As Lady Luck would have it, we added another location this year. A failing mall became our second location. We were afraid to move our haunt completely to the mall, so we opened two haunts. The school haunt was typical, no bridge, instead we built a large maze with two foot wide passageways. The maze had a four foot wide exit corridor completely around it and many chicken exits to this corridor. But only one true way in and out. The maze contained three cubicles for actors to pop out. The advantage to two locations was that we could refer customers.
The mall location offered many advantages. First was 10,000 sq. ft. of space. It was so large that we could not use it all the first year. It provided us with shop, construction and much needed storage space. This was the first year that we painted all our panels. The color of choice was black (or is that lack of color?). The haunt was similar to the school haunt, in that the first half had actors and scenes and the second half was a maze. It did not have a central corridor. This would prove to be an error on my part. The choice for lighting was, little to no light. The sound system was your regular stereo speakers and turn up the volume. The new panels were all double sided. This new location provided several new problems. All previous haunts had been built on carpet. The floor at the mall was concrete. The panels would slip and slide as customers bounced off the walls. We had to constantly walk the passage and realign the walls. The ceiling was white and made light control difficult, the solution was less light. This was bad for several reasons. Without areas of brightness, the dark areas were less effective. The sound was very uneven and because of the volume not much more than noise. Which was OK except for the fact that as you walked the path the sound would go from soft to deafeningly loud. It would be a couple of years before I solved this problem. The year would be known as a learning experience. The facade on the mall exterior was black and white. The mall haunt was black and white (with droplets of red). We operated the mall haunt for the month of October, but the school haunt operated Friday and Saturdays only, except for the last weekend, then we were opened through Tuesday night, Halloween. The school haunt made as much money with its limited run as the mall haunt. The addition of the new haunt stretched our resources to the breaking point and created more stress than it was worth. The school haunt used all volunteers and the mall haunt had the first few paid actors. No central corridor in the mall haunt made life miserable for us all. It was difficult to move from scene to scene. We could not easily leap frog ahead of customers on slow nights when we had few actors and we could not monitor what the customers were doing. Several couples managed to slip out of the haunt area into the empty space and find happy hiding places. This is one of the reasons a guy brings a gal to a haunt, get her all worked up, frightened, then comfort her (LOL). '89 found new uses for haunt materials. The mall location became "Winter Wonderland" for Christmas. The panels were arranged to form walkways (they were covered with red and green convention taffeta), wafer board was painted to resemble cobblestone for the path, 100 illuminated Christmas trees were arranged along the path, white cotton bunting filled in the space between the walls and the cobblestone path to complete the illusion. The entrance was a magical ride in Santa's sleigh which brought you to the Winter Wonderland trail. Customers would follow the trail to the first of three stages. The guide would ask the customers to be seated. Students would perform a comical seasonal production. When the performance was completed the customers would move on to the next stage and finally the exit. School literature was handed out along with mistletoe. Winter Wonderland was not a financial success, but it was a school success. Out of this event a permanent theater was built in the mall and regular shows produced on Saturday and Sunday. This gave the students training in front of live audiences. The seasonal nature of the haunt business limits our income. Yes there are exceptions, but as a rule we make money one month out of the year. Finding alternative sources of income for our investment will help us all make a little more money.Mad Hatter
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