Orlando, FL — SeaWorld Orlando has confirmed Howl-O-Scream will return for its sixth year on 26 select nights from September 11 through October 31, 2026, with five haunted houses, six scare zones, five all-new interactive bars, and four live shows. The separately ticketed event opens its gates at 6:30 p.m. with the event beginning at 7:00 p.m. The full lineup is now named: four all-new houses (The Final Catch, Everything Must Stay, The Dark Net, and The Crawl Space) plus the returning The Rave Yard, and four new scare zones (Just One More Chapter, Dooms District, Extermination Order, and Nekrosis) alongside the returning Trailer Park Tragedy and Woodrot Hollow.
Full franchise coverage: See HAN’s Howl-O-Scream 2026 guide to all five United Parks locations for the umbrella event, cross-park lineup comparisons, and the other properties’ 2026 status.
Last updated: September 17, 2026. SeaWorld Orlando’s full 2026 lineup is named and the event is open. Dates, current ticket pricing, houses, scare zones, bars, and shows were verified against the park’s live event and attractions pages on September 17, 2026.
When is Howl-O-Scream Orlando 2026?
Howl-O-Scream Orlando 2026 runs on 26 select nights from September 11 through October 31, 2026 at SeaWorld Orlando. Gates open at 6:30 p.m. and the event begins at 7 p.m. Event nights are September 11, 12, 18, 19, 25 and 26. October 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31.
How much do Howl-O-Scream Orlando 2026 tickets cost?
SeaWorld’s Killer Summer Sale has ended. These prices were verified on the official ticket page on September 17, 2026, with regular prices in parentheses.
- Single-Night Ticket: from $47.99 ($125.99)
- Any Night Ticket: $64.99 ($125.99)
- Unlimited Scream Pass: $124.99 ($205.99)
- Two-Park Unlimited Scream Pass, SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa Bay: $189.99 ($308.99)
- Pass Member single night: $39.99
SeaWorld also sells a date-specific single-night ticket, a no-minimum any-night ticket, a two-park single-visit ticket, a group rate for parties of 15 or more, and a discounted Pass Member rate. Current prices on those tiers are on the official ticket page. Howl-O-Scream is separately ticketed and not included with daytime SeaWorld admission, and Fun Cards and Annual Passes are not valid for entry. Front Line Fear and Front Line Fear Extreme skip-the-line upgrades are sold separately.
What is confirmed for Howl-O-Scream Orlando 2026?
SeaWorld Orlando’s 2026 event runs 5 haunted houses (4 all-new, 1 returning), 6 scare zones (4 new, 2 returning), 5 all-new themed bars, and 4 live shows. The 2025 icon Havoc returns, and the park introduces a new icon, Pestilence, who emerges from Havoc’s shadow. All houses, zones, and bars are now named, and each is detailed below.
What is returning for Howl-O-Scream Orlando 2026?
Two 2025 scare zones are confirmed returning: Trailer Park Tragedy and Woodrot Hollow. Both live shows return: Throttle, featuring returning icon Havoc, and Monster Stomp, the Jack the Ripper percussion show, at Nautilus Theater. The returning haunted house is The Rave Yard.
I Know What You Did Last Summer: The Final Catch
Announced July 31, and opening September 11 at Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio at once. Licensed from Sony Pictures and built on the 1997 film, the house takes guests through what United Parks calls “horrifying recreations of several unforgettable movie scenes and into the events that unfold during the original Southport massacre.” United Parks says it is the first time the film has been adapted for a major Halloween event. Our full coverage of The Final Catch.
Everything Must Stay
An all-new, original concept centered on a haunted open house. The park’s description reads: “For six years, one suburban home has sat unsold while every open house ends the same way: terrified buyers fleeing from things they can’t explain. Tonight, those unseen forces awaken, and you’ll find yourself trapped inside for the worst showing imaginable.”
