The Nightmare on Railroad: When you Choose Community, you Choose Ghastly and Ghoulish Delights

Halloween is all about the spooky, scary and wacky creatures that come out in the night. This year, search no further than the Nightmare on Railroad. 

Bellingham Arts Academy for the Youth (BAAY) and Boundary Bay Brewery will host a haunted experience that provides the scare factor that you’ve been waiting all year for. Taking place at 1107 Railroad Ave, BAAY’s actors are taking over the dark corners of the Mountain Room, alley and Fear Garden, poised to scare you with their epically ghoulish delights.

When you embark on this otherworldly journey of hair-raising encounters, you’ll notice a presence of ghosts, vampires and zombies that are a bit...different than your average haunted house: children. And not just any kiddos. This haunted house experience not only benefits the children of BAAY, but these young artists are an integral piece of the event. 

BAAY’s Operations Director, Juliette Machado sat down with us and shared more about this intriguing inclusion of tiny specters.

“One of our favorite aspects of the Nightmare on Railroad is not just the event space itself in the Fear Garden, but we also take over Boundary’s Mountain Room and feature performances by BAAY’s haunted dancers. These young artists are choreographed specifically for this event by BAAY’s longest serving director, Lisa Markowitz. The choreography is always timeline with the season and the theme of course, and it’s also a really great experience for these young artists to perform in what I would say is a very…untraditional way than what they might be used to.”

BAAY is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that serves kids in the community ages 4 to 17 with its arts programming. They are well known for the theater productions that they host at their downtown space. Ian Bivins, the architect of the Fear Garden in all it’s ghastly glory, shares more about what inspires his artistic endeavors.

“The really cool thing about the haunted house event is that all of the proceeds go directly to BAAY’s scholarship fund, which allows us to remove financial barriers for families who wouldn’t be able to participate otherwise. Fundraising events like this make it possible to give out around $30,000 annually in tuition waivers.” 

The collaboration with BAAY highlights Boundary Bay Brewery’s motto more than ever: When you choose Boundary, you choose Community. 

“This last year and a half has been really, really challenging for everyone, non-profits included. BAAY is very much still here. We had to go into online mode during the pandemic, but we’re really excited to start reemerging safely and are very ready to revive this long time community partnership with Boundary Bay,” says Juliette. 

Boundary Bay Brewery agrees: organizations like BAAY that have such important missions need to thrive and survive; pandemic or no pandemic.  We hope you choose community by joining us in your next harrowing nightmare: at Railroad Ave this Halloween weekend.

SCHEDULE & DETAILS

This event runs 6-11pm October 29, 30, and 31.

6-9pm is ALL AGES and features BAAY’s Haunted Dancers ($5)

9-11pm is 21+ and provides a more mature and frightening experience ($10)

COVID-19 Guidelines: For the health and safety of the community and BAAY’s unvaccinated student performers, Haunted House attendees must wear a mask and practice social distancing.

All proceeds benefit BAAY’s Student Scholarship Fund