Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Family zone, online ticket sales, volunteer changes and more discussed
PALOUSE — The Halloween event that brings hundreds of people to town may return this fall after being post-poned last September.
Haunted Palouse will meet periodically this summer to discuss the upcoming fright fest in five months. The non-profit organization will also be under new leadership this year, as Will Perry of Palouse has assumed the newly created director role.
Haunted Palouse will see new changes this year due to last year’s postponement.
Volunteers from Whitman County gathered in Palouse’s Community Center on East Main Street for their first meeting on Thursday, May 16. The meeting was held at 6:30 p.m., and many longtime residents and volunteers were in attendance.
The Haunted Palouse planning team was forced to postpone its annual haunted house and zombie trail event last year due to the need for volunteers and to fill leadership roles.
Perry began the meeting by introducing the new changes, including electing several different, but necessary, leadership roles to run the event. The roles included director, stakeholder manager, public relations representative, building manager, trail manager, marketing and content manager, vendor manager and volunteer coordinator.
Longtime Palouse resident and Haunted Palouse Volunteer Jamie Gaber will assume the position of stakeholder manager.
“We decided what needs to happen is there needs to be a chain of command in place,” said Perry.
According to Perry, getting enough or any volunteers was challenging in previous years. Because of this, Perry plans to increase funding for volunteer groups and create a contract that binds those who volunteer to be there.
“Unfortunately, in our opinion, the age of volunteer-ism has gone out the window. We believe that 75% of the revenue should be given to the volunteer groups,” he said. “Signing that contract is essentially getting signed to a paycheck since those funds get dispersed to groups.”
The allocation of funds and loans has also been adjusted last year. Haunted Palouse has some funding from 2022’s event; however, the Palouse Chamber of Commerce has awarded a loan and provided liability insurance. Reports say a budget has yet to be made but is in the works.
Haunted Palouse intends to raise money for the local swimming pool, which needs upgrades and repairs this year.
Another change in the works allows customers and visitors to purchase their tickets online and ahead of time.
Perry suggested that express tickets could be sold, which would allow people to bypass the lines.
“It’s 2024. We can use an online database to sell tickets ahead of time.”
The notable Palouse museum attraction will not make a comeback this year, disappointing the Future Farmers of America (FFA) students of Palouse, who relied heavily on that attraction to get volunteer hours.
Because of this, the group will decide whether to open the downtown area to vendors and make it a strict, family-friendly zone.
“This would be a non-ticketed area,” said Perry. “We would need to suss it out, but we might charge vendors $75 for one weekend or do a special for vendors of $50 for both weekends. If they are in the Chamber, $35.”
Themes this year were discussed, and a new plan to implement an approval process and keep themes PG-13 was developed. If the group successfully reserves the downtown Palouse area, it will keep the area PG for young children.
“Last year was last year, and I do not want to dive into that. The whole intention of themes is to veto them. If something is inappropriate, it will either be approved or unapproved based on its content and actions,” he said. “I do not want teenagers not to be able to attend. We are not going to make it too gory or have a theme that is absurd. We will have a little bit of gore, but not much.”
Perry has also suggested that proceeds will be evenly split between the Palouse Chamber of Commerce and the city pool.
However, Palouse Paintballers are set to return their zombie-shoot-out lane, which first appeared in 2022. The lane allows anyone who enters to shoot anything and anyone, including those in their group, with biodegradable glow-in-the-dark paintballs. The lane is expected to be half the length it was in 2022 but will allow for a shorter wait time.
The new lane would cross the bridge along the Shady Lane trail. Because of this, Perry would like to work with the city to have the bridge inspected.
Olivia Harnack is a Journalist at the Whitman County Gazette. Olivia is enrolled at University of Idaho and is majoring in digital film studies. She serves in the United States Army National Guard and is proud to serve Whitman County.
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