Thread: Haunt Help

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Happy New Years!!! I run two charity haunted trails at an Ohio State Park every year. We have an entire Halloween weekend in the campground and have over 5000 people for the weekend. I give out over 600 pieces of candy during the 1 1/2 hour Trick or Treat time. We try to make this a family weekend, but my haunted trails are not for the young kids. I had an ideal last year to have a kids (5yrs. and under) friendly trail during the daytime in the campground. The only problem is I am not sure I know how to make it kid friendly and not scary. I guess i have been scaring people for too long. So I am looking for some ideals and or themes. Please think of these future haunters and help me out.

THANKS

That whole thing sounds pretty terrific. Seems like it would be a great time.

I would think for the kids area you could have some less menacing type stuff like ghosts and pumpkins and corn stalks and hay.
I would think even some spider webbing and spiders would not be too scary.
Maybe a witch.
I think it is just a matter of toning it down, you know not having blood flowing from something and guts hanging out...lol

Where our haunt started my mom always had the whole front porch. I had the yard but the porch and steps were her domain and she always had these friendly characters set up that had a Halloween feel but were pretty fun for the little ones. She always wanted the little kids to have a place and we did have a lot of little ones that would head straight for the porch and avoid all the other stuff and they would get their picture taken there.

For your trail I had one other thought too - if the trail will also be used after dark for older kids the darkness and some creative lighting can turn up the creepy on the same kid friendly daytime trail and then maybe have some trash barrels hidden along the way that contain additional props ready to be easily deployed for the "late show".

Best of luck - sounds great
Happy New Year

My walk through is too scary for the younger ones also....I've already got part of a trail in the woods beside me....I thought about cutting the trail further and looping it back around, put down some mulch and filling it with inflatables so they can walk around the loop and look at those....Maybe string clear lights all around the trees like Christmas so it's well lit....They have many inflatables that are animated now too.......Make it kind of like the story book forest used to be but with inflatables.....ZR

Here's a quick list of things I thought of for a Kids Friendly haunt. Jack O lanterns, inflatables, friendly witches, Scooby Doo style monsters, lots of orange coloured lights, ghosts made from sheets, or an axworthy should you want to animate something. Perhaps run a Big Scream TV DVD (Boo Tube, Funny Bones or Scarols) projection.

I guess I should clarify Nightlites13. My two haunted night time trails. "The Trail of Lost Souls" & " Carnival of the Departed" are at night and athrough a woods and around a pond. I thought of doing the kid friendly trail in the daytime and in the campground, maybe on a field path.