Rowdy Guests

The raceway was attracting rowdy guests. Year two at the same location. The city had a major cow over the parking. I have yet to understand the reasoning behind it. We never caused any crowd problems, traffic difficulties or emergencies. We had more parking than we could eat, but because the parking lot was not part of the property for the permit it could not be included. This technical problem would make this our last year with the raceway. Which was not all bad, because as I mentioned, the crowd they attracted was becoming rowdy.

The lava floor went in this year along with a 90% completed Skull Cavern. A metal roof was added to the castle and two scenes with twelve-foot ceilings. The pendulum was now inside (the actors would be dry this year) and the Lava Floor filled the other twelve-foot ceiling space. An under ground fog system in the cemetery used fog juice of my own formulation.

A scene that is now a castle staple was created this year. It is known as the guardroom. It was so intense that customers trying to retreat from it hit the exit door hard enough to take it off of its hinges. It is simple. But complex. In a nut shell customers must pass between a little girl in a jail cell and a large man (no mask) sitting at a table. The reality is that the event is much too complex to describe here and may become a topic for another column.

The spider web from last year is moved and improved. It is lowered to the point of forcing most people to crawl near its end. Its path has changed and many nasty things are caught in its web. Customers have to bump into the objects trapped by the web. They are of many different textures, shapes and sizes. The coffins in the cemetery use an oil based fog system. The air driven device is placed inside the coffin; fog builds up and seeps out of the cracked lid. A red light in the coffin adds color to the fog. The oil foggers cost pennies to operate and the compressed air is used to blast customers and operate other air driven effects.

The fire department requires a smoke detection system this year. It includes horns and strobes at the exits and two fire pulls. The fire department wanted the fire pulls in the customer path. I explained to them that this was not wise, as customers might pull them for fun. I held my ground and eventually got my way. The fire pulls were installed in the central corridor, one at each end. Low-level exit signs that would illuminate if the alarm sounded were required, also.

New exit doors were built for this year. Last year a curious thing happened. The building inspector thought that the doors marked exit were only directional signs and he asked me to pop out the arrows. He did not realize that they were exits because the doors were painted like the walls. This year marked a new design. Exit doors were painted to look like doors. The exit signs were clearer and the low-level exit lights were added.

Another growing concern of the fire department was extension cords. I solved that problem by constructing a low voltage lighting system. The castle no longer had any 110vac inside and we did not have to worry about being fried every time it rained. The central corridor was refined and was proving its value. On the slow nights five actors can run the whole show and the customer has no idea that the same people are scaring him over and over, because we have time to change clothes between scenes. And yes, on these nights we use masks (oh what a terrible admission, help!).

One event stands out for this season. It brings to the forefront ones customer base. On a busy Friday night a customer pulled a gun on one of my actresses. Scared the hell out of her. We cut him off within seconds and sensing that he was trapped he exited and ran like a bat out of hell. Our security is good, but there was no way we could prevent a customer from doing something stupid. We responded incredible fast. The girl was rattled, but because we were there by her side in seconds she settled down and finished the season. The incident played out like this. The girl spins the wall around and tries to scare the customer. The customer pulls his gun and approaches the girl who is on a raised platform. She yells (not the haunted house type of yell) and has another actor by her side before her mouth closes.

The customer backs up and looks around. Emergency lighting comes on; all sound and effects stop while the customer is still in the room where the event began. Security is blocking his progress forward and a police officer can be heard talking on the radio and asking for back up (love those police radios, don't care how much they cost per hour, one officer is worth twenty security guards). The customer turns around the way he came and takes the first exit. My staff, because of the gun, does not pursue him but he runs like we are hot on his trail.

Next Week, 1994

Mad Hatter

Copyright 1999, All Rights Reserved

ARTICLES