Shankweiler’s Drive-In nixes 2027 Easter egg hunt after its event left kids in tears

At 7:05 p.m. on Saturday, about 10 minutes before the Easter egg hunt at Shankweiler’s Drive-In Theatre was supposed to begin, Matt McClanahan headed up the hill with a megaphone.

He had done this before. The in Lehigh County theater had hosted the same event last year, and it had gone well. This year, he and his wife, Lauren McChesney, had prepared even more carefully. They had hidden more than 3,000 eggs and prizes, divided the hunt into age groups, and spent the evening repeating the schedule over the radio. At 7:15 p.m., McClanahan would make a few announcements and start the egg hunt, with the youngest children going first.

As he had the year before, as he walked up the hill, McClanahan turned on the megaphone’s siren to get everyone’s attention and call families toward the hunt. It was meant to be a warning. But to a few kids already near the eggs, it was a starter pistol. Someone yelled, “Go,” and, suddenly, the kids started running toward the eggs. McClanahan tried to stop them. He tried to tell them to go back, that the hunt hadn’t started yet, but it was too late. “It was like a switch was thrown,” he said.

A stampede of children — and, more disturbingly, adults — was now rushing toward the eggs, ignoring the staggered start times and the rules McClanahan had spent all day explaining. Within 45 seconds, all 3,000 eggs were gone. Dozens of families never even made it up the hill. Children were bawling. “It was devastating,” McClanahan said. “I was almost crying myself.”

He and McChesney spent the rest of the evening trying to make up for the mess. They handed out free popcorn and movie passes to kids who didn’t get any eggs. But the damage was already done.

Later, Shankweiler’s posted an apology on Facebook, stating that the hunt “did not go as planned” and calling it a “frankly horrifying experience.”

Shankweiler’s was not the only Pennsylvania business whose Easter egg hunt fell apart this spring. At least two others — Kauffman’s Bar-B-Que in Bethel, Berks County, and Wyoming Valley Mall in Wilkes-Barre Township — also ended the day posting bruised explanations on Facebook after their own hunts unraveled in strikingly similar ways.

At Kauffman’s Bar-B-Que, organizers split children into five age groups, each with its own section of the egg hunt. But, according to the business’ Facebook post, when a handful of kids in other age groups “released themselves” before their scheduled start times, the whole thing fell apart.

“We had no choice but to let the other kids go early as well,” said the post. “We are deeply sorry.”

The organizers of Wyoming Valley Mall’s Easter egg hunt are also sorry. In a Facebook post afterward, they explained that staff had placed more than 1,300 eggs throughout the building and set the start time for 11 a.m. But around 10:40 a.m., an adult yelled “Go!” which sent people running. “It was impossible to slow the crowd down,” wrote the organizers. “We regret the fact that children didn’t get eggs.”

Beneath all three posts, thousands of commenters chimed in. Attendees offered their own versions of events. Some blamed the adults. “Our group’s seven-year-olds were better than the adults at following instructions,” wrote someone who attended the mall’s hunt.

Others defended the businesses and saluted their efforts, pointing out that egg hunts are notorious for descending into chaos. They mentioned other Easter egg hunts in the region that had totally fallen apart.

That’s actually how McClanahan learned about what happened at Kauffman’s and the mall, and it made him feel better. “We didn’t know that this was a regionwide phenomenon,” he said. “It was like some kind of weird egg virus.”

Still, knowing they were not alone was not enough to convince McClanahan that Easter egg hunts are worth the trouble. “We like to have fun ourselves,” he said, “and this was not a fun event to run.”

He and McChesney have already decided not to do another egg hunt next year, and they’re currently brainstorming springtime events to replace it. “We’ll figure out a way to do something fun that ensures everyone can participate and that there are no tears,” he said. “No tears at Shankweiler’s.”