Inverness mums in shock at high demand for House of Horrors
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A trio of mums who run an independent performing arts school based in Inverness city centre have been surprised by the high demand for their House of Horrors event.
Victoria Rollo, Enrica Ross and Amanda Chisholm decided Performers UK would stage the event as Highland Council decided to pull the plug on its free annual public Halloween-theme event as a result of its winter festival budget cuts.
“We just felt that there is nothing happening in the community for Halloween,” said the trio. “We heard that the Halloween event at the Botanic Gardens wasn’t happening – which is always a fantastic event and we usually go there with our kids – so we were like, what a shame, if there is actually nothing in Inverness for kids to go to rather than guising.”
They also thought that they could use both their central location in the Bank Street and naturally spooky, listed building to their advantage.
“We have the perfect location being based in the city centre and have the ideal building,” they said. “We thought we could make use of the fact that this is a haunted house and that it is indoors. A lot of Halloween events are outdoors and at that time of year not everyone wants to do something outside.”
The mums were not prepared for the overwhelming response they got from the community..... for the events on...
“All of us were on our group chat messaging each other like WHAT!?” they said. “We only intended to do three slots, from morning to afternoon. But then obviously when it sold out we were like, we better keep going. I think a week would have sold out, no bother!
“Our operations manager, Rosie, said ‘I’ll just put the next one up’ and as I was literally typing to put on social media ‘sold out, next slot now available online’ with a link and I hadn’t even managed to post it when Rosie told me it was full! It just went absolutely bonkers!
“I wish we could do more but obviously we are committed to our classes and our other things that we have going on here.
“It is definitely something in the future that if we had more funding and more support that we would run it for a week, but because we do everything ourselves there is only so much that we can do.
“We have some sponsors that have stepped in to help us out which is amazing.”
This year’s House of Horrors is tailored to the whole family, something that makes it different to the kind of Halloween event that Performers UK have done in previous years.
“We have done Halloween events since we opened – both in 2021 and 2022 – but they tended to be aimed towards a younger audience, with a less-scary vibe,” they said. “This year is different. It is going to be on a much bigger scale than we have had before. It’s more of a walk through of the building with actors. There will be a scavenger hunt, carnival games and a photo booth as well.
“It is going to be quite creepy, there will be lots of characters and scary scenes around the building. There might even be our very own graveyard, our dungeon of death and we could also be graced with the presence of the Hocus Pocus witches, the Sanderson Sisters.”
Some of the Performers UK’s students will have roles or help run the event on October 29.
