HAUNT BIZ, NOT!

Entertainment, what? Yes, I am in the entertainment business. WHAT? JB Corn is in the entertainment business; I thought he was in the haunt business. NO, you may be in the haunt biz, I am in show biz, I aim to entertain. Of course we may go about this differently in a haunt. One of the few places where the goal is to make the customer feel unsafe, in one of the safest over regulated buildings on the planet, in order to scare the bee gee gees out of them. And no, I have no explanation for this.

My actors often remind me that we are in the business of scaring people. One will come up to me and relate an exciting experience he had when scaring a customer. Seldom do I have an actor tell me about the many customers that he does not scare. And even more seldom do they tell me about 'entertaining' a customer. My core actor team is different, they tell me about the 'entertaining' of customers, they pride themselves on their ability to quickly size up a group and cater to their wants/desires/fears. They act as the ultimate distraction and set the group up for 'future scares'.

"Flash Back" In my early haunt days I would visit as many of the area haunts as I could each October. As my haunt became more of a task I had to visit haunts before they opened for lights on tours. In the late 70s and early 80s safety was of very little concern. But we did have fun. The problem was we stood in line for an hour or more, and then walked through the haunt in fifteen or less minuets… and that was it, nothing else to do, except to trek to the car, load up and blindly do it all over again, which we did… over and over and … well.

More haunts are entertaining. And making their haunt more than a haunt by making it a destination. A haunt destination has entertainment value to offer the customer. It may have a carnival, musical artists, stage shows, etc. I produced a Fall Festival for a city in '95 & '96. It included a full size carnival (big rides), craft booths, two stages, tents, talent show, costume contest, ghost stories, grand illusions, petting zoo, face painting, two haunts, hay ride, food, games and more. Entertaining with the stand-alone haunt may be a bit more challenging. Then again it may not…

When I first started in the haunt biz, it was not a biz, it was, er, uh, well, it was on a lark. Spur of the moment kind of a thingie. OOOhhh lets do this as a fundraiser, it is easy. HA!!! Little did I know what I was getting into? My background is TV/Film producer/director. Eventually the two merged and created the very mild mannered, easy going, unopinionated person you have all come to love (lol).

The reality is that I have developed opinions. I have made all the mistakes that there are to make and even some that you cannot even begin to imagine. A book the size of War and Peace could not contain my mistakes. This knowledge I offer you. I AM IN THE ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS and if you pay close attention you will/are too.

Halloween and horror in general fascinate us all. Different cultures approach life/death in different ways. A funeral can contain tears and black; celebration and music; burial under the family house or consumption of the deceased's ashes or flesh. Many cultures have celebrations in the fall around our traditional Halloween time. I am not here to investigate this but to exploit it. It is the fears of man that make the haunt biz possible.

In 1990 I built two Haunted Houses. Haunt one inside a mall, many scenes with elaborate sets. Haunt two in a parking lot, black as pitch, little detail, and lots of fog. 1990 was a season of learning for me. Both haunts did well, but the indoor haunt, opened Friday and Saturdays, made more money than the parking lot haunt did for the entire month. The Indoor Haunt customers appreciated the detail, sets, costumes and the way the scenes played. Also, Newspaper reviews panned the parking lot haunt and praised the indoor haunt.

I worried at first. It seems that a good number of customers exiting the indoor haunt were laughing as they exited. True, most were terrified and glad to get out alive, but… It appears I had much to learn, you see I thought I was in the business of 'scaring people'. The final scene of the indoor haunt was over 400 square feet. A path wove its way through a forest of white leafless trees (flame proofed), bathed with opposing strobes, then the path divided around a giant eight feet long spider with six foot legs and red glowing eyes. It was devouring a lovely young lady covered in blood. We play the melodramatic scene to the max. As customers approached, the spider would rise up on its legs and lean forward toward them. The Customers would select the left or right path around the spider to the exit clearly in their view. Once their path was chosen the spider would lean into their path in a threatening way. The customers would stop, panic, back up, scream, take the other path, etc. The spider operator had a blast. Yet, some of the customers were laughing. What was I doing wrong?

I began to observe customers as they moved through each event of both haunted houses. The parking lot haunt had more early exiting customers. The two haunts were equally terrifying (I thought). However, the indoor haunt retained (fewer early exits) terrified customers better, maybe because the light levels inside were higher. I did have a few customers laughing as they exited the parking lot haunt, but the indoor haunt had many more. I was getting no closer till I decided to follow groups that had purchased tickets to both haunts.

