From a guest's perspective, the Ghost Boat at Dells Boat Tours is an intense after-dark boat and canyon-walk excursion in Wisconsin Dells. It's presented as a scary attraction with a major multimedia transformation of an already iconic attraction, designed to enhance the visitor experience by taking the scare experience to new heights of fear.
Moment Factory collaborated with Dells Boat Tours to bring creative and innovative solutions, while preserving the authenticity of the existing experience.
The journey begins with a 15-minute boat ride upriver, where the premise of the story is established, creating an unsettling tension right from the start.
This boat trip serves as a hint of the nightmare to come. Upon arrival at Cold Water Canyon, guests disembark for an immersive walk along a path, noted as around 1.5 km. This trail winds through fields, forest, and deeply into the dark and humid recesses of the canyon.
What makes this walk particularly compelling is its structure, featuring two distinct modes: initially, it's a "walk-in" phase where you are drawn deeper into the story towards a climactic show moment at the canyon's edge, bringing you face-to-face with a sinister creature.
After this final spectacle, the experience dramatically shifts. The "walk-out" phase transforms the trail into an escape route; you are now being hunted by the sinister creature as you retrace your steps using the same path back to the boat. This psychological flip, where the path you walked into the story becomes the path you flee from the creature, significantly amplifies the feeling of dread and pursuit.
The intensity of this experience is achieved through a creative blend of physical and digital elements. The canyon pathway is punctuated with scares using dynamic lighting, video projection on the canyon walls, programmed "scare moments" (or scare triggers), and spatialized audio.
Moment Factory also consulted on the props and elements of scenography, as well as the staging of live actors to ensure jumpscares throughout the experience. This combination is designed to trigger visitors' emotions with unpredictable moments lurking around every corner.
What makes the Ghost Boat truly stand out is its powerful use of the incredibly dramatic and natural setting of Cold Water Canyon. Described as a "narrow, twisting walk through ancient sandstone formations," this environment was already spooky, but Moment Factory "elevated it, intensified it, maximised it," turning it into "pure nightmare fuel".
The project is described as a "completely original multimedia experience" and Moment Factory's "largest-scale scare attraction to date". It successfully combines digital and physical elements for an engaging experience that startles guests, pushing the boundaries of what a night-based attraction can be and fully drawing visitors into alternate realities.
It's a thrilling scare experience that effectively leverages atmosphere, technology, and storytelling to terrify and thrill visitors.
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Dells Boat Tour - Ghost Boat
