900 Sq. Ft. & Pickets

Halloween suddenly appeared. The kids were ready. I was not. Again funds were scarce but student anticipation was high. A haunt for Halloween had taken a life of its own. The students expected it. Our acting school was in a new smaller space. We would add more next year, but this year our haunt was cramped. This would be the first time that we built an entry area. It was a giant cave facade.

Also unique to this design was a central corridor. It provided actor access to all scenes and customer exit from any scene. The entrance and exit to the haunt were one in the same. There was no real haunt design. The space was divided into square rooms/scenes. The customer path followed the wall of the space with switchbacks dividing the rooms. Black plastic was used for the walls of the central corridor and wafer board was used to build the switchbacks. This was my first year to use wafer board.

The haunt was packed with actors. The space may have been small but we had eight scenes, four to a side, three to four actors per scene and several scare points in the switch backs between scenes. The down side is that it took about eight or nine minutes to make it through, but we only charged $3, so our customers were pleased. The fog machine and strobe lighting everywhere added to the show. The students were intense. Farmer's Branch Fire Department paid a visit-opening day, looked for fire extinguishers and flashlights. They announced that next year we would have to notify them in advance and request an inspection before we opened.

However, a season cannot go by without some lesson. October 31st was on Friday night. We had a line before opening. We also had something else. At our front door was a TV news reporter, and at the entrance to the haunt (back in the alley) was a religious cult, wearing robes, carrying large wooden crosses, singing and chanting. It seems that we were all going to 'Hell.' Halloween night is also the night for the students Halloween Party. The lobby was full of parents and kids ranging in age from 6 to 17. Refreshments were being served and games were being played.

The camera crew was in back and the reporter entered the lobby asking questions. We opened on time, our customers thought it was part of the show and I let the students answer the reporters' questions. Our cult left right after the camera entered the lobby and our kids looked great on TV for the Ten PM. News. I missed the story. The tape machine failed to record a useable picture and the phone rang off the wall… asking how to get to our haunt. We were opened till 2am, which is not normal for us.

I never knew who the cult was, some people accused us of orchestrating the event and the cult left a mess in the alley, their signs, crosses and other trash. Bottom line is that the event did not hurt us, as was intended, but we made more money that night than all other nights combined. We lucked out. The cult picked on a kid acting school and it backfired. The greatest stroke of luck was that none of the staff appeared on camera. A seven-year-old girl explaining Halloween and how fun it was to scare big people was very diffusing.

It could have easily gone against us. Had the cult been more organized and had a game plan besides marching around chanting, we could have been toasted. The reporter decided to play the cute side of the event instead of going along with the cult. She interviewed several students and parents, but only the seven year old made it on camera and the whole story ran at the end of the newscast as a filler. Our student had more time on camera than the cult and they showed our best scene of the haunt.

The cult was so serious that they became comical. Customers in line decided that they were our actors and joined in the fun. This intensified the cults chant, which intern intensified the customers' reactions. The cult was so humiliated that they could not wait to get out of Dodge (so to speak). I have no idea what it is that I am saying or what the point is (if any), except to say that the haunt business is a lightning rod. I did not realize that this was a prelude of stranger things to come.

Next Week, 1987

Mad Hatter

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