The Crawl Space
The newest all-new house, announced in early August. SeaWorld’s description reads: “Hidden beneath the city lies a forgotten network of tunnels abandoned after a catastrophic containment failure. When curiosity leads you through a broken fence and into the darkness, you’ll discover the truth wasn’t buried—it was left to grow. Every twisting corridor pulls you deeper underground…and closer to something that’s become far larger, far hungrier, and far too close to escape. Some places are sealed for a reason.” The setup points to a sci-fi, creature-driven build rather than a slasher, and it pairs with the new Extermination Order scare zone below.
The Dark Net
An all-new house set in a future city pushed to the brink by an energy crisis, where, per SeaWorld, “desperate cyborgs have discovered a new power source: blood.” Guests descend into the neon-lit underbelly where “cybernetic predators stalk the darkness, machines feed on machines and humans are getting caught in the crossfire.”
The Rave Yard
The returning house, an undead rave in a forgotten cemetery. Per SeaWorld: “As the bass reverberates through crumbling tombstones and mausoleums glow with neon light, the dead rise with one purpose: to party… forever.”
Nekrosis
Announced July 30, Nekrosis is a seaside town stopped at midnight on January 1, 2000. The park’s description reads: “This once-thriving seaside town has been abandoned to decay, frozen in the final moments of the millennium. The streets are littered with remnants of a decade long gone—but the people who celebrated Y2K never truly left.” The zone includes a video store called Howl-O-Flix, and SeaWorld’s copy frames the year as the event’s organizing idea rather than one zone’s theme, calling it “Howl-O-Scream 2026, where the party ended forever when the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000.”
SeaWorld named a bar to match on the same day. The Rewind is the first of the five all-new interactive bars to be revealed, and it runs the same hook: per the park, “stacks of VHS tapes, ringing landlines, glowing arcade lights and the unmistakable screech of dial-up.” Building a zone and a bar on one period means guests can sit inside the theme instead of walking through it, which is the practical difference between a scare zone and a scare zone with somewhere to spend money in it.
Nekrosis also puts SeaWorld on a hook several operators are working this season. Netherworld is running its 30th season on its own back catalog, Halloween Horror Nights 35 built a scare zone called Sideshow of Decay around the event’s past, and national retail has spent the summer on the same instinct.
Just One More Chapter
The first named scare zone is an all-new gothic garden themed to cursed romance, where, per the park’s description, “irresistible temptation creates deadly intentions.” It joins two returning zones, Trailer Park Tragedy and Woodrot Hollow, and two more new zones, Nekrosis and Dooms District.
Extermination Order
An all-new scare zone built on a swarming infestation. Per the park’s description: “The exterminators have been called in—but they may be too late. Something is crawling, buzzing and multiplying through the streets of Howl-O-Scream. From skittering insects to swarming horrors, the infestation has taken over…and it doesn’t plan on giving the territory back.” Extermination crews are hunting anything that does not belong, and, per SeaWorld, “there’s just one problem: you’re on the list.” It reads as the street-level companion to The Crawl Space.
Dooms District
An all-new scare zone where, per SeaWorld, “civilization has collapsed, and Dooms District is ground zero for the chaos. Conspiracy theorists, survivalists and doomsday preppers battle to prove their version of the apocalypse is the right one, and recruit you before it’s too late.”
The Five Interactive Bars
All five bars are new for 2026: Byte Bar (cyborg-vampire nightlife), The Rewind (a 1990s and Y2K throwback), Resurrection Club (a Rave Yard afterparty), The Black Sheep (a doomsday watering hole), and Larva Lounge (creepy-crawly cocktails).
Shows, Night Rides, and the Howl-O-Sprint 5K
The event runs four live shows. Dead Air is an all-new show at The Rewind bar, where a 1990s boy band returns from the grave for its comeback. Hellzapoppin: The Grave Danger Thrill Show is a rock-and-roll circus sideshow of death-defying stunts. Returning are Throttle, featuring the villain Havoc, and Monster Stomp, the Jack the Ripper percussion show at Nautilus Theater.
