China's Theme Parks Spend Big on Halloween Actors as Rivals Build Casts of Hundreds
Halloween has turned into one of the most competitive nights of the year for China’s theme parks, and the contest is increasingly fought over people rather than rides. Parks are recruiting scare actors — known in the industry as NPCs, or non-player characters — by the hundred, building themed haunted houses and stretching opening hours to keep visitors inside after dark.
Chengdu Happy Valley assembled more than 400 NPCs for the season, according to accounts circulating in Chinese entertainment media. The park set up nine themed scare rooms and seven film-style haunted sets, and pushed its closing time to midnight to match the holiday mood. The scale is designed to be photographed and shared, turning the park itself into content.
Guangzhou’s Chimelong took a different route, dividing its grounds into five themed zones, where close to a thousand NPCs staff nine horror installations and a night-time show. Zhengzhou’s Fantawild, meanwhile, opened a late-night mode aimed at visitors who want to be frightened. Each park is competing less on roller coasters than on cast size and set design.
The economics explain the scramble. Halloween falls outside China’s major public holidays, so parks need a reason for young urban visitors to buy a ticket on an ordinary autumn weekend. Live actors are cheaper to scale than new rides, and a haunted house can be rebuilt or rethemed each year. A large, well-dressed cast also generates the short videos and photos that drive word of mouth on Chinese social platforms.
The cost is real, though. Actors must be recruited, trained and costumed, and night shifts run late during the season. Parks that advertise hundreds of performers are effectively making a staffing promise that visitors can check in person. A thin crowd of scare actors in a big set is more damaging than no Halloween event at all.
The trend fits a broader shift in Chinese leisure. Theme parks have spent years adding immersive, role-play-style experiences to compete with escape rooms, scripted murder-mystery games and short-drama-style live shows. Halloween, with its licence for costume and performance, is the moment when that investment is most visible.
For now the arms race is about scale and spectacle. The parks that stand out are the ones that treat the seasonal event as a production, with a cast, a set and a schedule, rather than a decoration. Visitors notice the difference quickly, and so do the platforms where they post their nights out.
What comes next is whether these seasonal casts become a year-round business. If parks keep performers on through winter and spring with new themes, the Halloween scramble may look less like a holiday stunt and more like the opening round of a permanent competition for immersive entertainment.