Day 14: Sir Henry’s Haunted Trail 2022 in Plant City, FL

Zach Glaros: Hello, I'm Zach Glaros, I'm the owner of Sir Henry's Haunted Trail here in Plant City. Sir Henry's Haunted Trail is an outdoor haunted attraction here in Plant City, FL. We have three haunted trails, 2 escape rooms, laser tag, and a whole midway area full of scare actors. This is our 9th season doing this, so we've grown each year and we've grown even more for 2022. 

Zach Glaros: So, 2022, we took one of our trails, that's kind of our woodsy trail, and we demolished it. We just bulldozed everything, leveled everything out, and we rebuilt it from the ground up. We created essentially a whole little city in this trail. So, when you come through a lot of this stuff, you're going to see is kind of alleyways and a town square, much like and you'd see in Saint Augustine in the historic district, or even something like the alleyways in London. So, that's really cool, brand new for us. The architecture and height we play with is something our guests have never seen before out here. This is our Headless Trail, and this is the theme we're doing this year, the Headless Horseman, our spin on that. So, that's what the big marquee thing guests will get to see this year, as well as renovations for all the other trails, too, including our common area.

Zach Glaros: I love the Headless Horseman, the story of it is near and dear to my heart. Me and my wife actually got to visit Sleepy Hollow on Halloween a couple of years ago, so that was a very cool experience. I've wanted to do this theme for a while now, but I didn't want to do it until everything was right for us, and it was right this year. The finale that we're going to have is pretty cool. I actually stumbled upon the prop on Facebook for the finale, and it was here locally, so that was awesome. Then we're also bringing in a live horse and actor for the nights of the event to play the Headless Horseman. So, we're going all out with this trail. 

Philip Hernandez: Tell me a little bit more about that.

Zach Glaros: I didn't want to do the Headless Horseman if we couldn't have a live horse and an actor. More so it'll be within the trail, so just kind of roaming, almost like a roaming scare actor. So, guests will get to see that, you never know where it's going to be, so it's very organic, very natural, it's going to feel very real, and at times you might see it out in the common area. But that's kind of like a little mystery, kind of hitting ghost element of that trail, which is going to be pretty cool. When you spot it, you can be like, "Oh my God, that's the Headless Horseman!"

Zach Glaros: All of our trails are all storyline-based, stories we come up with. The spin we put on the Headless Horseman is that he had a hidden fortune that he buried before he died, townspeople go looking for it, and that's when the horseman appears to protect his guarded fortune. So, that’s our spin on it.

Philip Hernandez: Tell me about the themes in your other mazes.

Zach Glaros: Yeah, so 2022 has seen the event and the IP of Sir Henry's grow even more. We've had two films, independent films, filled out here this year, Harlow's Haunt and The Pumpkin Man film. They both kind of build Sir Henry's into their plot. We have the book out, Sir Henry's Haunted Tails. We also just released the 2nd novel in that series, Sir Henry's Haunted Tales Loves Revenge, so you can find that on Amazon. 

Zach Glaros: But going back to the haunt, we have two other trails out here. Final Cut this year for 2022, and that's basically in 1920s Hollywood error film premiere that goes astray. There's a haunting that goes on kind of a ghostly possession that happens with the lead actress in the film, and guests will get to see that. 

Zach Glaros: Then we had our nautical theme last year, they may remember that as Captain's Fury. We're staying with a nautical setting, except we're going deeper into this whole theme. Basically, the theme with that is that a sea witch has sunk in the whole village into the ocean because the townspeople broke a deal they had with her. So, the cool thing about this trail is it's like you're going to be going through underwater, and there's a certain point of no return in this trail, where you're entirely underwater, so to speak, and you see everything that lives underwater. 

Zach Glaros: For us, this was a big deal for this show because we literally had to upgrade the power to house all the toys that we're putting into this trail. So, guests are going to see some stuff that they've never seen out here's Sir Henry before.

Philip Hernandez: I know the midway is always a big experience for you, tell me about what you're doing for this year's midway. 

Zach Glaros: Our midway is going to see two escape rooms this year, instead of just one, and they are both brand new facilities. We have also completely changed and upgraded our gift shop. It's about 300% bigger, it's going to have about 300% more merchandise. So, it's huge, it has its own facade and building. Then we are finishing working on our new centerpiece, which if you've gone the past couple of years, you've known it's been the giant tree with the jack-o'-lanterns and the light show. Well, that wasn't good enough for us, so we are doing this whole renovation with our centerpiece. It's going to be a new structure and there's going to be a giant new prop that you will see there. I don't want to give too much away, but it's going to be pretty epic. Basically, we're putting one of our lead characters that you've seen out here for several years into animatronic form. 

Zach Glaros: So, we’re partnering with a local winery, Keel and Curley again this year. We partnered with them last year for 2021, and they're producing our own custom-labeled hard cider that'll be available for purchase at Keel and Curley and select nights at our event as well you can get that in our gift shop. 

Zach Glaros: So, I think we did 16 nights last year, we're doing 16 again this year starting September 30th, ending that first weekend in November. It's nice that we're doing that because those who might not get a chance to come see us, whether they're working in another haunt or whatever, we have that offering too. General mission starts at $27 and goes to $37, depending on the night, and that gets you in all three trails. We have the front-of-the-line option again, and that gets you frontline access and then the cool thing about frontline is you can do general Entry unlimited times for the trails. Those start at $37 to go up to $47 depending on the night.

Philip Hernandez: Finally, tell me about the future. What are you planning for your big 10-year anniversary?

Zach Glaros: I love being unique. I do not like doing the same thing each year within our own scope, and I don't especially like doing what other people might be doing. Next year's our 10th anniversary, I already have a big plan in mind for that, and hoping it plans out would be something that's not offered in this area. So, here it is, getting ready to open haunt season for 2022, but I'm already in the works for 2023 for the 10th season. So, I think just staying on the cutting edge, staying ahead of trends as best as you can, and kind of forecasting those trends is what keeps us edgy and fresh. Like with the nautical stuff, we started doing that last year, that was an idea I had three years ago, and you're kind of seeing more nautical stuff out there, which is cool, but you know, I like to think that we are pioneers in some way.