Are you disappointed that you can’t experience the thrill of a haunted house with your friends this year? HauntPortal hopes to fix that problem with 360-degree video walkthroughs of haunted attractions across the United States.
HauntPortal can be used on mobile devices and computers to experience real-world haunted attractions from home. Virtual reality headset support is promised to be coming soon. Groups of up to six people can go through an attraction while communicating with each other, just like they would in person in previous years. HauntPortal rents each experience for 48 hours, so groups can go back through multiple times.
HauntPortal Experiences
Currently, there’s only one experience available to rent, but HauntPortal plans to add four more locations soon. As for now, the first experience, Pennhurst Asylum in Spring City, Pa., is available at a 50% discount of $9.99. Each person within a group will have to purchase their own ticket to experience the attraction.
Other attractions HauntPortal plans on bringing to the platform soon are Woods of Terror in Greensboro, N.C.; The Mortuary in New Orleans; Bennett’s Curse in Baltimore County, Md.; and The Haunt in Grand Rapids, Mich.
A developer behind HauntPortal, Eric Hagood, also owns and operates DireWorld, a scare-park located in Sacramento, Calif. He had this to say:
Like many small business owners, I’ve worried about the ramifications of COVID-19 on our entire industry. We’re excited about HauntPortal’s potential to revolutionize the virtual and live events space. We can’t wait to bring Halloween to life in living rooms across the country — not just this season, but on haunted days of all varieties in the months and years to come.”
It will certainly be interesting to see how technologies like HauntPortal, developed with the ramifications of COVID-19 in mind, will fare once the pandemic is over. Can you see yourself using HauntPortal this year, or even in years to come? Or will you stick to the video game-related Halloween updates that come every year while you’re at home? Let me know in the comments below.
