When we started this year we were coming off a pretty successful year in 2001. We had a lot of kids for a brand new haunt in a mostly unfinished housing complex, the idea of building it in the driveway worked great. What I wish I had more of was corners and walls, there weren't as many as I wanted and it limited the twists and turns I wanted the haunt to have. I also wanted it to be bigger.
We made 2 big decisions this year which dramatically altered the haunt. First, we decided to throw a party the weekend before Halloween. This was a lot of fun but it meant that most of the props were in the house 3 days before Halloween instead of being in the haunt! As a result we did a lot of rushing around, something I had promised myself I wouldn't do. It also meant the partygoers were disappointed in that they were hoping to "go through the haunted house" but it was an empty shell. If we ever do another party I will do the haunt and just decorate with whatever we have left.
The other big decision was to use part of the garage for the haunt. This changed the layout - the exit would be next to the garage instead of on the other side - and opened up quite a bit of room, plus it allowed me to put all the wires and fog chillers and things "behind" the haunt and up next to the house.
Since the garage was available and was envisioned to be just a big room, we decided that was where the candy would be given out.
Like last year I went with pre-fabricating the walls. By taking 4x8 sheets of
plywood or making 4x8 foot squares out of 2x4's I was able to make several
"corners", which would stand by themselves. These I could maneuver around the
driveway and lay out the shape I wanted. I wish I had made more of them as the
shapes were a bit limited but it came out pretty good. I
also wanted to have some little alcoves where I could put props and "scenes".
The entrance was pretty plain and unimpressive last year so for this year I
wanted to "punch" it up a bit. The new layout allowed me to center the entrance
so I made some faces by printing out giant sized faces and gluing them to some
plywood and cutting the plywood. You may notice in the pic
that the entrance isn't closed off, this was a big problem as the neighborhood
kids started using the haunt as a playground. I eventually sealed the entrance,
something I will do first thing from now on!
It was very windy this year and I was concerned about it moving around or falling over, so all of the "L" pieces were braced against each other with 1x2's or 2x4's across the top between them.
Once the wood was up, came the black plastic
- due to
the wind I took extra care and placed duct tape all over then stapled through
the duct tape to keep the black plastic from simply tearing away from the
staples. The roof went over early since I wanted to protect any props from
wind/rain.
One of my big issues with last year was that the person handing out candy did
so sitting on a lawn chair. Not a very impressive thing, so this year I resolved
to make something much more impressive. The result was the "Demon Throne" -
essentially a chair with a fancy plywood back and a bunch of pipes so it would
look like spider legs folding around the person.
I also spent quite a bit of time trying to get the SEMITB working but the finicky rotating link thing just would not work correctly and I ended up never getting it working for the haunt - a real shame since it was such a hit last year.
I also couldn't find any place for the FCG, last year I had built a stand-alone frame out of PVC pipe and set it up behind the haunt where people could see it over the walls. This year there wasn't any place like that and I ran out of time with the party so the FCG never got used....sigh.....
This year turned out to be a terrible one for timing, since everything was in the house for the party, we had to come home from work and start moving props and decorations. And of course it turned out that this was a busy week with both of us coming home late and exhausted. I had the day off on Halloween itself and basically decorated much of the haunt that day. We were still setting things up when the little kids began showing up!
As a result some things just didn't get done as they should have. The room in
the garage didn't get much of anything except walls and the Demon Throne. It
looked really bare and I ended up putting a card table out with the few skulls
and things we had left and it looked pretty sad.
We also didn't get much lighting in place and that was a major comment from people, that it was so dark they couldn't see things.
But we did get a bunch of stuff set up, I was able to do some good looking
"set's" in the alcoves - they look much better at night ;-)
A wonderful surprise - for the party I had scanned in a picture of a skull
and enlarged it to 8 feet high! It took 49 sheets of paper to print and I cut
and taped them all together.
It was
designed as a party decoration but it turned out to be so impressive we put it
in the haunt, right at the entrance: (note: this picture is out of
focus)
I had placed a couple of small ads, signs with "Neighborhood Haunted House"
on them around. The word must have gotten out, because we had HUNDREDS of kids.
They were driving up in cars all night long. Everyone agreed this
was the best one ever! and most of the kids went through dozens of times (each
time trying to get more candy)
It was a terrific success and everything went very smoothly.
I had sealed the opening to keep kids from getting in and when we were ready to open we just took the scissors and cut the black plastic into ribbons and left them hanging. This turned out to be very scary for people, to have to push through the barrier without knowing what was beyond it. next year we will have more of them!
The Demon Throne worked great and was a big hit, looking very impressive for the candy giver.
The lack of anything impressive in the garage, it turned out to be just a big room with black walls - we ran out of time but didn't have much prepared anyway.
It was too dark with much of the props unseen, more lights are needed.
The "alcove" concept didn't work very well, people reported that the kids raced through the haunt and didn't turn around to see much of the stuff. Next year we will have to design them to be seen by someone racing through the haunt.
I still want the entrance to be cooler, something that stands out better. We also want to increase the number of black plastic ribbon doorways, perhaps using them to separate the haunt into different rooms.
More light!
Prepare better and get something better in the garage
Plus get the FCG worked in somehow, my early thought is to make a alcove beside the haunt so its visible from the street,
- Mark
