There are still five weeks left before summer is over, but Pittsburgh is already gearing up for the holiday season and many more events throughout 2015 with zombies, quartets and craft beers.
With Halloween not far off, nationally-recognized Scarehouse is amping up the Zombies. Scarehouse is using their 100-year-old building, former "Elks Lodge No. 932" which is alleged haunted and taking the building back to the 30’s with props from the era.
“That entire experience takes place in October of 1932, and the other [attraction] is 'Pittsburgh Zombies Black Out'. So the lights are going out and the zombies are coming in,” said Scott Simmons, creative director of Scarehouse.
Scarehouse will also bring back "The Basement", the completely pitch black experience where visitors must be 18 or older and be ready to be handcuffed. This year Simmons says there is talk of live animals and electrocutions.
The haunted house will be teaming up with Pittsburgh Tours and More to give proceeds of a behind the scenes tour to the Girl Scouts.
Also as part of the Halloween spirit, Pittsburgh Tours and More will run the Sin Season Brew Tour, a craft beer tour that will stop at Hell Town Brewing, Four Seasons Brewing and more.
As part of Pittsburgh being named the “Next Food City of 2014” by Bon Appetite Magazine, Tours and More will be creating a few new food tours including the "Edible Secrets Tour", which will take participants to little known eateries around the city.
“And then also we’re going do to a ‘Sensual Food Delights Tour’, I’m not really allowed to say aphrodisiac tour, expect I just said it, and so we’re having some fun with that,” said Sherris Moreira Director of Pittsburgh Tours and More, the tour will being around Valentine’s Day. All food tours will benefit the food bank.
Also this year Tours and More hopes to start a ski jitney to and from Seven Springs.
Light up Night will return to Pittsburgh on Friday November 21st.
“Our ‘People’s Gas Holiday Market’ will be returning to Market Square for more than 30 days and it will be open on Light Up Night this year. This will be the first time that the vendors will be there,” said Lee White VP of Marketing and Communications at Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership.
The Cultural District will embrace the holiday spirit this year with the Highmark Holiday Pops Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater’s Nutcracker, CLO’s Musical Christmas Carol and more.
Before the holidays roll around there will be two Broadway musicals stopping in the Cultural District for their first tours. “Newsies” and “Motown the Musical” will be shown in Pittsburgh this fall.
The Gallery Crawl will be returning to the District for the 10th time as a part of RADical Days for completely free on September 26th.
Many of the conventions for next year have already been scheduled, including the Furries, the Barbershop Harmony Society, and The Veterans of Foreign Affairs, among many other groups.
“Our convention sales team is 131% ahead of our booking pace this year for 2015. So what that translates to is we’ve booked 58,000 more room nights in 2015 than we have in the past 5 years,” said Jason Fulvi Executive Vice President of Visit Pittsburgh.
