Here’s an adult summer camp with a creepy twist: Fright Nights Campout.
13 hours. One night. The thrills of a lifetime.
The Fright Nights Campout Experience
Since they have so succinctly written it up on their website, here’s what their adult summer camp is all about:
The days of watching horror movies from the comfort and safety of your couch are over. With Fright Nights Campout, you are living the horror movie and all you have to do is survive the night with your friends. Do you think you have what it takes to make it through a night of being confronted with flesh eating, terror driven, blood soaked monsters? Gather up your friends, reserve a tent and put your horror movie skills to the test at Fright Nights Campout.
The Tents
An image of one of the Guts Tents from the Fright Nights Campout site.They let you choose your level of interaction with three different tent choices (and prices):
- Chicken Leg Tent – $65/person, 4 per tent: These are set up in their “Pansy Zone.” Monsters can’t touch you in this zone. (Since I love the idea of this kind of a horror camp for adults, but am myself a bawk, bawk chicken butt, this would be both the tent and zone I most likely stayed in the entire night…if I didn’t flee the camp at some point during the night. Probably early on. Like when I spotted the first monster…or heard the first chainsaw.)
- Blood Tent – $75/person, 4 per tent: This is the full interactive experience. Which, according to them, is their way of saying they “may cut your tent in half.” (I feared chainsaws might be involved…)
- Guts Tent – $85/person, 2 per tent: This is for couples. Apparently it comes “complete with a garden view and nightly turn down service.” But even though these are the most secluded tents, don’t expect to get much privacy. You know how horror movies work…the couples are always stalked (and maimed) first!
The thing I found interesting is you could end up sharing a tent with strangers.
…if you do not want to share a tent, be sure to purchase the entire tent package on the registration page. For those campers arriving alone or only buying a partial tent, be prepared to shack up with strangers.
Sounds like a great way to meet new friends…who you might not know for very long.
Food
If you’re wondering what the price of your tent gets you, besides a night of fun-filled terror, they do also feed you.
For dinner it’s “good ole fashioned campout food”: hot dogs, hamburgers (even veggie ones), and chips.
For breakfast they provide doughnuts and muffins.
Fun and Camp Games
You get to compete against the monsters and fellow campers to earn points and try to become the Ultimate Campout Winner. Games include:
- Extreme Hide N’ Seek
- Tent Terrors
- The Skull Hunt (Which they say is their most popular, and which on their site they give a clue about: to win this game, start looking for clues the moment you arrive.)
They also have “tamer” games (for bawk, bawk chickenbutts like me?):
- Slip and Slide Monster Kick Ball
- Monster Soccer
- Arts and crafts
Fright Nights Campout Survival Guide
They also post a guide for surviving this horror adult summer camp experience. They have both a Required Items list and a Recommended Items list.
Required gear includes flashlight, old clothes, and old shoes. They warn your clothes may get ruined. They probably mean from mud, but in my case they’d be soiled from natural waste.
Under the recommended items, you can bring a cooler, just no alcohol (or drugs). Awww, I know some of you are bummed about that. Too bad. No liquid courage. Have to suck it up and experience it sober.
They also suggested diapers, which I found hilarious. (Although it might help prevent destroying clothes from soiling.)
Their FAQs are also on their Survival Guide page and are as entertaining as they are informative, if you’re looking to add a little levity to your day.
The Locations
The good news is there are a lot of Fright Nights Campouts events taking place this summer. The bad news is, they’re mostly in the Eastern and Southern U.S.
Here’s where and when they’ll be happening:
- June 3: Tampa, FL
- June 4: Jacksonville FL
- June 10: Indianapolis, IN
- June 11: Louisville, KY
- June 24: Columbia, SC
- June 25: Charlotte, NC
- July 8: Columbus, OH
- July 9: Cincinnati, OH
- July 22 & 23: Chicago, IL
- August 5: Birmingham, AL
- August 6: Nashville, TN
- August 12 & 13: Atlanta, GA
- August 26 & 27: New York
- October 1 & 14: Lexington, KY
The Pansy Zone
Bonfire pic from Fright Nights Campout site.The more I read about this zone, the more I think I’d be perfectly fine spending the whole night there. Camp fire, horror movies, live shows, and no monsters touching you? Yep, that’s up my alley.
What About You?
