Stay Focused

During the day I was a TV Producer. We had three half hour television shows to produce each week. 1980 had but one show and we were able to pre shoot studio segments and avoid using the studio where the haunt was. This year the studio had to be used during the day and converted back to a haunt at night. This was a drag.

The haunt was almost the same as the year before. No exposed staples. The customer path was rearranged and sets from the TV programs were used. Most of the haunt was hinged and my portable designs were being born. 4x8' and 8x8' panels were all around. I was still using mostly ninety-degree walls in the design, but the mazes used a variety of angles. Oh, and I stopped using sheet rock. I had not discovered wafer board, so I used plywood. I did not use the sixty-degree system till 1989.

A variety of problems were created. The first was the night we opened and no customers were coming out of the haunt, they were going in, but nobody was exiting. At first we joked about this, told customers waiting in line that no one ever escaped our haunt alive. After about thirty customers had entered it was obvious that something was wrong. As it turned out a wall was in the wrong place, it was hinged and got closed off the wrong way creating a loop effect. The customers were going in circles. The reason we heard no complaints was that they loved it. This error was incorporated into other designs.

Then there was the night I became brain dead. I had no idea where anything went. Nothing seemed to fit and we were twenty minutes late in opening. Add to this the Saturday we ran over in shooting. Normally we would open at 6pm for lights on tours then 7pm for real haunting. We had a crowd at 6pm, unusual, for the lights on, but we were still shooting in the studio. In between takes we were setting up the haunt, but we still did not open till 7pm for lights on and 7:30pm for lights off. We stumbled through the month exhausted and in a semi coma. Bottom line was that the haunt did not really suffer and our TV shows seemed better. I work well under pressure, but this was absurd.

The final straw came when I actually loaded into the VCR and cued that days show seconds before airtime. We were all basket cases and losing focus, then the month was over, could not have lasted another day.

The plus to this madness was that I was learning short cuts. Quicker ways to put up/take down, run wire, set lights and general preparation for opening. This experience became valuable beginning in 1989 and 1990 with the advent of more than one haunt and setting up in a parking lot. We were really on our own with no municipal guidance. No one was injured, no customer emergencies went unhandled (like we are really scared, please let us out) and nothing broke. We did have fewer parents helping out, but we had more than enough students and some of them were already planning for 1982.

So, so what? You say. Well, I am into year three, still using the haunt as a fundraiser for the acting school and I love it. OK, so I enjoy self-abuse. I have learned a great deal, and I start keeping notes. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending upon your point of view) I have lost my early floor plans. They were little more than a joke, anyway. Basically I would walk into the room, pick a spot and begin to build. When it failed to fit, I modified whatever I was working on to fit, or changed to something else entirely. I did not make a real floor plan till 1986. And it was 1987 before anybody in city government noticed us or anyone else I believe.

The reality was/is that I did not even begin to work on the haunt till October. My life was so busy that I could not focus on the haunt till it was up and in my face. We usually opened for the last two or three weeks and that gave me the first week of October to prepare. This to would change in time. My haunts were becoming more complex and requiring more time to build. I had not yet developed the technique for modular construction. We re-used everything from the haunts in our TV productions. The inventory of show sets was increasing and it began to make sense to me that I might begin an inventory of haunt related sets, but that is another story. And if there is any message here (focus) it is that time must be dedicated and a true focus achieved. Unless you wish to become a candidate for the funny farm and a pretty padded cell with a limited view.

Next Week, 1982

Mad Hatter

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