it». If you go around all night expecting thing to happen TO you, you’re gonna have a bad time. If, instead, you go with the attitude that you’ll join in on this elaborate game of scavenging, running/​escaping, staying stealthy — pretty much treating it like a matter of life and death, you’ll have a freakin’ blast!
Another surprise was the strange sense of community with the other campers. Yes, everyone is pretty much fending for themselves, but at a certain point, people start trading scavenger hunt items and talking with each other and you realize that a good portion of the Horror community is full of super nice people. Every year, the group I go with ends up having a great time after the Hell Hunt winds down with other campers. Obviously, there will be idiots, idiots everywhere, but they only really account for about 5% of the population of these events.
MAIN POINTS:
— Price point is incredible considering how many scare actors they have going all night, plus their full costumes & makeup. That stuff ain’t cheap, and the result is mindblowing.
— You’re gonna get out of this what you put into it, so go with a fun attitude and remember that THAT’S the whole point: having fun.
— Read the info you’re given before you go. It’s almost like preparing for an archaeological expedition, knowing the mythology and doing some research to understand the importance of what you’re about to experience. It will DEFINITELY come in handy when you confront a chupacabra and can’t get past them because they keep capturing you.
— If you’re worried about the physical handling aspect of this (i.e. being, as the company puts it, «forcibly handled»), please don’t worry! Nothing I’ve seen or experienced ever felt unsafe or violating. They are firm, and verbally abrasive (that’s an understatement — they are vulgar and disgusting and it’s awesome), but they are respectful and safe with how they approach us as their victims. Plus, they have a «safe phrase» that, when you say it, tells them to back off if it’s getting too intense for you, and they do so in character.
Honestly, if you’re curious about going, then please do yourself a favor and just jump in! There are so many of us who love this event and want to keep going, and we’ll help the newbies out to keep that experience alive!

Huge huge horror fanatiac here. Every halloween, I spend almost a $ 1000 chasing every haunted house and experience in town. The best value/​experience is Delusion. They have their execution, story, and actors all on point. I’ve been twice in a row and never regretted a single penny.
Which brings me to the highly anticipated Great Horror Campout. What more could a boy ask for growing up as a fan boy for such films as Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Friday The 13^th, Scream, etc. This experience had so much promise and potential to deliver a nights worth of fun, screams and authentic memories and originality and fell short in so many ways.
The food could of been better, but assuming that all we got was spring mix salad, and vegan sausage sludge, their budget seemed apparent, and the money wasn’t going there. That’s ok. We came for the scare.
The actors seemed to get tired throughout the night, giving half ass performances after midnight. I wouldn’t even really call any of it performances, they weren’t any better than any of the actors in a haunted maze in a small town. Maybe they could take a cue from some of the haunted plays around town like Delusion, or Jason Blum’s Purge Haunted House and create this into a interactive haunted play throughout the evening, with vignettes throughout the night that you would experience in between your hell hunt endeavors. I would pay over $ 200 if this could be executed.
The venue last year was a huge disappointment as well. We kept reading it was going to be at griffith park, thinking it was in the woods, tucked away in trees and mountains. It was flat, you could see the dodger stadium, and it all just took away from the whole experience and atmosphere.
There wasn’t enough scag to go around, we searched all through the night, and couldn’t find anything anywhere. They need to do even distributions every half hour.
Last but not least, I read a couple reviews before our experience and couldn’t have been more thrilled to find out that we were to be brought together to witness some hillbilly massacre amidst a school bus, and then have potato sacks thrown over our heads, pushed onto a school bus and taken to this secret campout location. That was the promise that led me to buy these tickets. Unfortunately this never happened. It made me wonder if that was only for press to experience and buzz, leaving us paying fans with nothing more than a stretched out camp outside of a watered down haunted house. I understand this is the first year, and I’m happy to hear they are coming back for a second round… at griffith zoo this time too. Maybe we’ll be able to have a mini bar for cocktails and beer too? Hopefully they will read the reviews and give us the scare and stuck in a horror movie experience we’ve all been waiting for.