It was then that I learned the truth. In no way possible can you scare all the people all the time. You can scare some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. (Poetic license please) However, you can entertain all the people all (ok, most) of the time. Starting in 1992 I designed scenes with entertainment value. First we entertained the customers and second, if possible, we scared them. Yes, there are customers that scream from the time they enter the building till the time they get home, but these scene designs are to entertain. The real scares came in the corridors and from above and behind.

BUT, how do you scare someone? Or is it entertain? Or rather, is it both? The Roller Coaster Ride article presents path and pace. Now what shall we offer, beyond the obvious scare. Castle Dragon is now on a different path, but its checkered past has provided the ultimate R&D facility for developing and sharpening my skills, and yes at the expenses of many a poor unsuspecting customer. I found that I could really scare someone to the point of soaking their undies, barfing and into hyperventilating. Before all the safety BS, I added more exits to my haunt to get the chickens out of the way. The loneliest job in my haunt used to be the exit scare. During adult operation (scariest version) the exit scare person sees 60% to 70% of the castle customers. The twelve exits along the customer path see considerable activity. Some of these chickens are enticed into returning, most are not.

Here is two of my favorite entertaining scenes. 1992 we introduced the "Pendulum" inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's book "The Pit and the Pendulum". (Or "Beauty and the Beast" as we lovingly call it) A giant four foot blade swings slowly barely touching the stomach of a lovely innocent young girl, dressed in a full length white dress, long sleeves, high collar, completely covered, tightly. Her arms and legs are spread across an "X" table, clothes draped/hanging showing shape and form. She is The Beauty. The Beast is a tall strange looking creature hovering greedily over her. A character actor with no mask, good eye contact and facial control. The scene as played out scares over half the customers and entertains the rest. A room richly decorated with instruments of death and pain covering the walls, cells containing the remains of previous victims and victims yet to be. We create a false sense of security by illuminating all the rooms' visuals. The tall beast lumbers around slowly as the customers ease their way through the scene. Then the beast suddenly moves towards the customers or leaps up on the table roaring, long hair flying, laughing, mild scare, but for some this scene is one to many. The first year we produced this scene we placed an exit door in the room, it was the most used chicken exit. But being the good sports that we are, we would retrieve our victims and set them back on the path.

1996 The Pendulum was joined by the "Torture X" for entertainment value, or by way of entertaining, set up the scare in the following scene. No scare, strange conversation and much left to the imagination. In both scenes the customers must walk between two actors, the one on the "X" and the one moving about.

1996 had a ghostly visitor. The Grand Entry was added to Castle Dragon the year before. It contained a trap door over the entrance doors. Customers waiting to enter the haunt could scare customers entering the Grand Entry. The attendant would select one person from a group to operate the effect. When operated a ghost would propel itself through the trap door and into the faces of the entering customers. The ghost was made of fluff, the effect was too much. I ran it for two nights, and then I pulled it. Customers operating the effect loved it; those receiving the ghost in the face were embarrassed at how easily they were scared, some out the door and to ask for a refund. The big problem was that after this scare, for some, the rest of the castle was a let down. I had out done myself. The effect will be re-introduced in 1999 as part of the exit sequence. However, the crowd entertainment value was incredible, everyone in the Grand Entry knew what was about to happen, they all watched with great anticipation and reacted accordingly to the results. I had succeeded in entertaining, but could not continue to deliver a show that matched the entry ghost. My Roller Coaster was all down hill from here. Care must be exercised when creating the items/scenes to be presented to the customers. From this experiment I developed the Fright Control Unit (FCU). This item will not be covered in an article anytime soon.

Working the emotions of the customer is important. The more emotions a scene involves the more the customer is entertained. Emotions are manipulated to create the customers trip through your haunt. Entertainment takes on many forms. One of my displays of a skeleton with a white-gloved bony hand has a sign that says "The Gloved One". Simple humor. Another display is of a gorgeous female mannequin, her shirt is opened slightly, and her face is covered with a werewolf mask. Male customers will pause and gawk, caption "Where Wolf?"

It is possible for the stand-alone haunt to entertain. To survive competition it may be necessary to become a destination. How does one become a destination with more than a haunt to offer customers? Possibilities include: teaming up with other haunts to create a haunted house type destination; permanent (or seasonal) location in an amusement facility and utilizing existing facilities; co-production with a municipality; part of an existing carnival or fair; and the list goes on. The complexity of this type operation is barely within my grasp and better left to others here at Haunted America. And although it is true that 1998 will be my first true year on my own with a destination Halloween Production, it is also true that I am still learning this concept and as soon as I think I know what I am doing, will gladly pass along my hard earned lessons.

JB Corn

Copyright 1999, All Rights Reserved

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