Galleria Dallas is reopening its haunted hotel for a second season, and this time the fictional Rupert B. BooMont has added a couple of unsettling new attractions to his ghostly guest list. The BooMont Hotel returns to the mall's Level 3 with two brand-new rooms, more square footage than last year, and a scavenger hunt that sends guests hunting for keys across 13 stops throughout the venue.
According to CultureMap Dallas, the 2026 additions include a ghost pool and a haunted mirror maze, giving visitors bigger thrills alongside the hotel's original 13 public rooms, which guests can still explore at their own pace. Tickets range from $24.95 to $49.95, and the event is subject to change due to weather or other concerns. The self-guided walkthrough takes roughly 45 to 60 minutes to complete, per Local Profile, and runs from September 4 through November 1.
A Century-Old Ghost Story Behind the Décor
The attraction's elaborate backstory holds that the hotel was built in 1901 by oil and electricity tycoon Rupert B. “Boo” BooMont as Texas's first fully electric hotel, according to fictional lore detailed by Live Love Local. Per that lore, a mysterious 1924 lightning storm caused guests to vanish, forcing the hotel's 1925 closure — a narrative device that frames the real-world attraction's 2025 debut as a reopening exactly 100 years later.
The experience was conceptualized and produced by BAYMO, the Dallas creative studio led by team member Scot Redman, which also creates Galleria Dallas's annual winter installations, SNOWDAY! and Santaland, as reported by WFAA. The station also noted that creators specifically designed the attraction to be “spooky, not scary,” omitting blood, gore, and live actors performing jump scares in order to keep the event family-friendly.
New for 2026: More Rooms, a Bigger Hunt, and Smart Keys
Each opened door provides guests with an immersive experience, and this year several photo ops are RFID-enabled, connected to guests' hotel keys, and set up to send photos straight to their cellphones. The new Master Key scavenger hunt spans 13 stops throughout the venue, expanding on the hotel's original room count as the overall footprint grows for the second season.
Sensory details have been part of the design since the start. Galleria Dallas tenant Aroma 360 developed custom fragrance profiles for specific rooms last year, dispersing “Midnight in Paris” in the lobby, “Desert Rose” in Mr. BooMont's office, and “Sunrise” in the Tiki Bar, according to the mall's own account. The mall also cross-promoted the experience with Level 2 retailer LUSH in 2025, sending media and VIP guests home with themed “Monster Mash Head” bath bombs as they exited through the hotel gift shop.
From Halloween Hotel to Holiday Haunt
The pop-up's staying power showed last year when BAYMO rebranded the space into “BOO! Holiday Haunt” after Halloween, running it through January 4 with Jack Skellington-style Christmas decorations, holiday scavenger hunts, and weekly adults-only Champagne nights, per a PR Newswire release. That winter pivot demonstrated the concept's viability well beyond October, turning what began as a seasonal fright house into a year-round activation strategy for the mall.
The numbers behind that strategy caught the industry's attention this summer. The International Council of Shopping Centers reported that The BooMont Hotel converted 7,700 square feet of long-vacant storefronts into a seasonal activation that drew nearly 31,000 visitors, generated more than $250,000 in ticket revenue, and raised adjacent tenant sales by 8.2% year-over-year. Property manager Trademark earned a Gold MAXI Award for the transformation, according to the ICSC report.
Finding the Hotel Inside the Mall
Galleria Dallas sits at 13350 Dallas Parkway, and the haunted hotel occupies Level 3 near the Play Place and food court on the mall's north end, with the closest parking in the Orange Garage next to Nordstrom, according to Dallasites 101. Whether the expanded footprint and new rooms will affect visitor capacity or push ticket prices higher than last year's inaugural run remains unclear, as neither Galleria Dallas nor BAYMO has detailed how the bigger 2026 version compares financially to its debut season.
