SALEM — With COVID-19 restrictions cutting back traditional Halloween fun in the city’s center, a local company has a plan to help chill-seekers enjoy the season remotely.
Launched two years ago to offer tours of the city’s spooky sights, Salem Ghosts promises ghost and witch lovers don’t have to leave their couches this year to enjoy the scary best the city has to offer.
The company’s GhostFlix on-demand streaming platform features “haunted experiences across the country,” including Salem sites, according to its website.
Out-of-town visitors flock to the city to tour historical sites and visit Halloween-themed stores and GhostFlix, according to Salem Ghosts’ website, allows viewers “to walk with local guides through over fifteen cities across the US to visit their most haunted locations and hear their most terrifying stories.”
Salem Ghosts was forced to shut down in-person tours due to COVID-19. In response, the company launched mobile device applications combining an actor-narrated voice, images, video, text, GPS triggers, voice navigation, and a map and route to provide self-guided haunted tours around Salem.
The app will take users to the Old Burying Point Cemetery, Ropes Mansion and other sites.
Salem Ghosts is promoting GhostFlix and its mobile device applications even as city officials last weekend outlined additional COVID-19 restrictions leading up to Halloween.
Although visits to the city are lower compared to past years, additional steps are being taken to move people throughout downtown.
Access is restricted on the Peabody Essex Museum side of the pedestrian mall as required to handle pedestrian volumes. Tents on the mall are prohibited and the city is setting up additional barricades to limit entry lines.
Downtown businesses that have not yet implemented reservation systems have been advised to implement one, said Dominick Pangallo, the mayor’s chief of staff.
“Our message to those planning a trip to Salem this October at this point is to postpone your visit. Due to capacity restrictions, most businesses have changed to advance ticketing or, for restaurants, reservations are required,” said Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll. “Therefore, if you do not have a ticket or a reservation right now, you won’t be able to get in anywhere. We want our residents, visitors, and workers to be safe, and our visitors to have the best possible experience when they come to Salem, and that’s just not possible this year.”
To uphold COVID-19 precautions, the city previously canceled all Haunted Happenings parades and other social events and implemented a mandatory downtown mask-wearing policy.
It also published a “crowd meter” at www.salem.com/crowds to reflect downtown crowd levels on October weekends leading up to Halloween.
