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Haunted house! PHOTOS COMING SOON!

It is that time of year once again, I am getting ready for the haunt. It is my job to coordinate the meetings, staffing, setup and running times. In short I am in charge. icon_gonk.gif Setup is done by 5 to 10 people on average in less than a month in a totally empty warehouse building, after school and work and on the weekends. We put up temporary walls and do everything from the ground up. We generally have between 32 and 50 volunteers working in the haunt at any one time while it is running. This year we hope to have more guests come through, as last year we just over three hundred. I am hoping for at least four hundred yay! We run the last two weekends of October, Fridays and Saturdays from 7 to 10 p.m. It is sure a lot of work for only twelve hours. I need to think on this..... icon_neutral.gif

Our haunt is different than most because it is extremely visual. We put a LOT of work into the sets and scenes so that it feels surreal. Lighting, fog, sound and sets make the whole thing come alive. Last year it was over 17,000 square feet of labyrinth, this year we are not sure what building we will be in, so many things are yet to be decided.

Update: We got the big warehouses oh yeah!

The theme is "Horrors of the World", and we have been plotting and scheming all winter on ideas for it. Here is what we have come up with for areas so far, I will expand on it as we progress. Keep in mind we usually have between 24 and 35 different scenes and areas to walk through. We have a LONG way to go!

Areas updated 9-17
USA - Bigfoot in the woods/eerie forest with webs and bats, fog
Egypt - Pyramid facade, mummies rotting and coming alive. You will enter a pyramid for this one.
Voodoo - witch doctor in the jungle
Russia - Anarchy! Graffiti and burn barrel, shrapnel and KGB (perhaps a hostage from each group here)
Paris - Phantom of the Opera
Mexico - Day of the dead with effigy
Ruins - Mayan ruins with vines and foliage
London - Jack the ripper / Jekyll and Hyde
Atlantis - Barnacles seaweed and rotting merfolk
Coney Island - Amusement park/clowns and lizardman
China - dragons and warriors (?)
Tortuga - pirate cove, sand, and pirate ghost, treasure trove and rum barrels
Boomtown - cowboy ghosts, western facade cow bones and skulls (real)
Western cemetery - cow skull, sagebrush and sand.
Amazon - Snakes/Spitting Anaconda with mist
Rose Cemetery - Ivy, stone walls and cherubs.
South Africa - Diamond mines
Argentina - Gnomes/giant mushrooms
Australia - Plague of mice
Scotland - Barbarians
Orphanage - still plotting
If anyone has ideas please pm me with them, I love input!

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA PROJECT!
I finished my first project! I cut pipe to make what looks like the back of a church organ! I will try to make it so fog comes up through the pipes. I have an old set of sheet music that is yellowed and falling apart around the edges, a real antique. Add some cobwebs, a music stand and keyboard, candles, skulls and a red rose and VIOLA! You have and awesome set for the Phantom!

Update 7-16-09
I got into the whole thing by putting together a simple halloween party for the children in our town. It all started with a few games, like the fishing game, beanbag toss, lava walk, cupcake walk, tunnel of straw, and pin the bolts on Frankenstein. You know, the usual lol. Some friends and I made up all the games and put them together, then each family that came to the party brought a bag of candy which we dumped into a huge cauldron, mixed up and doled out to them as they left in treat bags.

From there it grew into a haunted house and kids carnival, two separate events. One for the little ones and one for the big kids. We just started hanging sheets and tarps, gathering anything we could that would make it spooky and did it! From there it has grow quite a bit, we have over seven thousand dollars just in props and sets, and it took eight trailer and pickup loads to move it all last fall. We have, of course, added to it since then.

I am SO excited to have a building to use, now I can proceed with the insurance paperwork, safety and evacuation plans, have the first meeting and plan the scavenger haunt we do in order to help offset the cost of running it. Then comes the hard part. I have to find around forty people to help out inside it, put the scenery together (this takes at least three weeks of steady labor before and after work and all weekend) and make sure the costumes and makeup are available and match the area they are in. Money takers, security, actors, shadows that follow the groups, prop workers and traffic director all have to be found. Advertising needs to happen right away, flyers made and articles written for the papers, community calendars updated on tv and radio, the web, etc. OMG! I better stop now I am working myself up lol!

Update 9-17

Today we put together the Rose Graveyard and the Inquisition rooms. WOW! I will post pictures soon, there are a lot of things to be done and I have 30 days until rehearsal night! Even if we put one room together each day, we will barely finish in time. The warehouses are gigantic, filthy and smell like mice. SO! We clean first, then move huge grain boxes around and finally put things together. It is an awesome amount of work, completely volunteer and I even smooshed my foot today. All in all, it is well worth the work to hear the screams and laughter. Happy Haunting!