Thread: Help.. My 1st Pro Haunt Dilemma: Roof?

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So I have been garage haunting, rather successfully, for years and finally landed a pro gig in Vegas at the springs preserve. Its a big hippie theme park that caters to 5-12yr olds.

I dont get to charge admission because they are paying me to create, build & operate. woohoo. All the fun with no risk

I WAS super excited until they dropped the corporate scaredy cat clause on me today. NO ROOF. They say its a fire hazard. I have NEVER heard of such a thing and has got me really riled up. How can I create the proper ambiance with too much ambient light coming from their rather bright lights above. WTF..

The event is inside a building with fire sprinklers .. whats the issue?
Here is a link to pics of us taping down the floor to get the maze layout ready:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tedcampo...eat=directlink

So .. my question is .. how to get them to allow the roof... its only visqueen. not wood and certainly not flammable. Has anyone every really had this issue and what was the argument that won them over.

thanks for your input in advance...

Looking at the space, I assume the lights you are referring to are the indoor florescent lights? If that's the case, won't they be turned off?

I've heard restrictions like that before. Some years back I helped work on a charity haunt in an old school building and the fire marshal was pretty adamant about no roofing. We got around it by covering all windows and shutting off all the overhead lights when open. We got ambient light from other rooms in the haunt, but not so much that it was a real problem. Mostly the strobes bled over walls into the darker rooms next door. You can work around that a little by not having real dark rooms across a wall from strobe or brightly lit rooms. At first we were annoyed, but late decided it was nice having good light when making repairs to props that got crushed by terrified sorority girls--some of whom were actors in the haunt. You may need to have a room to yourself which is something they might consider anyway since you'll have a soundtrack running, too.

I have seen this in other haunts and they fixed it by turning off over head lighting, taller walls, and camo netting. Are you allowed to have a small percentage of areas that have a roof?

Thanks for the responses. The lights will be off and we will do our best to deal with the light coming from other rooms. My biggest concerns are with strobes and a dark hallway we had planned. I went to an open air haunt one time and Maybe it's just cause I build that I noticed how much it hurt the effects. I never thought for once till now that they were forced.. I feel horrible about my comments about their haunt now.

Side note: I love this forum. I can't wait to showcase my props here!!! Thanks guys.

I'd get the walls up and see if you could do a test run with the overhead lights out and see how bad it is. It is possible to build the walls with a slight insweep like this:

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If that makes any sense - you'll still technically have the roof open, but it will restrict the amount of open area, and bonus - it will give a walls-closing-in effect.

Sucks to not be able to work with a roof enclosure, but the safety issue (even if it seems silly) needs to be the highest priority in my opinion.

I have been to a professional haunt that is completely outside with chain link along some of the pathways - they have a major freeway right next door and have the huge lights off of that that shine over into the woods... it still works pretty darn well.

Pro haunts NEVER have roofs over the interior walls. If they do, they must drop the fire sprinkler system down below the new lower ceiling. That is industry standard in every state.

Standard visqueen is very flammable and the fire inspector will probably shut you down if you don't have the paperwork showing you bought the fireproof type. Same goes for your walls and many of your props.

This is really the wrong board to be asking specific technical questions about a pro haunt, although there are many helpful people here and many pro haunters. You should go to the HauntWorld.com forums.

The only haunt I've ever been in with a ceiling was a haunt built in a single story 9ft ceiling building. Roll with it, people will be drawn to the things around them in standard view, not the ceiling. A dot room would a challenge, but otherwise you should be fine.

Originally Posted by Frankie's Girl

I'd get the walls up and see if you could do a test run with the overhead lights out and see how bad it is. It is possible to build the walls with a slight insweep like this:

/ \
| |

If that makes any sense - you'll still technically have the roof open, but it will restrict the amount of open area, and bonus - it will give a walls-closing-in effect.

Sucks to not be able to work with a roof enclosure, but the safety issue (even if it seems silly) needs to be the highest priority in my opinion.

I have been to a professional haunt that is completely outside with chain link along some of the pathways - they have a major freeway right next door and have the huge lights off of that that shine over into the woods... it still works pretty darn well.

Screamworld and Phobia? lol

I hav used old Burlap camo nets. we got shut down one year by the fire department on a home haunt for the roof..so we went out and put up camo net and they accepted it and lighting was not an issue due to how much burlap was in the net.