For the past three years, the Student Activities Council (SAC) at Seton Hill University (SHU) has offered students tickets and transportation to the annual Phantom Fright Nights event at Kennywood Park.
By Cody Naylor
Staff Writer
For the past three years, the Student Activities Council (SAC) at Seton Hill University (SHU) has offered students tickets and transportation to the annual Phantom Fright Nights event at Kennywood Park.
This year’s SAC-sponsored event occurred on Friday, October 2. Students paid just $10.00 for a ticket, and a bus was provided to transport students to and from the event.
The tickets that were sold at Giant Eagle stores cost $23.00, a whopping $13.00 more than the ones offered by SAC, and the price of tickets online at the park’s website ends up being $25.98 after applying a processing fee.
Martell Fontaine, a freshman and SAC member, worked as a ride operator at Kennywood for two years and he claims that Fright Nights is a truly huge event that is held every year. Fontaine said that there were once over “24,000 people in the park for a Fright Nights event.”
According to Nick Sterner, a sophomore and SAC Movies, Lunch Programs and Travel (MLT) chair, SAC only purchased 60 tickets this year “because last year we purchased 100 and we did not get a big response.”
The 60 tickets that SAC had to offer sold out quickly this year however, and, according to Mark Rhine, a junior and co-executive of SAC, “many students went out and bought discount tickets to the event at Giant Eagle so that they could attend the Fright Nights trip with their friends.”
This unexpected interest also posed a transportation problem. The SAC team had obtained only one bus to transport all of the students who had bought tickets to the event to Kennywood and back. However, the bus only held 48 people, other students who resorted to buying their tickets elsewhere were forced to find their own means of transportation.
Once the students managed to arrive at Kennywood, frightening fun and manic mayhem ensued.
According to a description on Kennywood’s website, Fright Nights occurs when “each autumn, after Kennywood Park closes its gates for the winter, a ghastly and horrifying force grips our fairgrounds.”
The students who attended this year’s event reaffirmed these claims: “The park was full of haunted houses and mazes that each had a different theme like vampires or pirates.
There were also people called rovers, were dispersed randomly throughout the park, who were dressed up as different spooky characters,” said Leara Glinzak, a sophomore.
Aside from the spooky attractions, certain rides were also open during the event. According to Kennywood’s website, “The Swingshot, The Jack Rabbit, The Exterminator (of course), The Thunder Bolt. . . Noah’s Ark. . . and the Phantom’s Revenge” are all open for those brave enough to attend Phantom Fright Nights.
Though the event did get rained on earlier in the evening, the weather cleared up around 9:00 p.m. and “once the rain stopped, the lines were all shorter for the rides because people had left,” said Sterner.
Kirstin Logan, a senior, who also attended the event, shared Sterner’s sentiments: “Even with the rain, it was still a good time that was made even better by the great turn-out of all the familiar faces from Seton Hill.”
If you and your friends missed out on this year’s SAC-sponsored trip to Kennywood’s Fright Nights event, they are still being held until October 31st. Information on how to purchase tickets can be found on the event’s website at www.phantomfrightnights.com/#ss.