Delusion has successfully done that twice already. It is possible.

Great idea but bad execution!!!
1) Waaaay too many people to even really get scared. All the actors do is just curse at you and do nothing to actual scare you. They have alcohol breath. I wanted to be hooded or kidnapped or see someone in my group get that. Thats what the rules said but NO all we got was boring.
2) Really do you have to do all these games and crap to get into this level and that level? Why cant you just get a good amount of people and have a normal campout where we watch movies and maybe send us on a little mission where we do get scared all night. All this stuff you do is waaay too confusing.
3) Food SUCKED!!!
4)OVERALL will NOT be attending again it was a waste of money. For all of you in SACRAMENTO AND SAN FRAN don waste your money. The good reviews on this were probably from the company itself. Always remember if it has more cons then pros DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY!!!

Let me start by saying I want this horror campout to continue, but I would fire a good portion of the organizers (while keeping the actors – they were all great). Please read on for laughs, but do understand there are some legit points in here. Sorry in advance for Unilocal ranting…
1. Price point – you guys obviously already know you f*cked this up bad. 33+% price drops in the last week and tons of radio giveaways were beyond desperate and obvious. You really overestimated people’s willingness to spend money on this event. If you’re gonna make it that pricey, at least make it so that EVERY SINGLE PERSON can feel like they’re actually participating.
2. Not every person feels like they can participate. The clues and scag system is completely broken. People are greedy, they take too many. Finding and getting scag was not about skill at all, it was about digging through the dirt and ground. WTF. Make it a SKILL based game and have all scag be controlled by actors. It doesn’t take a genius to balance this a little better. All scag should be received from completing specific actions, not turning over rocks.
3. The maps were AWFUL (like seriously whoever did the cartography should probably be crucified publicly at next year’s event). Every time we saw a map, from ticketmaster to the dossier to the presentation during opening ceremonies – EVERY SINGLE MAP WAS DIFFERENT. This isn’t the worst offense since we at least were all in the same boat, but it was pretty pathetic. Also you couldn’t hear the speakers from many of the places we were. Every time a rule changed we couldn’t hear it because there weren’t enough speakers in place, or we were stuck inside one of the areas in line and couldn’t make our camp’s event.
4. WORST OFFENSE OF ALL – We had people in our group turned away from participating even though they paid for their ticket just because they showed up after 9pm. NO WHERE ON THE SITE OR EMAILS DID IT EVER, EVER SAY YOU ABSOLUTELY HAD TO BE THERE BY 9. I mentioned this fact to no less than 5 organizers at this event and they all told me I was wrong, even when I showed them evidence. It was also not publicized that the Hell Hunt (majority of the night’s activities) only lasts from 9pm-2:30am and there are mandatory breaks in between. NO WHERE IS THIS INFORMATION COMMUNICATED IN ADVANCE. And then to turn people away when they failed to warn us and be rude to their customers about it? It was infuriating.
5. All the areas were overcrowded and too small, EVEN THOUGH THEY UNDERSOLD THE EVENT. I’m terrified to know how unpleasantly crowded it would have been had they sold out their camp. In one area, the Labyrinth, you had to stay on your knees for 5 – 10 minutes at a time just waiting to get through a stupid line… all to get your face painted and then walk through 2 seconds of inflatable walls. It was SO dumb.
Now, some areas were fun – big creature county was well executed and scary. The voodoo circle was hilariously crazy and required actual skill and serious dancing to get a head. and tag was fun. Also the counselors were all great and helpful and did their best to keep things going. I would say the actors were the best part of the event, and thankfully for me – I had a good group of friends so we were gonna have fun no matter what. That said, there are MAJOR problems with this event and someone at the top needs to fix it, because there’s a REASON you’re not selling out. Word of mouth prior to this event sucked, and I didn’t listen. Now I’m contributing to it and so are my friends.
