How do you predict business for the mansion will be short term and long term? And California has been phenomenal at the state and county level at giving guidance. We have a great team that’s very dedicated and safety focused. We added a few rooms to make sure the flow is better. We have a lot of staff in the house to help wayfinding or, if one party is advancing faster than we project, we can control that. There’s a lot of signage visible, even in the dark, on the ground about distance.
One party goes at a time, with about two minutes between parties. Since we cannot give a guided tour or mix people from different households, we offer self-guided tours with audio throughout, telling our story. How do you operate tours while complying with regulations? The tours sold out and we had to add dates. It’s like night and day, but people are enjoying this just as much and we’re getting great feedback. We have flashlight tours-you alone in the house with a flashlight, hearing ghost stories about what happened in these actual spaces as you travel through them. Called Unhinged, it was a story with actors and a lot of special effects.
We put on our creative hats and ask, do we offer something grand and theatrical or something more investigative? Last year was our most ambitious event to date. What is Halloween usually like at the mansion, and how is it different this year?Įvery year, we try to refresh our Halloween experience because, while we have visitors from all over the world, we also have repeat visitors from a 100-mile radius. On September 12, museums were allowed to operate at 25 percent capacity, so we reopened the mansion. We also offered a nighttime version called Walk With Spirits. In May, we relaunched a fresh version of the garden tour and told our story through audio at different stops. We kept a close watch on health guidelines and regulations. We signed with a licensing agency and are focusing on telling our story through other ways, such as a line with Hot Topic. We were approached by Matterport, who partnered with us to create a 360-degree tour where you can explore the rooms you’d experience on our tour, all from the comfort of your home. When we had to close tours in March, we quickly focused on what type of off-site experience we could offer guests and how we could tell our story.
What has the past year been like for you, and how have you adapted to the pandemic? I see some areas that made it into the final version in Disneyland. When Walt Disney was working on the earliest concepts for the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, he sent the imagineer assigned to the project here in 1957 to take notes. Coming from a Disney background, I’m fascinated by the grand ballroom. There are so many unique features that it’s hard to pick one. How does a tourist attraction like the mansion survive after being forced to close, then to reopen with safety precautions and reduced capacity? We spoke with Magnuson to find out. Ghosts and hauntings pale in comparison with this year’s pandemic. Overseeing the Winchester Mystery House is General Manager Walter Magnuson ’02, who is responsible for guest experience, sales and marketing, operations, overseeing 110 employees, and securing cross-promotions and tie-ins, including the recent thriller Winchester, starring Helen Mirren.
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