Up for an adult summer camp like this? Which tent would you go for? Is a Fright Nights Campout coming to a city near you this summer? If so, would you dare go?
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
Loading ...
This was an awful experience in Tampa . They delete all negative comments on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/frightnightcampoutreview/
Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear that your Tampa experience was a bust, Morgan. Did you leave a comment expressing your dissatisfaction on their FB page? Is that why you say they delete negative comments?
Yes, Courtny, the tampa show DID have issues… I know of few live performances that don’t have opening night …jitters…
In that I cannot speak for anyone but myself and not the rest of the Fright NIghts family , I can say that I still feel very bad about the issues that came up at the start of the Tampa campout and I am very proud of our crew for overcoming this problems in the quickest and most professional of manner possible under the circumstances.
It saddens me that so many campers had felt the need to pull up stakes and leave so early in the show . I am fairly certain if they had stayed the night instead of leaving so early, they would have had a far better time.
The issues at Tampa have been sorted and all subsequent campouts have run very smoothly and have had very positive levels of satisfaction. Those who are considering registering to attend the campout nearest them, all I can say is come along, stay the night then make the decision, yourself, on whether or not it was worth the efforts.
Hi Anthony!
I can’t tell you how much I greatly appreciate you stopping by to leave your side of things. Trust me, I know a thing or two about hiccups. I have never run anything on the scale as a Fright Night Camp Out, but every time I have an event on the blog (contest, celebration of some sort, even putting the anthology together), I’ve had…issues.
Hiccups happen. Some are more spectacular than others. Eventually they get sorted out. I’m always sorry for any inconveniences and am thankful for people’s patience. Sounds like you guys had some hiccups but have sorted through them. It’s all a learning curve, isn’t it?
Again, thanks so very much for stopping by.
Yep.. Definitely hiccups a plenty.. all sorted 🙂 every date so far after that running smoother than plain yogurt 🙂 We will be seeing you in august 🙂
DO NOT GO AND WASTE YOUR MONEY!!!!!! This was my birthday present and I was super excited for this and it ended up being by far the biggest disappointment. I went to the one in columbia, we waited around til about 10:30 before anything even started. So at 10:30ish we split into teams to play camp games our team lost our first two games and for a hour and a half we had nothing to do. We had to go sit in the pansy zone while the other teams played games, nothing was set up in the pansy zone as advertised, no smores, no camp crafts, no movie, absolutely nothing. Finally when camp games are over everyone goes and sits in the pansy zone and they finally have a movie up but it is the same damn movie the whole time. Finally around 12 we finally start another game which was the skull hunt which was fun and took about 2 hours. Once the winner was declared once again you go back to the pansy zone for a hour and do nothing. We waited about a hour until we start hide and go seek, I didnt even get to play do to a girl sprained her ankle and the camp staff wouldnt help her, i was nice enough having ankle stuff on me to go to my tent and get a ace bandage and alieve for the girl. After going back to my tent coming back to the girl wrapping up her ankle….STILL NO STAFF DAMN HELPED HER, they don’t give a shit that they hurt you considering she got hurt from one of the monsters throwing her in a port-a-potty which let me inform you was in the pansy zone, where they are not suppose to touch you. Me and my boyfriend went to bed at 2 our tent was never even touched, in the morning we hear the monsters waking everyone up and hear them say oh there is a tent over there, talking about our tent. Seriously the campout sets up the damn tents not us, Go to get breakfast…oh wait they dont have that either only juice. Don’t waste your money on this at all we had a GORE TENT and nothing happened. This is so not ran well and such a slack-assed camp, they didn’t have their shit together at all
Oh Shawna I’m so sorry to hear your experience was such a disappointment. But it was lucky you had first aid material on hand and nice of you to help that girl. Thanks for leaving your comments.
As a former actor for fright nights camp out my only advice is that it is ripping people off. FRIGHT NIGHTS CAMP OUT IS A FRAUD! THE OWNER GREG WALKER IS A MISER AND TYLERNELSON IS A HORRID BOSS…. THEY RIP YOU OFF AND PICKET 14-30 k in a weekend…… DONT SAY YOU WEREN’t Warned
Oh my goodness, Concerned. Sounds like you did NOT have a good experience working for them. Very sorry to hear that. Thnaks for taking the time to share your thoughts on your experience. Wish it had been more positive. Seems like such a cool concept.