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To get a job scaring people at Eastern State Penitentiary, you might first have to scream your own name.
It’s one of the exercises used during auditions for Halloween Nights, the annual haunted attraction at the historic Fairmount prison. Groups of six to eight hopefuls are given scenarios to improvise, characters to create and opportunities to show just how loud they can get.
Erin Davis, director of Halloween Nights, knows the process well. She started as a scare actor in 2005, when she was a college student, and won the attraction’s Actor of the Year award her first season.
“It’s very therapeutic to scare someone effectively and elicit that reaction,” Davis said. “It just is such a great feeling.”
Twenty-one years later, she’s directing Eastern State’s operation with five haunted houses, themed bars, historical tours and about 225 employees working each night.
Across town in Manayunk, architect Jared Bilsak is putting his own professional skills to work, designing a labyrinth of narrow hallways, dark rooms and unexpected encounters at Lincoln Mill Haunted House.
“Monday through Friday I design schools, but on the weekend I get to pretty much take everything that I know in architecture and I get to flip that upside down,” Bilsak said. “Instead of designing spaces that make people feel good and comfortable, the haunted house, I get to design spaces that make people feel uneasy, uncomfortable.”
It’s a business with a relatively short season, substantial operating costs and customers who willingly pay to have the daylights scared out of them.
The National Retail Federation expects Americans to spend $13.5 billion on Halloween, up from last year’s record $13.1 billion. That includes costumes, decorations, candy and other holiday purchases, rather than just haunted attractions.
A separate analysis of the federation’s survey by Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center found that roughly a quarter of Americans planning to celebrate Halloween expected to visit a haunted house.
In Philly, some of those customers will spend upward of $50 to wander through the dark, waiting to be scared.
Who are the scarers?
At Eastern State, about 185 of the nightly employees are scare actors. Some are theater students; others work unrelated day jobs and want some extra cash or something different to do during the fall.
“As long as you’re able to leave your inhibitions at the door, there’s a good chance that you’ll be successful as a scare actor,” Davis said.
Auditions take place in July and August, followed by three weeks of training.
Different jobs suit different personalities. More theatrical performers might take on characters who interact with guests and introduce the stories behind the haunted houses. Often the less theatrically inclined are stationed behind drop-down windows that open with a loud bang, allowing them to jump out at unsuspecting visitors.
Eastern State has built up a sizable returning workforce, with Davis estimating that more than 65% of employees come back from one season to the next.
“It’s such a wonderful community of local artists and creatives,” she said.
At Lincoln Mill, Bilsak said the attraction receives about 200 applications annually for just 15 to 20 available positions. Its roughly 75-person staff includes more than 40 scare actors, makeup artists, wardrobe personnel, security and event workers.
Designing a good scare
At Lincoln Mill, guests descend into the fictional story of Viktor Kane, a 1930s textile mill owner who supposedly tormented and experimented on his workers.
The legend draws inspiration from Hurricane Ida’s devastating flooding of Manayunk in September 2021, a year before Lincoln Mill opened in 2022.
Bilsak’s business partner, Brian Corcodilos, acquired the old mill building shortly before the flood. After struggling to find a first-floor tenant following the damage, the two revisited an idea from their college days, when they organized a charity haunted house inside Philadelphia University’s historic Ravenhill Mansion.
The real flooding became the foundation of its fictional story, in which floodwaters reveal a hidden chamber containing human remains and the secrets of Kane’s crimes.
The 2026 attraction includes three new rooms — the Gatehouse, Infirmary Passage and Sewing Room — along with projections displayed on the mill’s exterior. Bilsak said the building’s layout is designed to disorient guests. Detailed sets distract them while actors wait for the right moment.
Claustrophobic spaces and the sound of chainsaws are particularly effective, he said. Three to five actors wield chainsaws during a typical night.
In a 2020 study of 110 haunted-house visitors, researchers from Aarhus University and other institutions monitored participants’ heart rates and asked them about their experiences. They found that enjoyment followed an inverted U-shaped relationship with fear: Too little fear was boring, while too much could become unpleasant.
