Written By Mauricio Segura // Photo: Golden Bay Times Graphics Dept.
If Halloween in the East Bay had a beating heart, it would thump from the Alameda County Fairgrounds each fall when Pirates of Emerson swings open its creaky doors. The haunt is back as a full walk-through experience, threading visitors through multiple mazes, sideshow games, and a virtual reality scare ride, an immersive setup perfected for its Pleasanton home turf.
The location is part of the legend now: Gate 8 off Bernal and Valley, floodlit on cool nights, where fog spills over fences and you can hear the occasional shriek ride the breeze. This year’s run spans from September 26 through November 2, 2025, with timed entry and capacity controls that have helped the show keep lines moving without thinning out the fear.
Pirates of Emerson didn’t start this big. It began as a true yard haunt on Emerson Street in Fremont, built by Karl and Patty Fields with their son Brian. In the early days, admission was a canned good, and the donations went to the Tri-City Homeless Shelter, proof that a scare can still have a soul. That humble setup snowballed into a regional draw, eventually outgrowing neighborhood limits and settling at the fairgrounds, where they could scale the sets, add actors, and build what’s now a full haunted theme park.
Three decades later, the family still steers the ship. Karl and Patty, now seasoned captains of the craft, and Brian, who’s been in the trenches since the yard-haunt days, oversee operations with the kind of institutional memory you can’t buy. That continuity shows up in the details: the way scenes stitch together into a story, the flow from quiet dread to loud panic, and the constant tinkering from one year to the next.
The pandemic could’ve sent this haunt to the bottom. Instead, the Pirates did what pirates do: they pivoted. In 2020, the attraction became one of the country’s rare drive-through haunts, letting guests stay in their cars while passing staged scares synced to a radio soundtrack. It wasn’t the same as a maze with monsters breathing down your neck, but it kept the tradition alive and the crew employed, and it gave the Bay Area a safe way to scream. By 2021, the show roared back to its walk-through roots, bigger, louder, and maybe a little prouder for having weathered the storm.
What do you get now? Four dense haunted houses stitched across the grounds, each with its own personality, plus a “Virtual Fear” ride that straps terror directly to your senses. Everything is built for immersion, not just props and walls, but full scenes that feel like you wandered onto a horror film set that forgot to hire a stunt double for you. The event bills itself as “extremely frightening” and doesn’t aim for kids; it aims for the folks who want to test their nerves and brag about it later.
There’s heritage to the hype. In 2025, Pirates of Emerson is marking roughly thirty-five years since those Fremont beginnings, an arc that tracks with its reputation as Northern California’s marquee home-grown haunt. That longevity matters. A pop-up can throw blood on black walls; Pirates builds worlds, updates them annually, and runs them with the tight timing of a stage show. The result is the kind of repeat-visit attraction that locals plan into their October calendar the way other people plan pumpkin patches.
Practical notes for the brave: tickets are tiered and limited, and popular nights sell out. The organizers emphasize that it’s a walk-through again, no cars, no excuses, so wear shoes you can hustle in and expect strobe lights, fog, loud sounds, and actors who relish a jump scare. Enter through Gate 8, follow staff directions, and remember that the shortest distance between you and safety is straight through the maze. You bought the ticket; now take the ride.
If you’re new, here’s the simple pitch. Pirates of Emerson is the Bay Area’s long-running, family-built fright machine, evolved from a backyard charity haunt into a full-scale Halloween institution. It adapts when it has to, grows when it can, and keeps its moral compass pointed at giving you a good scare without losing the community spirit that launched it. That’s why people return. That’s why it opens each fall to cheers and nervous laughter. And that’s why, on some October night, you’ll step through a dark doorway in Pleasanton and, just for a second, forget it’s all pretend. Then something will hiss in your ear, and the pretending will be the last thing on your mind.
Need to know:
Open now at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, with nightly dates through November 2, 2025. Walk-through format, four haunted houses, a VR scare ride, games, and more. Tickets are limited; check the official site for availability and entry details.
Pirates of Emerson
Alameda County Fairgrounds
September 26 - November 2, 2025
For tickets and info: http://www.piratesofemerson.com/
