Staff at cancelled Halloween event 'owed thousands'

Phoebe, employed as a scare actor, said she and her sister were owed thousands of pounds for work at Haunt Fest

Staff and about 100 actors employed at an immersive Halloween event that was cancelled mid-run have said they are owed tens of thousands of pounds.

Halloween Haunt Fest, at the Hertfordshire County Showground, featured scare mazes based on horror movies and was supposed to run 17 October-1 November.

On Tuesday, 28 October, the company behind the event — In The Scenes Limited — posted online to say it had ceased trading and entered into voluntary insolvency due to "unforeseen financial challenges".

"It's impacted us terribly; I've had a sleepless night; we've got staff to pay," said Emma Rule, whose company supplied 24-hour security teams to the event.

Ms Rule, from Sentry and K9, added: "We are going to honour payments to all of our staff, but we're going to have to finance that through our personal accounts.

"It's thousands of pounds, and most people don't have thousands of pounds sitting around in their accounts."

She said it appeared "the organisers were trying to put on a really brilliant event at a great venue" and it "came as a real shock" to receive a message on WhatsApp on Tuesday.

Emma says she was asked to supply a big security team for nearly three weeks to supervise the event

Phoebe Shergold-Willis, whose School of Performing Arts in St Albans oversaw auditions for acting roles, said most staff "did not find out until they saw the announcement online on social media".

"To this day we haven't had an email to say this has happened," she told BBC Three Counties presenter Andy Collins.

Ms Shergold-Willis said about 100 "fear actors" dressed as witches, zombies and other horror characters were employed directly by In The Scenes and they would expect to be paid about £1,000 if they had done the whole two-week run.

"We all were so excited as a management team and actors; everyone was pouring everything into this; it's really, really disappointing," she said.

"My sister Madi is one of the maze managers, and she is owed £4,000.

"I put in my invoice over a month ago — £1,600 for running the auditions — and was never paid."

She added that the performance manager, who had been working on the production a lot longer and would have been employed directly by In The Scenes, would have invoiced the company for about £10,000.

Haunt Fest was supposed to run until Saturday, but the site closed on Wednesday after the company went bust

In a social media post, In The Scenes's chief executive Nick Doherty said: "Despite the team's best efforts to deliver this year's event successfully, unforeseen financial challenges have made it impossible for the company to continue operating sustainably."

In a further statement, he said: "This situation breaks my heart.

"The moral and right thing is to focus on supporting everyone affected and ensure the process is handled fairly and correctly.

"The company is consulting with a licensed insolvency practitioner, who will provide formal information and guidance to ticket holders, contractors, staff, and freelancers in due course."

Advance tickets for the opening weekend had a 25% discount and cost £29.99.

Nick Doherty, right, expressed his "deepest gratitude to our incredible actors, staff, and creative teams"