![]() We are very fortunate in that, even with capacity restrictions, we’re still able to accommodate a number of guests. 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. ![]() “Where we could safely place mansion hosts, we wanted to make sure they were available to help,” Magnuson said.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. ![]() Some tour guides had been rehired to answer visitors’ questions. “Yesterday was wonderful in that visitors greatly enjoyed it and did as they were asked from a safety perspective.”īarring the guided tours visitors normally take, audio clips let them know what various rooms were used for and pointed out the house’s architectural anomalies. “We’ve been working around the clock on embracing the new normal,” Winchester Mystery House General Manager Walter Magnuson said in a July 14 interview. During that time, a virtual tour of the mansion was developed while staff waited for word on when they could reopen. The aborted reopening came four months to the day that the Winchester Mystery House had initially shut down under the “shelter in place” order. The gardens on the four-acre estate were open for self-guided tours through July 18. While affected businesses had until July 15 to close up shop again, the venerable San Jose tourist attraction closed its doors after just a day of allowing masked guests in socially distanced groups to traipse through the house that Sarah Winchester built. In the time it took to wend through the Winchester Mystery House on a self-guided tour July 13, the 160-room mansion was closed to visitors again after the state reversed its decision to ease COVID-19 restrictions in some counties and Santa Clara County followed suit. ![]()
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