On Oct. 25 from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., the Swashbucklers living community hosted their annual Haunted Hall. The Swashbucklers, or Swash, is a pirate-themed sober living community that holds a Haunted Hall every Halloween, bringing spooky festivity to Trinity University’s campus. The Haunted Hall is an ongoing tradition in Swash, and this year’s 18th annual Haunted Hall had a circus theme.
The event is free and open to the public. Audrey Vanegas, sophomore accounting major and Swash Captain, discussed Haunted Hall’s purpose for publicizing the Swashbucklers living community.
“So, it’s a tradition that we’ve done as Swash since forever, essentially, where every year we create a little haunted house,” Vanegas said. “Building community and also getting the word out about Swashbucklers, because since we are a living community, we need people … and so Haunted Hall is a good first big event, and then in spring we’ll do a lot more of the, what you call, recruitment events.”
However, Haunted Hall is more than simply a recruitment event. It is a chance for the Swashbucklers to dress up and get into the Halloween spirit. While the Haunted Hall is an annual event, the entertainment differs yearly. Venegas discussed what the haunted carnival theme would look like as well as the attractions of every room. This year included a clown room, puppet room, a big top room and a comedic room at the end.
“Our last room is our joke room, the applause room, where it’s just going to be regular people standing there and clapping at you,” Venegas said. “We got good results just on social awkwardness, because we tried to do a survey like which room was probably the scariest, and that one like consistently got some good marks.”
Waiting in line for the Haunted Hall was first-year Zava Olson and some of her friends who were first timers at the Haunted Hall. Olson said they had learned about the event through a poster inside the Coates Student Center but did not know much else about it. The group did mention that they were feeling tense about going through the Hall.
“I am excited. A little nervous,” Olson said. “I hope it’s a little scary, but not too scary.”
The Haunted Hall began in total darkness and participants were led by a tour guide into the first room. Inside were a pair of laughing clowns who chased patrons out of the room. Similar rooms followed; the Haunted Hall was part comedy show, featuring appearances from Jesus and the coworker John (dressed in a black morph suit), and part jump scare, keeping the patrons on their toes. The entire hall took roughly 10 minutes to walk through and ended with a certificate of completion.
After experiencing the Haunted Hall, first-year Julia Samin was satisfied. She said that the effort Swash put into the Hall was obvious in their work.
“I was really nervous,” Samin said. “It was very well done.”
