Get Your Shriek On at Drusillas’ Family-Friendly Halloween Event
Looking for some of the best family-friendly Halloween events in Sussex? Shriek Week at Drusillas Park (23rd-31st October) is the perfect place to bring the kids for a fun-filled, ooky spooky day out in Sussex!
Drusillas Park, located between Brighton and Eastbourne, always conjures up oodles of eerie excitement and seasonal surprises to keep little horrors half term happy, and this year their annual Shriek Week is bigger and better than ever.
Visitors this week have been enjoying a few family-friendly live action thrills (with just the right amount of thrill for all ages).
Haunted Heights – Drusillas’ haunted house experience – invites families into the witch’s lair in the Park’s events arena. Claw your way through cobwebs, living paintings and spooky theming to meet their two resident witches, Hocus and Pocus. But don’t worry, their witches know when to turn down the ‘scary dial’ and are just as happy giving out high fives and cackling jokes as they are jumping out of dark corners, if your little ones are nervous.
Mummy Mayhem – the Park’s spooky takeover of the Mungo’s Adventure Maze – is proving a huge hit this year. Visitors are guided round the maze by one of the Park’s ‘Mummy handlers’ on a mummy hunting adventure, and visitors can indicate to the team how much scare should put into their individual experience on the day.
Assistant Operations Manager, Roger O’Leary spoke about the team’s ‘scare system’: “We’ve spent years getting the level of ‘scary’ right for each of our visitors during Shriek Week, as there is no one size fits all experience. Children, regardless of their age, have varying levels of sensitivity to these sorts of things, and so we do everything we can to be mindful of that. Between our team, we have lots of secret signals we will give to each other to indicate whether the spooky elements need to be toned down or ramped up so the experience fits the individual.”
“For those that don’t fancy a live action thrill, the whole Park has been draped in devilish décor, with pumpkins, maize, skeletons and haybales, so there are endless photo opportunities” continued Roger, “and we have seasonal face painting, tattoos, and delicious Halloween treats”
The visitor attraction also invites curious kids to scuttle along to the Discovery Centre for some creepy crawly encounters to meet some amazing mini monsters. Drusillas’ education hub will be swarming with all manner of weird insects including cockroaches, millipedes, mealworms, locusts, and an Asian forest scorpion! Experts from their Zoo team will be available to answer everyone’s burning bug questions.
Roger continued: “We take great care in planning events that are suitable for little ones, but still exciting for the rest of the family. Over the years we’ve perfected that family-friendly Halloween ambiance and invite visitors of all ages to enjoy a truly frightful visit! Well you know what they say… if you’ve got it, haunt it!”
Drusillas is also fundraising for their charity of the year – Wolo Foundation, who support families in Sussex affected by cancer – with their virtual, fancy dress fun run. Participants can walk, run, creep or crawl 2.5km, 5km or 10km at any time during the week until 31st October. Sign up is still open here https://www.drusillas.co.uk/news/the-monster-dash-2021-virtual-fun-run-for-wolo.
Full details on Drusillas’ Halloween Shriek Week can be found on their website https://www.drusillas.co.uk/halloween-activities-in-east-sussex. Located just off the A27 in Alfriston, Drusillas Park is open daily from 10am. For more information please telephone 01323 874100 or visit www.drusillas.co.uk