A perk a company can hand out in October
The Children's Museum Guild's 62nd annual Haunted House opens Oct. 9, 2026 and runs through Oct. 31 at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, 3000 North Meridian Street. This year's house is called Fright Academy. The museum sells tickets in three published price bands.
Single tickets cost $9. From 20 tickets the price falls to $7.50 each. From 100 tickets it falls to $7 each. The museum's Customer Service desk takes every band on 317-334-4000.
The published bands, and one extra ticket
The bands are 1 to 19 tickets at $9 each, 20 to 99 tickets at $7.50 each, and 100 or more at $7 each. The bands price the Haunted House ticket itself. A Haunted House ticket does not include museum admission.
The step between the first two bands is worth planning around. Nineteen tickets at $9 come to $171. Twenty tickets at $7.50 come to $150. One extra ticket drops the total by $21.
At the sizes a department buys, the published arithmetic runs this way:
- 25 tickets: $187.50 against $225 at the single rate, a $37.50 saving.
- 40 tickets: $300 against $360, a $60 saving.
- 100 tickets: $700 against $900, a $200 saving.
- 200 tickets: $1,400 against $1,800, a $400 saving.
The museum sells discounted bulk packages to companies, hotels and organisations. Its own page names corporate gifts, employee perks and nonprofit giveaways as the uses, and it allows the tickets to be used one at a time or distributed over the season.
Nine evenings that run past the working day
Frightening Hours run Thursdays through Saturdays, 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Nine nights fall inside the run: Oct. 10, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 29 and 30. A 4 p.m. open sits inside a normal office departure, and a 9 p.m. close leaves time for the drive home.
The museum publishes two exclusions. There are no Frightening Hours on Friday, Oct. 9, and none on Saturday, Oct. 31.
The house also opens in Uranus Fudge Factory Friendly Hours. Those hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 3:30 to 6:30 p.m., and Sundays Noon to 5 p.m. The museum recommends the session for kids who scare easily, and lists brighter lights, upbeat music, goodies and treats, friendly greeters, and a free bike helmet giveaway every Wednesday.
Theme nights that make a giveaway land
Each theme day carries its own sponsor and its own giveaway. Oct. 9 is School Lunch Day with Meijer. Oct. 13 is Art Day with a crayon giveaway from Sitting Made Simple. Oct. 14, 21 and 28 are Bike Safety Days with an INDOT helmet giveaway. Oct. 20 is Library Day with bookmarks and kids meal giveaways from Raising Cane's. Oct. 27 is Math Day with math games and a prize wheel from Mathnasium.
Oct. 15 and Oct. 22 are Twice the Fright Nights sponsored by Bassett Services. One Frightening Hours purchase covers two trips through the house on each of those nights, which doubles the delivered value of a ticket.
Two published desks for a group
The museum publishes two group routes with two contacts.
- Haunted House tickets and group admission: Customer Service on 317-334-4000.
- Corporate and private events: levyscheduling@childrensmuseum.org or 317-334-3212.
Group admission takes 20 percent off the general admission price for a group of 20 or more, bought in advance in a single transaction. A rewards purchase belongs on the Customer Service line. A team-building event, a retreat or a seated dinner belongs on the event desk. The group page lists five floors of exhibits and the 7.5-acre Riley Children's Health Sports Legends Experience for a company day out.
Buy before the house opens
The museum is temporarily closed Sept. 14 to 25, 2026 for essential maintenance. Customer Service stays open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily on 317-334-4000 through the closure. The Haunted House opens Oct. 9.
The house runs as the museum's largest annual fundraiser. The Guild opened the first Haunted House in 1964 from an idea by Guild member Dessie Partenheimer. That first run drew 26,000 visitors across 10 days and raised $13,200. More than 3.3 million visitors have walked the house since, and the Guild has donated more than $17 million to the museum. Guild members contribute more than 36,000 volunteer hours a year.
Rooms if the outing travels
A company that brings staff in from another office needs beds for the night. bookMyTeam publishes a group rate from a block of 10 or more rooms per night, and it notes that some hotels discount from as few as five rooms depending on season and availability. The published saving band is 15 to 40 percent below rack rates. One request reaches 50 or more hotels in the destination, replies arrive inside a published 24 to 72 hour window, and the platform adds no markup. Its network covers 103,857 hotels across 46 states, and the Indianapolis directory lists 273 hotels.
Twelve colleagues in six double rooms for one night is six room-nights. At a labelled example rate of $200 that stay costs $1,200, or $1,020 at 15 percent off, or $720 at 40 percent off, which is $85 and $60 per person. Six rooms sits under the published block threshold, so the request route carries the booking.
What to put in the request
The museum publishes no hotel rate and no shuttle for the Haunted House. Parking at the museum is free in the garage off Illinois Street just north of 30th Street, and the garage connects to the museum by Skywalk. Four questions belong in every request: the bed configuration the block holds, the parking arrangement for a passenger van, the breakfast opening hour, and whether the team floors sit together. The published bookMyTeam band is a benchmark against rack rates. Send the request through the platform's group room request form and compare the offers side by side.
