PROSPECT—During the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the state’s biggest scarefest attraction, Fort Knox’s Fright At The Fort, didn’t exactly die—but let’s just say, it’s been reanimated for 2022 and this weekend is the last two days to experience it.

“As the biggest fundraiser of Fort Knox, the years we were on hiatus were tough,” said Executive Director Dean Martin. “We survived on PPP loans, and made it work, but after two years of resting peacefully, we’re back.”

This year’s theme is simply Return of Fright—basically, the “greatest hits” of all of the past scary exhibitions, according to Martin.

“We always try to theme it around some kind of B-grade horror movie,” he said. “We always have some of the old favorites, but this year it’s fresh, and new, and we’ve probably gone bigger than we’ve ever gone before. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback, this is the biggest and best one yet.”

With an average of 2,500 people coming through Fort Knox on each night of Fright—that’s 12,000 to 15,000 visitors each year— the organizers had to implement some new changes to ticketing, especially when things started to get out of hand in 2018. That year, Fright at the Fort’s Stephen King-themed event saw some 5,000 people come through on one night. Its popularity ended up shutting down the traffic for two hours in every direction rendering it unsafe, so they needed to start capping the number of people who could enter the attraction to specified blocks of time.

Tickets are only available online, no at-the-door sales, which will help to maintain control and order and provide a better guest experience.

“We still have about 1,500 tickets left for both this Friday and Saturday nights, but we sold out last Saturday and I expect to do so again,” said Martin. “It is our 21st year of Fright and generated more than $100K toward the maintenance and operations of Fort Knox. We are also doing the Scavenger Haunt again this year. On this Saturday, Sunday and Monday from 10 a.m. to  4 p.m. kids can come dressed in costumes and ‘hunt’ for monsters throughout the Fort and grounds for the regular price of admission. They then turn in their scorecard at the Gift Shop and receive a bag of candy and a chance to win a caldron full of candy (drawn at 4 p.m. on Halloween).”

The shuttle bus will be running from 5 p.m. until the end of the evening on both Friday and Saturday night, using the old Bucksport Mill (now Whole Oceans) parking lot next to the Bucksport Methodist Church (3 River Road - Bucksport). Lastly, the Lil Red Snack Shack, a food truck, will be selling ribbon fires, chicken fingers, and other Halloween-themed food.

For online tickets visit: fortknoxmaine.com/fright-at-the-fort

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com