THOUSANDS of people have been flocking to a field near Formby to be terrified at Farmaggedon, the “haunted house” horror exper-ience in two converted barns.
Founded by farmer Martin Edwards, of Flatman’s Lane, Downholland, and Crosby-born actor Richard Cottier, the nights have been completely sold out up to Halloween and beyond.
“The scariest thing is the number of people who have been turning up – there are no tickets left whatsoever and, by the time we’ve finished in the first week of November, we will have literally scared tens of thousands of people from all over Britain,” said 34-year-old Richard, who added that the event had gained massive cult status since the Liverpool Daily Post had an exclusive preview of Farmaggedon a few months ago which was filmed by digital journalist Gail Thomson and posted on the paper’s website.
“I incorporated the footage on to our own site, and since then we’ve had over 20,000 hits,” said horror fan Richard, a former pupil of Chesterfield High School.
National interest went into overdrive after a prank in which Richard, Martin and Anthony Procter dressed up as Farmageddon creatures and pounced on DJ Simon Ross as he emerged from the lift at the top of the Radio City tower to start his 6am shift at the station.
The stunt was also filmed and posted on YouTube, subsequently plugged by Radio One DJ Chris Moyles on his show, and is now the second most watched feature on the internet video site.
Martin branched into the theme park business just over five years ago with Farmer Ted’s, a working farm where children can stroke the animals. Farmaggedon is a strictly adults only experience, however. Both barns have been installed with state-of-the-art special effects equipment, inspired by US haunts such as the House of Shock in Louisiana. And then there are the Must-scare-teers, horror fans recruited to dress up to wander the farm and scare the punters at every opportunity.
“We’ve got 55 creatures on the books, 35 on duty every night,” said Richard, adding: “It’s going so well that the only fear we have is how we’re going to top this when we stage Farmaggedon next year.”
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