EDITORIAL:New state law for haunted attractions is encouraging, but Field of Screams shouldn't be trusted yet
May 13-THE ISSUE - A 2025 Spotlight PA investigation reported that volunteers, including minors, faced terrible conditions and sexual harassment from adults at Field of Screams, a Mountville business operated by brothers and former teachers Jim and Gene Schopf. The state has implemented new safety requirements for haunted attractions that use minors in performances.
This is encouraging: The Department of Labor & Industry now requires all haunted attractions in Pennsylvania to have a state-approved safety plan before they can apply to use minors in performances.
The state agency announced this requirement in March and held a webinar in April to explain it to affected companies. We hope the Schopf brothers took notes.
Field of Screams subsequently cited timing as the reason it did not use minor volunteers for a May 2 event. Attractions were informed that as of May 1, failure to meet the requirement would result in the denial of performance permits for minors.
Journalist Ann Rejrat and Spotlight PA, a nonpartisan newsroom that counts LNP Media Group among its partners, deserve credit for this very overdue, if modest, change.
Investigative journalism, it seems, still has the power to compel much-needed reforms.
It's long been an open secret that something was badly awry at Field of Screams, but Mountville officials, the West Hempfield Township Police Department and the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office didn't show as much interest as we would have hoped. Rejrat and Spotlight PA, by contrast, spoke to Field of Screams volunteers about the abuses they say they experienced and highlighted the business's alarming safety issues.
Horrifyingly, last autumn, Rejrat and Spotlight PA revealed that Field of Screams had allowed a Manheim Township man convicted of exposing his genitals to children to volunteer alongside teens for three years.
Clearly, the state needed to act. Field of Screams has shown itself to be an unreliable guarantor of children's safety.
When questioned by Spotlight PA about the new state policy, Field of Screams offered a response that reads like it was scripted by artificial intelligence.
The business said it remains "fully committed to complying with and exceeding all applicable local, state, and federal requirements."
Its statement continued: "Field of Screams has a long-standing track record of adapting quickly and responsibly, and we will continue that standard when we reopen for the fall season."
A long-standing track record of adapting "responsibly"? Field of Screams remains fully committed to "exceeding" all applicable requirements?
Does the business want to remind people about what its "long-standing track record" really looks like?
Troubling allegations
Field of Screams is a for-profit limited liability company that somehow has managed to convince teens and adults to perform for free. As Samantha Snellbaker, who volunteered as a minor from 2013 to 2015, told Spotlight PA, the attraction takes advantage of "outcast kids in schools" - kids so hungry for a place to belong they'll keep coming back, no matter the conditions.
This is a business where, as Spotlight PA reported, teenage volunteers said they were pressured to work long hours on school nights and to stay for shifts exceeding state rules.
This is a business where, according to Spotlight PA interviews with 18 people who volunteered at Field of Screams from 2006 through 2024, "some unpaid adult staff sexually harassed, forcibly grabbed, and groped young volunteers, and pressured teenagers into sex."
This is a business where a former volunteer told Spotlight PA that as a 17-year-old girl, she was bent over by a manager nearly twice her age to have sex on a hayride path. (We're calling it "sex" because she characterized it as consensual and the age of consent in Pennsylvania is 16, but we certainly don't believe it was OK.)
The manager was a 32-year-old married man; she was a virgin. Despite multiple complaints over the years, he remained at Field of Screams "and allegations about his behavior continued," Spotlight PA reported.
But please, Field of Screams, tell us more about your long-standing track record.
It seems mostly to be a record of blithely ignoring the few regulations that exist to contain the excesses of haunted attractions.
Rules flouted
Field of Screams long has been required to obtain permits from the state for each of its volunteers under the age of 18 and to certify that it won't put kids in danger or force them to volunteer for a period of time beyond what's allowed under state law. Permits are not approved for "performances that are potentially dangerous or hazardous to the child's well-being," the Department of Labor & Industry's website states.
According to that agency's records and Spotlight PA reporting, Field of Screams did not submit any applications for permits until 2021 - nearly a decade after the law requiring such permits was enacted.
When the state agency learned Field of Screams had flouted that law, it merely launched an education program for all haunted attractions - this was a pathetically inadequate response from the state.
Each application for a permit must be signed by the minor's parent or guardian, a school official and the business. (Note to school officials: Please think carefully before signing off on a student's participation at Field of Screams.)
"If approved," Spotlight PA noted, "the state sends back a permit that designates how long the minor can be on the worksite for a shift and by what time the minor must leave."
The state also requires children to be properly supervised and kept from harm.
Disgracefully, Field of Screams seems to have operated with a wink and a nod. Spotlight PA obtained a copy of a waiver from 2023 that Field of Screams required parents and kids to sign. It stated that volunteers faced possible dangers, including physical, psychological and emotional injuries, disability and death. The waiver also informed parents that there "may be periods of time that your child is not directly supervised."
Given Field of Screams' history - and the way it's been allowed to operate with impunity - we're skeptical about how much impact the new state policy will have, especially as the business acknowledged in its own 2023 waiver that children may be imperiled while volunteering. But it's a step toward improving child safety and so we're glad it exists.
Hazards and risks
According to the Department of Labor & Industry's website, haunted attractions must now submit safety plans annually.
The plans must be submitted at least 20 days before a business requests performance permits for minors.
The safety plans must include a comprehensive background check for all adult staff - both employees and volunteers - who interact with minors. Background checks should identify all convictions "involving minor victims" and misdemeanor or felony sex offenses.
Plans also must include "a description of a training program on the prevention of sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace for all staff who will directly interact with minors," as well as general workplace safety training. And the plans should "address any unique hazards or risks encountered by minors on the employer's premises."
Will Field of Screams admit to the hazards and risks encountered by minors on its premises in the past, as detailed to Spotlight PA? To the alleged groping and other sexual advances suffered by minors at the hands of adults? To the physical dangers and long hours minors have said they endured?
Until Field of Screams institutes genuinely corrective measures and establishes a real record of following state safety protocols to the letter, we'd urge parents and guardians to keep their children from volunteering at the attraction. It's just too scary in ways that are the opposite of fun.
GET HELP
- 24-hour sexual assault hotline: 717-392-7273.
- Report suspected child abuse to ChildLine: 1-800-932-0313.
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