Halloween is fast approaching, and Sydney is stepping up its game this spooky season – with The Rocks transforming into a fully fledged ghost town, complete with zombies roaming the streets, tentacles protruding from buildings and a haunted dining hall serving up Halloween-inspired feasts. Now, the team behind Ghost Festival – the first-of-its-kind precinct-wide takeover – has revealed what is arguably the most immersive feature of the festival. From October 31 until November 2, a heritage-listed building in The Rocks will open its doors, welcoming brave Sydneysiders into a terrifying haunted house for three-nights of techno-fuelled, horribly haunting dance parties.
Located in the heart of The Rocks, the Old Merchant House has been known as a haunted site for decades, with reports of unexplained paranormal activity dating back as far as 1841. For the first time this spring, the heritage-listed building is leaning in (hard) to its haunted identity – inviting Sydneysiders to explore four creepy-as-hell curated rooms in a series of otherworldly, super-spooky parties.
Set across four floors, The House of Horrors will be exactly what it says on the tin: a fully-immersive fright fest set within the sandstone walls of a haunted house. In what’s known as ‘The Ghost Room’ (thought to be the area of the house where most paranormal sightings have been made), you’ll find the scariest dancefloor this side of 5am – complete with eerie light, fog effects and spectral silhouettes waiting in the shadows.
For a more overtly horrifying experience, make your way to ‘The Slaughterhouse’, where blood-soaked walls will set the scene for your boogie. If this kind of gory setting gets you going, you’ll also be interested in a dance in ‘The Abandoned Hospital’, a horribly hospital-themed room complete with cocktails served in syringes and live performances from ‘deranged doctors’. The soundtrack across all dancefloor rooms will be a fusion of techno, tech house and R&B, though the true sounds of the house will be spread through haunting whispers.
On the top floor – where visitors have reported sudden, unexplained chills – you’ll find ‘The Vampire Den’, a gothic, Jekyll and Hyde-style attic draped in velvet and illuminated by dripping candles. Here, you can order a blood bag cocktail from a coffin-shaped bar and settle in for a very spooky session.
Tickets start at $69, and you can grab yours over here.
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