Sunday Trick-Or-Treat Forecast

Tonight's Trick-or-Treat forcast from PhillyWeather.net.

Toilet paper covered a tree in the Hartsville section of Warminster, Sunday morning. (Tom Sofield)

It’s a Scary Business



Valley of Fear operator Tom Yaegel (Tom Sofield)

On a recent afternoon in Feasterville a cool breeze ruffled the multi colored leaves at the Phoenix Sport Club on Bristol Road; the club is the location of the Valley of Fear haunted attraction which Tom Yaegel has operated at this location for almost 15 years.

The haunted hayride, two haunted houses and haunted walking tour nets tens of thousands of visitors every fall season.

The Valley of Fear has its beginnings at Stepping Stone Farm in Buckingham where Yaegel in the early 1990’s started operations of the area’s first widely promoted haunted hayride. You may even remember the advertisements featuring legendary genre actor Vincent Price.

He got the idea to open a haunted attraction after reading about it in an edition of Entrepreneur Magazine. Yaegel said he thought, “Hey this would be popular because people in Bucks County love to get scared and love the outdoors.”

The business of scaring people has changed since Yaegel entered it in the early 1990’s.

Yaegel said the Valley of Fear's busiest nights are Saturday’s close to Halloween.

The National Research Federation released figures early this month that reported that attendance at haunted attractions around the nation was up almost 21 percent compared to a few years ago. They credit the rise in attendance with the downturn in the economy.