Thread: Thoughts for next year

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Of course, I'm making all kinds of promises to myself that I'm going to keep right on working all year, getting ready for next year. I'm not going to wait until the last minute to get started, like I did this year. (yeah, right) Maybe we should start a "new effect of the month club". It would be sort of like going to weight watchers and getting weighed once a week. Just having that "accountability" helps keep you honest.

Taking into account some the the horrid experiences fellow haunters had this year, just reinforces my desire to keep my haunt small, completely outdoors and in front of the house. I don't want to create any hidden places to "enable" people to misbehave. My son was encouraging me to expand the haunt and use the back yard too ---sooo not gonna happen now. I have always focused on getting my scares from atmosphere and animated props, not costumed people. I've shelved any plans to add actors and "sudden contact" scares. All such scares will come from mechanical devices. One, these scares are not really "in your face", because for safety's sake I have to create a open zone around them. Two, in my experience, people don't get angry over these types of scares. Their more inclined to laugh about it and admire the device. Three, if somebody does take a whack at it, a doctor is not needed to fix it. Besides, for me, building the props is half the fun anyway.

Next year, I think I'm going to create a "bail out" corner close to the street. Maybe build an area with more cheesy, comic type effects. Possibly interactive, let the kids push the buttons to make small effects go off - with an uncostumed candy distributor. The yard and driveway has just become too intimidating for some of the younger ToT'rs. Some of them wouldn't come in at all, sending in parents to fetch the candy. One little girl broke down in tears. aagggh I don't need that. This to me kind of defeats the whole purpose of the holiday. So, I think I'm gonna have a "scary" entrance and "chicken" entrance. My driveway is circular, so they can get the candy and retreat back to the street without running the gauntlet. My whole haunt used to be much tamer, I've let you guys encourage me to bad habits - namely, scaring the cr** out of people. ( which is fun I admit, but making little girls cry is not)

Taking into account some the the horrid experiences fellow haunters had this year, just reinforces my desire to keep my haunt small, completely outdoors and in front of the house. I don't want to create any hidden places to "enable" people to misbehave. My son was encouraging me to expand the haunt and use the back yard too ---sooo not gonna happen now. I have always focused on getting my scares from atmosphere and animated props, not costumed people. I've shelved any plans to add actors and "sudden contact" scares. All such scares will come from mechanical devices. One, these scares are not really "in your face", because for safety's sake I have to create a open zone around them. Two, in my experience, people don't get angry over these types of scares. Their more inclined to laugh about it and admire the device. Three, if somebody does take a whack at it, a doctor is not needed to fix it. Besides, for me, building the props is half the fun anyway.

Next year, I think I'm going to create a "bail out" corner close to the street. Maybe build an area with more cheesy, comic type effects. Possibly interactive, let the kids push the buttons to make small effects go off - with an uncostumed candy distributor. The yard and driveway has just become too intimidating for some of the younger ToT'rs. Some of them wouldn't come in at all, sending in parents to fetch the candy. One little girl broke down in tears. aagggh I don't need that. This to me kind of defeats the whole purpose of the holiday. So, I think I'm gonna have a "scary" entrance and "chicken" entrance. My driveway is circular, so they can get the candy and retreat back to the street without running the gauntlet. My whole haunt used to be much tamer, I've let you guys encourage me to bad habits - namely, scaring the cr** out of people. ( which is fun I admit, but making little girls cry is not)[/QUOTE]



you bring up a couple of good points in your statement and a couple of eh points.
first lets start with having a scary and chicken entrance. Our first year doing a haunt where we are now we had a graveyard into a dungeon and a little ones entrance, ( I like little one instead of "chicken" ) the cutsie entrance was also the only exit so everyone had to go through to leave. In the little ones entrance we had a bunch of cartoon stuffies dressed up in costume, instead of a fog machine we had a bubble machine, instead of scary pop out at you stuff we had the gigglers...

i will continue this after i get home from work...

I'm thinking next year, my haunt will be the same size, in the garage like this year. I got so many compliments and they couldn't believe how much I was able to put into the garage.

I'm thinking of going with an enchanted forest theme. I could put fake leaves over top of the black plastics walls, hang a bunch of moss. Have trolls and ghouls, maybe some fairies and lots of lightning bugs. There can be a small cemetery in the back where I can have some creepies popping out of (like in the Haunted Mansion in Disney, just went there last weekend and got some ideas). I'm thinking of getting that talking bust from Target and putting it atop a tombstone. Man, now I can't wait til next year.

Doing the trail thing next year. Yards to small for all the sh-- i got. Still gonna do the "profitable" ( snicker snicker) Haunted House Ive owned for 2 years now.

Next year I am going more for the scare then I did this year and I am going to have a seperate area/trail for the little ones. Some of the little ones are not quite ready for a scary ahunt and its not right to have the miss the fun.....