Get. your. shit. together. And do something to lure back and reward previous campers who have all been majorly f*cked by your shitty planning.

To echo what many others are saying: great concept, poor execution. The central scavenger hunt premise is broken by the fact that the hunted items are instantly picked over. What should feel like a rewarding challenge just feels like an exercise in futility.
— The Atmosphere
You aren’t likely to actually be scared at this event, primarily because you will never feel even a little bit alone. Hundreds of people roaming around doesn’t make for a terrifying experience. That’s ok, though, as it’s about what I expected from a fright perspective. The actors and makeup were all good, but fear comes from feeling vulnerable and you won’t.
It’s really too bad that this is a touring exhibition, because they didn’t make nearly enough use of the awesome Old Zoo and Griffith Park surroundings. It was clear that the focus is on having a repeatable show for each location. There was a good amount of distance between locations, but each location itself was very compact and often walled-​in. Again, didn’t contribute to a «scary» atmosphere.
— Hell Hunt
The Hell Hunt is essentially the whole point of the experience. Before the event you receive a «dossier» that is supposed to give you clues to various locations and how you’ll obtain SCAG (S**t Campers All Get) items. Your goal is to collect enough of the SCAG to be crowned a Hellmaster. Sounds like a blast! In theory, absolutely, in practice, not so much.
My group spent the first 2.5 hours of the hunt and ended up with absolutely nothing to show for it. We believed that each location could be «solved» and that would yield the SCAG if you «did it right.» In reality, the first few campers to each area would pick it clean leaving nothing for anyone who wasn’t the first in line.
The biggest problem stemmed from the fact that while there was ostensibly a rule that each person can only pick up one of a given item, in reality it was just a mad grab (presumably to share with friends, trade, etc.) which meant it was sheer luck if you happened to be the first one to stumble across a recently restocked cache.
It felt broken and infuriating. Worse, there seemed to be little communication between the people in charge of stocking SCAG and the actors in an area, so the actors would be hinting at SCAG that simply wasn’t there.
This problem needs to be solved or this event will always be incredibly frustrating for the majority of campers. On the car ride back we brainstormed many possible solutions, such as:
1. Allow people to compete as a team, therefore preventing any «I’m picking it up for my friends» excuses.
2. Make SCAG something held by characters and doled out individually to people as they complete challenges or solve puzzles, not just lying about to be hoarded.
3. Have characters perform random «SCAG Checks» and if you’re found with more than one of a type of item, you lose all your SCAG.
4. Instead of physical SCAG items, require answers to a set of riddles or something that can only be determined by visiting a location and solving its challenge.
Since many people complained about the exact same problem last year, you’d think they would have done more to attempt to solve it. It’s a dealbreaker.
— The Schedule
The Hell Hunt lasted from around 9:30pm to around 2:30am. That left only five hours to explore a very large campsite. With the mandatory speed bumps and various other delays coupled with our futile searching picked over locations for SCAG, we probably only ended up seeing half of the scenes.
Once the Hell Hunt was over, it seemed pointless to bother sticking around. After asking numerous staff what was left on the agenda, it was mostly a shrug and «sleep or watch movies until breakfast.» Tent scares might have been appealing if the atmosphere had actually been scary, but as it wasn’t it just didn’t seem worth an uncomfortable night sleeping in an un-​level tent. We left around 3:30am instead of sticking around for whatever happened in the morning.
Honestly I think the event would be more fun and more successful if it weren’t themed around an overnight campout but maybe just a 5 – 6 hour scavenger hunt. The camping doesn’t really add anything except a massive overhead of setting up tents, bringing snacks, etc. The other possibility would be to extend the event over a whole weekend, at which point the camping aspect would actually make sense.
