General News » News

Haunted Forest returns for more thrills and chills Saturday at Sheppard’s Bush

October 22, 2026   ·   0 Comments

Halloween might still be more than a week away, but Aurora residents will have the opportunity to celebrate spooky season a little bit early as the Town of Aurora’s ever-popular Haunted Forest returns to Sheppard’s Bush and the Aurora Family Leisure Complex on Saturday.

Haunted Forest will run between 6 and 9 p.m. this Saturday, October 24, at both locations, offering wristband-holders thrills and chills – under what are hoped to be starry skies, and in the comfort of the Complex.

Helping the Town of Aurora put on the fright fest this year are Marquee Theatrical Productions, the Canadian Children’s Theatre Company, Theatre Aurora, the Third Aurora Scouts, and the Knuth family, all of whom are hard at work putting finishing touches on Halloween displays – and, for many, costumes that adventurous forest-goers will encounter along various pathways tailored for every taste.

“We’ve been really busy on the interactive displays and getting all those logistics in place, and we’re so very excited to be presenting this to the community,” says Shelley Ware, Special Events Supervisor for the Town of Aurora. “There is definitely going to be lots to look at. We’re looking at more than 60 displays right now. With the Canadian Children’s Theatre Company, they’ve got some pretty cool displays with Shrek and a swamp scene, as well as Scooby-Doo and Ghostbusters. Marquee Theatrical Productions is doing an entire cabin, as well as they’re featuring Frozen Fantasy out on the trails.

“We’ll have inflatable and costumed characters, a cemetery called Rerun Rest where we’ve gone through pop culture shows like The Golden Girls, from where they debuted to where they ended, making custom gravestones, and we’ve really invested our hearts and our hands with this event.”

Additional attractions will include their popular Witch Storyteller, who will be found in an even larger space this year, such is the popularity of the attraction; they’ve also embraced the circular economy in many of the displays, including transforming an old, broken-down clothes dryer into the display, “Dried to the Bone.”

“We’ve truly tried to hone in our creative skills and bring them out to the trails,” says Ware. “It’s all hands on deck and bringing the magic to the forest. When you have different people involved, they have different viewpoints, different lens, which also comes out with different results, I think the variety in displays this year is really amazing. Over at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex, we have a variety of indoor games, activities, inflatable, sensory room, everything to keep families busy and entertained while they wait for the shuttle bus service [to Sheppard’s Bush], which will be driving a loop all evening. We have three shuttle buses transporting people from the Aurora Family Leisure Complex to the Bush and then picking up those from the Bush back to the Leisure Complex. The experience has definitely expanded.”

With more than 130 youth volunteers set to be on hand for the event, it is sure to run smoothly, but if you want to experience it all, wristbands – available for purchase for $5 at a variety of community locations – are required.

For more on where to get them, the event itself, and other Halloween activities taking place in the community, visit aurora.ca/hauntedforest.

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Readers Comments (0)