Four attractions will run during event hours: Mako, Ice Breaker, Pipeline: The Surf Coaster, and Expedition Odyssey: Fire & Ice.
SeaWorld has also added a Howl-O-Scream Terror Tour, which pairs guests with a VIP guide for the night. Pricing is not posted on the tour page.
The Howl-O-Sprint 5K returns on Friday, September 18. The nighttime race runs through the event’s scare zones. Registration is on SeaWorld’s Howl-O-Sprint 5K page.
Across the Howl-O-Scream Parks
On July 31 United Parks announced a second Sony Pictures license, Anaconda houses at both Busch Gardens parks, opening the same night as The Final Catch. All five Howl-O-Scream parks have posted 2026 dates. The event at Busch Gardens Williamsburg runs September 11 through November 1. It has named five haunted houses for 2026, including Anaconda: Dead on Arrival, covered in HAN’s Williamsburg coverage. The event is included with regular park admission. SeaWorld San Antonio also runs September 11 through November 1, included with park admission, and is marking its 25th anniversary. Busch Gardens Tampa Bay runs September 11 through October 31 across 27 select nights and is separately ticketed. It has named six houses for 2026, including Anaconda: Fear Has No Escape, Stranglewood Estate: RePossessed, Circus of Fear: Killer Encore, Shadows of Wonderland: Reign of Madness, Raven’s Mill, and M.A.R.S.
San Diego has named more of its 2026 lineup than Orlando: five of six haunted houses, five of eight scare zones, and three of five vile vignettes. See HAN’s Howl-O-Scream San Diego 2026 coverage. SeaWorld San Antonio has now announced its 2026 lineup, with five houses and eight scare zones for its 25th anniversary. HAN has covered the chain’s Halloween brand since its expansion years, including Howl-O-Scream’s return to SeaWorld San Diego and the 2023 multi-park reveal cycle.
Corporate Context
Howl-O-Scream is a meaningful revenue line for United Parks & Resorts. On the company’s Q3 2025 earnings call in November 2025, CEO Marc Swanson told analysts: “Our Halloween events just concluded last week and we saw meaningful year over year growth from our separately ticketed Howl-O-Scream events including record attendance in Orlando and San Diego for these events.” United Parks’ Q3 2025 total revenue was $511.9 million, down 6.2 percent year over year, and total attendance was 6.8 million, down roughly 3.4 percent. Swanson said on the same call, “We are obviously not happy with the results we delivered in the quarter.” The Halloween business is one of the bright spots the company has explicitly called out for continued investment, which is the corporate context around the 2026 additions.
Frequently asked questions
Is Howl-O-Scream Orlando scary?
Howl-O-Scream Orlando is a mature-audience event and is not recommended for children under 13. It features haunted houses with intense theming, scare actors, strobe lights, fog, and open costume portrayal of horror themes. Costumes are not permitted for guests, and re-entry is not allowed.
Is Howl-O-Scream included with regular SeaWorld admission?
No. Howl-O-Scream Orlando is separately ticketed and is not included with daytime SeaWorld admission or with an Annual Pass. Pass Members receive a discounted rate.
How long is Howl-O-Scream Orlando?
The event begins at 7 p.m. on 26 select nights across the September 11 through October 31 window. Gates open at 6:30 p.m.
How does Orlando compare to other Howl-O-Scream parks?
San Diego has named more of its lineup, covered in HAN’s San Diego 2026 coverage. Williamsburg has named five houses, covered in HAN’s Busch Gardens Williamsburg 2026 coverage. See HAN’s Howl-O-Scream 2026 guide to all United Parks locations for the cross-park comparison and status at Tampa and San Antonio.
Event dates and ticketing
Howl-O-Scream Orlando 2026 runs select nights September 11 through October 31 at SeaWorld Orlando. Tickets and event details are at seaworld.com/orlando/events/howl-o-scream. This article will be updated as announcements are confirmed.