— The Food
It was fine. Vegan chili, cornbread, pasta salad (?), sure why not. Given that there were no tables to sit at, choosing a messy dish that needs to be eaten with a spoon seemed like a questionable choice, but the food was fine. Seems like hot dogs and chips would have been easier and probably better received, but hey.
Once dinner was closed, there was no official camp food or drink, so it’s a good thing we brought coolers with our own snacks and drinks.
— Conclusion
If it comes back next year, I’ll be on the fence. It could be fixed, but after two years w/​same complaints I doubt this company will fix it.

I saw the ad, got excited and bought two tickets for a private tent. I have tickets for this Saturday the 7^th. Something has come up and I can’t go. NO REFUNDS and NO TICKET TRANSFERS. I can’t even give the tickets for someone else to use. So I am out $ 500.
I definitely won’t be buying any tickets for any future campouts. I think it is ridiculous that I can’t even give my tickets to anyone else to use because they are checking IDs and credit cards at the door to match the purchaser. I am left with no alternative but to suck it up. I basically just donated $ 500 to the company that is putting this on and I can’t even mark it up as a tax write off.
This is a horrible policy for any business that wants to deal with the public.
Your loss.

This is a great idea with an extremely poor execution by the organizers. There was no organization from start to finish. The food was horrible and the location really was not scary. It’s not worth 150 dollars at all.
We bought tickets online but our tickets never got emailed to us! I had to email the company twice before they re-​sent my tickets. This also happened with the dossier… it was sent out late Thursday night but I never received it. After several emails and facebook posts… they finally sent it to me Friday morning. After reading posts on their facebook page, it seems like this happened to several people. Slightly annoying…
The way they organized check in was DIS-​organized… they had ticket check in by tent numbers. We were tent 4 so in line for «0 –216» which sucked because since there were only 250 – 300 people there, we were ALL in line for «0−216». We waited in line for 45 minuets while three empty lines right next to us continued to remain empty… very poor organization.
We got to our tent and set up our sleeping bags and what have you, than went to go eat. Outside the mess hall they had this meat monster which was extremely cool running around touching everyone with this gross slime all over his body. When we got to the food it was ALL VEGAN, AND VERY VERY VERY GROSS. Apparently the founders of this event are hard core vegan and they needed to push their lifestyles on people who paid 150 DOLLARS for the event. The food had no taste and an unpleasant texture so in their efforts to remain «green», the organizers just made me waste a whole bunch of food.
The actors who played in the great horror campout WERE AMAZING and need a holiday or a good pat on the back. They worked very hard and made this event. They where very PROFESSIONAL, FUNNY, AND EXTREMELY SPOOKY. The costumes and make-​up was also top notch. However, the location, which was in downtown LA, was in a dirt parking lot with scattered trees here and there and a lot of bushes which cut up my legs in certain areas. The location would have been passible if there were not so many people. One hour after opening the scavenger hunt part of the camp the sets, props, trees and other things where DESTROYED making it hard for others to enjoy the scavenger hunt. The movie area was nice and the big screen was FINE, it was just hard to sit there and watch the movie because sitting in the dirt was uncomfortable.
One of the issues I had was just sitting around waiting… we got there at 8pm, got to our tent at 8:45 and then had nothing to do until 10:30 when they opened the hell hunt (it was supposed to be opened at 10). While we did get a short speech from the head master at 9… it was 10 minutes and then we were left to our own devises until the scavenger hunt started. Since there isn’t much in the main area — a fire pit, tents, 2 cages and a totem pole, we were bored after a few minutes and waited in (another) line for an hour at the front of the gate waiting for the actual hell hunt portion of the event to open. My suggestion — have some small activities for us to do during this waiting period! People started to go crazy — knocking down totem poles in an attempt to get severed heads (not part of the SCAG it turned out) and climbing cages, destroying props.
All in all… it was okay. The idea was good but the execution was not. IT GOT BORING AFTER THREE HOURS, not worth 150, perhaps just 50.