HYSTERIA at Connors Farm — Attraction in Danvers

The tickets for the Haunted Farm are consistently oversold well past the capacity of the attraction. The advertised closing time is 11 PM, but for years it has consistently taken until 1 AM - 2 AM for all the customers in the queue line to go through the attraction (after already having bought their tickets in the farm stand well within the hours of operation). The business clearly does not have a cap on ticket sales to keep the crowd size within the capacity of the attraction - and there are no refunds under any circumstances. In later years as fewer attended, the wait times still were unacceptable because of increased disorganization: The advertised opening time is 6 PM, but customers were not allowed to enter the attraction until 8 PM and the last of the customers did not enter until 12 AM.

The quality of the attraction is not worth even a far lesser wait: The attraction once had an ample number of actors who were committed to their roles and who wore high quality costumes and makeup & prosthetics (or at least high quality masks). Now, the attraction has minimal actors, they barely put any effort into their acting, and they simply wear old clothes & cheap Halloween store rubber masks.

The business provides no warning to the customers regarding the unreasonable wait times. When the business sells tickets, it enters into a legally binding agreement to provide what it promised within the advertised hours of operation. If the business cannot even come close to doing so, then it is legally obligated to issue refunds (and to stop selling tickets past the capacity of the attraction). Posting a "No Refunds" policy for situations other than the customer changing his/her mind constitutes the business declaring itself to be able to violate the terms of the agreement into which it entered at the time of the ticket sale. The business has no authority to put customers in a position in which they must either remain 2-3 hours past the advertised closing time or leave empty-handed. Moreover, the business has no authority to put customers in a position where they must pay extra for VIP tickets in order to get into the attraction before the advertised closing time. The business has an obligation to only sell as many admissions as it can handle, yet representatives of the business (& the owner) make excuses about the long wait times by chalking it up to the attraction being popular. Representatives of the business (& the owner) have even gone so far as to compare the situation to Disney theme parks, utterly ignoring the fact that Disney theme parks shut off ticket sales for the day when they reach their capacity (as any reputable attraction does).

Connors Farm used to have a second nighttime attraction - a Zombie Paintball ride. However, the business oversold tickets for the Zombie Paintball attraction well past its capacity for multiple years until most customers stopped coming to the attraction. The attraction was then closed after the 2016 season. However, in the 2017 season, the business started overselling tickets for the Haunted Farm to a greater degree than it already had been doing. In 2018, the issue of increased disorganization & delayed entry into the attraction (noted above) became a major factor (already having been a major factor for the Zombie Paintball in its...

Do not listen to the 5-star reviews that state this is worth it until you read this. Little was to be known about "Hysteria" before purchasing the $30-a-person ticket (perhaps that is on purpose) ... Yet, my wife and I were in search of a fun night out in October and decided upon the haunt at Connors Farm as an appropriate choice. The site looked legitimate and everything we read about Connors Farm seemed to indicate it the type of place we would enjoy. Little did we know what we were in for. Arriving at the farm around 6:00pm, we quickly found the entrance to Hysteria and began to wait. The website had said the attraction starts at 6:00 and runs until 11:00… 6:00 became 7:00, and 7:00 became 8:00 as we stood there. At no point was there any indication when the line would begin moving or the event would start. A brief Fireworks Show helped pass the time, yet afterwards you could tell the Fire Department had to clear the area before anything could continue. It was well after eight-o-clock when they finally began to let the first individuals in. These of course were those who spent almost twice as much on a ticket, the VIPs. A whole different line, just as long as the original; in which 100's of "VIP's" jump ahead of others who had waited hours longer. I understand the importance to allow a significant amount to "cut" the line, but when you essentially are forming two separate-but-equal lines, you defeat the purpose. There is clearly no restriction on how many tickets are sold to each group, it has simply become a matter of greed. How much money can the business bring in on a single night. This is at the behest of those "VIP's", who may have paid extra, yet still have to wait in line with a couple hundred others just like themselves. At a certain point, both lines began to move at the same pace. Those “VIP’s” who paid significantly more to skip a line, were stuck dealing with it. Finally, to the attraction. There is certainly some clever thought put into the scenes as you approach them, but the reality is each is a simple "jump-scare". Since there are literally hundreds of people going through this at a time, any chance for the actors to reset is lost. You simply miss out on any sort of real scare. The scenes have some clear ideas, but they really need to limit how many people go through at a time. When you walk into a room and see four different people backing into their respective “hiding-spots” you really lose all sense of wonder. The failures of this place fall entirely upon management, this is simply a case of wanting too much… Perhaps that is the real scare... This is the terror of greed, a company that saw thousands of people who would pay $30+ each to walk through their schadenfreude of a haunted house. One simple jump-scare...

The food was great: the cider, donuts, and apple crumble were all delicious. Other than that, don't bother going here. If you've been to any other haunted outdoor event, you've been to this one, because it's the same stuff you see everywhere else. With all the hype, I was expecting a lot more, but the only time I felt scared here was when a real life spider crawled overhead. I was excited after reading that we would walk "along the banks of a real swamp" and "around a real 17th century burial ground", but I was sorely disappointed when what we actually walked through were fake-looking barn, living room, and school bus displays, overloaded with props and people in masks. It was very well-lit, which is not really the atmosphere you want when you're hoping to be scared. The blacklight features in the corn maze at the end were cool, but not scary. The worst part of this place though, was waiting in line. We went in early October, showed up about 30 minutes after opening, and stood in line for about 25 minutes before finally getting in to what we thought was the entrance. Turns out, it was just the line to wait in an even longer line, and it was another 2 hours before we finally got in. Once inside the attraction, your group will inevitably catch up to the groups ahead of you, and you'll spend most of the tour marching in a single file line of 30ish people. Hard to be scared when you can see all of the upcoming scares happening to people ahead of you. We also did the flashlight corn maze, and it is also not worth doing. Despite being around 10pm, the sky was so bright from nearby lights (not the moon, it was cloudy) that we didn't even need flashlights, and the maze only took about 15 minutes to complete. So while we did have fun at Connors Farm, it was overall a disappointment and a waste of time. I recommend going to smaller, less popular haunted...