About

Front Yard Fright started started as small part-time hobby I had as a sophomore in high school in 2005. I spent my weekends painting and building corpses in my garage while my peer counterparts were out at football games and cruising main street. The first year wasn’t much, but as time progressed and my skills improved, I would quickly be recognized for my talents and efforts.

I never intended or thought that things would get as big as they did. I was only doing what I loved doing. However after a few years of operation, there were kids that were just like me, that didn’t really fit into a click or group of people, showing up at my doorstep wanting to be a part of my creation. I was more than happy to provide them a place to belong. Over the six years of operating our attraction, we had over 70 different volunteers help with our production. Many of which were young teens just looking for a place to belong – and I was thrilled to provide that for them.

Every year our show would improve immensely. Sets were being built larger with more detail, costumes and makeup more elaborate, and more and more patrons would show up every night looking for a thrill. Things were going great and after graduating in 2008, I decided to take a year off from school to focus on work and to put together the best haunt we did to date. I worked as a server part time and every other waking moment I had was spent either researching, planning, or building things for that years show. We had four different themed areas including a carnival/fun house, outdoor cemetery, abandoned house, and military/chemical warfare themed haunt in our garage. It was a massive project and an amazing feat given I was only 19 at the time.

With such a large show we attracted a lot of attention. Both good, and bad. We ran into some troubles with the city and had to jump through several hoops to be able to open for 2009 but we were able to pull it off and had a great season. Unfortunately, when 2010 came around, things weren’t as easy. We were forced to downsize significantly and were not able to do near as much as we had done in years past. It was hard to to be forced to downsize when every year prior we had gotten bigger and better every year. Not to mention I was now going to school full time as well as working.

Because of all that, after 2010 I decided to sell the attraction and take a break from it all. It was a tough decision that didn’t come lightly, however at the time seemed like the most sensible thing to do. I kept most of the props and costumes, but all the walls and structural aspects of the show were sold to another local haunter. I was sad to see it go but at the same time was looking forward to a stress-free Halloween season.

Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. ― C. JoyBell C

I spent the following few years doing some soul searching and growing as a person. I moved out on my own, worked odd jobs, and just enjoyed life. However, the love I had for all things spooky never went away.

I spent 2013 traveling and working for two larger, well-known haunts throughout the US. Hundred Acres Manor out in Pittsburgh, PA and a new attraction located in Plano, TX called Dark Hour Haunted House. Both jobs were only temporary, but both provided immense amounts of experience on the operations of large scale shows.

Which brings us to here and now. I have spent the past year living in Des Moines, IA and am currently working on networking and looking for new projects. I have hopes of one day operating an attraction of my very own again to continue to show the masses what I can do!

I plan on keeping this site up in an effort to keep all interested parties up to date on current projects as well as to keep the memories of all the great times and scares we were able to build together.

Stay spooky.

Zach Wiechmann
Owner/Operator
Front Yard Fright Haunted Attraction
2005 – 2010