(Image: Meyer2Meyer Entertainment)
(Image: Meyer2Meyer Entertainment)
The crowds are a little smaller and the hype down a level or two as a seasonal Halloween cocktail “experience” has returned for a second season at Capitol Hill’s DAR Rainier Chapter House
Re-branded as a Haunted Soiree production, this year’s The Volkov Possession continues through Halloween in the E Roy Mansion:
This 21+ immersive experience is part theatrical production, combined with an old-school variety show, dressed up as an upscale cocktail party, inside a historically haunted venue. It’s a night of eerie elegance, featuring themed mini-cocktails, extravagant entertainment, music, macabre magic, surreal specters, and interactive guest experiences.
While many reviews of last year’s visit described an overhyped, oversold experience, the show is still drawing Halloween-happy patrons. Ticket prices range from $64 to $95 depending on how many “miniature craft cocktails” and assorted other upgrades you want.
Unlike other pop-up experiences that have visited the neighborhood, the Haunted Soiree adds a new venue to the area’s October nightlife offerings.
It is produced by Meyer2Meyer Entertainment which also runs similar experiences in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Washington D.C., Nashville, and Dallas. Owners Justin and Melissa Meyer say they got their start in the immersive entertainment biz working with the Haunted Hayride business in Los Angeles. Their shows, they say, feature “a wide array of artistic and performance styles,” including “magic, music, aerial, circus, comedy, dance, improv, just to name a few, all resulting in a modernization of the variety show concept, originally seen in the early days of vaudeville.”
(Image: Meyer2Meyer Entertainment)
The trends around immersive experience pop-ups have only brushed across Capitol Hill but more could be on their way. CHS reported here in November 2021 as a Capitol Hill restaurant cleared out its kitchen and concept to make a temporary home for “The Alice – An Immersive Cocktail Experience” before later shutting down to make way for what is now Kedai Makan.
Meanwhile, the event is also an opportunity to visit the historic Capitol Hill mansion. CHS reported in 2019 as the Rainier Chapter House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The meeting hall for the Rainier Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution was built in 1925. DAR is described as “a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States’ struggle for independence.” Producers looking for future Halloween experience themes should consider a few ghosts of Continental soldiers in future seasons.
As for the “plot” for the Haunted Soiree 2023 Halloween season, The Volkov Possession weaves a tale of a “surreal ghost story” inside the Volkov psychiatric facility inspired by “the final days of Grigori Rasputin, the ancient god Veles, and other Slavic folktales.”
“Guests of the soiree are free to experience the events of the evening at their own leisure,” the producers say. If you really want to get into it, attend in costume.
Haunted Soiree: A Macabre Cocktail Party runs through October 31st at The Rainier Chapter House, 800 E Roy. Learn more at hauntedsoiree.com/seattle.
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