Eastern State Penitentiary
Eastern State takes a somewhat different approach, offering live entertainment and the prison’s actual history along with its scares.
The penitentiary opened in 1829 as the country’s first penitentiary, designed around the idea that isolation would inspire incarcerated people to reflect on their actions. It closed in 1971 and sat abandoned for more than two decades before reopening for public tours in 1994. Its Halloween attraction began in 1991 as a fundraiser to help preserve the deteriorating building.
Today, the nonprofit historic site offers tours, educational programs and exhibitions examining the American criminal justice system. Its programming includes Prisons Today, an exhibit exploring mass incarceration, and The Big Graph, a towering visualization of the country’s incarceration rates. The organization runs workforce development programs for formerly incarcerated people, including training in masonry and carpentry.
During Halloween Nights, guests can explore those exhibits, listen to a 20-minute historical audio tour narrated by Steve Buscemi or take a guided flashlight tour through the prison’s former hospital wing. The event features themed bars, live performers and a speakeasy near Al Capone’s former cell.
Davis said the attraction deliberately avoids portraying real incarcerated people or prison guards, instead creating fictional characters and storylines separate from the site’s history.
Proceeds from Halloween Nights help fund the site’s preservation, educational programming and workforce initiatives throughout the year.
At Eastern State, Davis said an in-house team creates the sets, costumes and even some animatronics. Planning for the next season begins almost immediately after the current one ends. By January, the team is developing designs and budgets. Construction begins around March or April.
A few weeks to make a year’s worth of money
Lincoln Mill operates for 20 nights during its main 2026 season. Bilsak said the largest expenses are rent, payroll and marketing, followed by construction, insurance, permits and fire safety requirements.
The business continues spending money on repairs and improvements even when ticket sales have stopped.
“Most people don’t realize how expensive it is to operate a business of this nature, especially a business that’s really only bringing money in 30 days out of the year, where it’s actually going out the rest of the year,” Bilsak said.
The attraction’s general admission tickets cost $38, with VIP tickets available for $55. On busy nights near Halloween, Bilsak said several thousand people can pass through.
The 5-year-old business is still working toward consistent profitability.
“We are like right there on that line,” Bilsak said when asked whether the operation is breaking even. He said investors helped fund the initial construction and development of the sets.
Attendance is slightly ahead of last year, he said, despite concerns about people cutting back on entertainment spending.
Eastern State operates on a larger scale, with general admission costing between $49 and $79, depending on the night.
Davis said the proceeds support programs throughout the organization rather than being assigned to a single project. She did not provide a revenue figure for the event.
The nighttime attraction introduces visitors to the penitentiary’s work outside Halloween.
Guests can walk through historical exhibits, listen to a 20-minute audio tour narrated by Steve Buscemi or pay extra for guided flashlight tours. The event’s speakeasy, located in cellblocks eight and nine near Al Capone’s former cell, features theatrical performances and information about the prison’s history.
Davis said she hopes visitors who come for the scares will return for the museum’s daytime programming.
What happens after Halloween?
At Eastern State, the historic site continues operating with daytime tours, exhibitions and educational programs throughout the year.
Lincoln Mill has developed special events for other holidays, including A Twisted Christmas in December, Valentine’s Day scares in February, St. Patrick’s Revenge in March and a Halfway to Halloween event in May.
Bilsak launched Ghost Tours of Manayunk in August, offering 75-minute walks along the Manayunk Canal towpath. Guests receive electromagnetic-field readers, which measure electromagnetic activity and are commonly used by paranormal investigators, while guides tell stories about the neighborhood’s textile history and alleged hauntings.
Bilsak continues working as an architect throughout the year, saving up vacation time for the busy Halloween season. He spends the offseason rearranging walls, moving actors to different positions and changing scenes for returning customers. Some designs work better than others, he said, so the attraction is constantly being adjusted.
Even after designing the building and knowing where the actors are stationed, he isn’t always immune to their work.
“For me, being the owner who designed the whole place and know where all the actors are, they managed to get me too in some areas,” Bilsak said. “And I don’t get scared easily.”
