Thread: Front Yard Fright 2010

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So I figured I might as well start this know before I get much further into planning things and all that. As some of you may know, I was actually planning on trying to get a commercial haunt up and going this year, but things aren't really working out as I hoped they would. We were actually contacted by a gentleman and his wife about moving out to his farm last September.
He actually just moved into the area and started a pumpkin patch there on his farm. He seemed like a very genuine guy and really seemed excited to have us out there. He showed us around his property, showing us a large garage he wanted to do a haunted house in. I was ECSTATIC to finally have something work out for us!

We talked throughout the season about business and what not. He was quite busy with his pumpkin patch as must as I was with the haunted house. He ended up coming over one night to drop some pumpkins off for our kids day (we had free pumpkin carving stuff, it was great!) and we ended up talking for a few hours out in the bitter cold. We talked about how things would work out as far as us moving out there and all that jazz. I explained to him that I wanted complete control of the haunt, and didn't want to have to follow what he wanted to do and all that. He completely understood, and explained that with the pumpkin patch, he wouldn't even have time to deal with the haunt, so there were no worries there.

He then asked if I was 100% sure I wanted to go out there and I said something along the lines of "It's already October and I've got to put it somewhere!" And I think he took that as "I don't really have any option" or something like that because he then said "Well I don't want you to get into something you're not sure about" or something like that. Ever since that conversation he seemed kind of standoff-ish and leery about us moving out there.

We continued to talk and he agreed to let us store some of our things out there after Halloween was over because we had added a brand new fun house haunt and we had a full storage unit as it was!

We didn't talk much during the haunting season as we were both very very busy. He came through the haunt once or twice with his wife and seemed really excited about it. He told me what I did well and what I needed to work on (He actually used to run a haunt with his brother a few years ago, and knows a lot about the industry and all that. - Another plus!)

After Halloween was over, and we began to take things down, we rented a large UHAUL to move all the haunt stuff to our storage units. We rented it for two days, and we left all the wall panels aside so we could move them out to the farm. (They take up the most room and are easier to move.)

During the first day of moving I gave him a call to see if we could figure out where we could put things and what not. No answer. I leave a message, asking for him to give me a call back so we can get things figured out because we weren't going to have the UHAUL for much longer. The next day I give him another call in the afternoon. Still no answer. Leave another message, and we worked on getting everything else into storage. He finally gave me a call back later that night and explained that his father had just had a heart attack a few days prior so he was going through some stuff and they were in and out of the hospital visiting and that's why he wasn't able to return my calls. I told him I understood and what not... But I gotta get this stuff gone - and soon! He said something along the lines of "I think it's a little too early in the decision process to have you move things out here" or something like that. I was thinking to myself "YOU CONTACTED ME!!!" but I didn't say anything. I explained that we simply didn't have the room to put these walls anywhere else, and that I was planning on moving them out there as we had talked about before. He understood what a pickle I was in, and agreed to let us store the walls out there.

We loaded up the UHAUL PACKED FULL of walls and drove the 15 min drive to the farm. He showed us to a little plot he wanted the walls and we unloaded them. He even lent a hand and helped stack them! It was great to see that things could possibly still work out. After unloading everything him and I talked for a bit and I told him some of the things I'd like to do on the farm. I then mentioned how great it was going to be to be in the large garage he showed us when we were first out there. He seemed somewhat shocked by that, and said that we weren't going to be able to go into the garage because of all the stuff he needed to store in it and what not... I was completely dumbfounded! Shortly after we had agreed that with how stressful things were for him, and how busy I was with Halloween coming down and Christmas going up, that we would talk about things after the holidays.

Now here's the jerker... I haven't heard from him since. I've been so busy with school, and now, work, I haven't been able to call him. And frankly, I fear what will come from the conversation so I'm in no rush! In the back of my mind, I know we aren't moving out there, considering how flaky the guy is, and how we just simply can't afford all the expenses that come with running a pro haunt. So for right now, I've been making plans to stay home yet again. -sigh-

I'm not very happy about it, but at least I'll be able to still do what I love doing. I've already contacted the city and am awaiting a reply about us still doing it at the house. Last year there was a HUGE deal about the haunt, but the city let me do my thing. I just want to get everything figured out now before I start getting to work on things and what not.

Since I nearly killed myself last year with how large of a haunt we put together, I'm thinking we may downsize and focus more on the finer details of the haunt. I'm wanting to do a larger fun house and have a lot more to it. I'm toying around with the possibility of doing another haunt in the garage OR turning it into a cast/crew area so the kids that help with the haunt don't tear up our house while the haunt is open. (My poor parents!)
I'm hoping that I'll be able to save some money up to get a location for 2011. I just don't think I could do it this year with school and work. Who knows what will happen!

ANYWAY, now that you're all caught up... I'm planning on using this thread to update you on the progress of Front Yard Fright 2010! I've got some ideas brewing in my head and I'm just now getting time to get them put onto paper. My first project for 2010 is going to be a laughing clown prop that will sit out front of the fun house. You can read all about that in the thread I started here:
Laughing Sal Clown - HauntForum.com

I'm also hoping to upgrade our large clown facade for the fun house. I've come up with a drawing of one possible way of doing it, I'm not 100% sure I love it, so I'm looking around for some ideas of other possible ways of doing it. Here's a picture of the first one I put together:


I don't know If I like how sinister it looks as I kind of want to make the fun house seem more like an actual fun house rather than a haunted house fun house... if that makes sense! I want to to seem more like it was an actual fun house at one time, until evil clowns showed up and started cutting people into little pieces... Get it!? .

I will be scrapping the cemetery and probably the house as well to make room for the fun house expansion. I'd like to hopefully cover the whole side yard with one giant haunt! Depending on how things work, we may still do the TOXICORP haunt in the garage, OR do 'the house' in the garage... Decisions decisions!

Anyway, now that I'm sure half of you have stopped reading this by now, I'll end this post! I'll be sure to keep you all updated as I continue to get things figured out!

Thanks for reading!
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I just got started on Flickr last night and I just now uploaded some pictures of some recent purchases I've made for FYF 2010. Check them out below.

New Purchases - a set on Flickr

The heck with that guy. He is a flake.

Okay I figure I should finally update this thread!

This year has been FULL of ups and downs. For a long while it looked as if we weren't going to have the haunt at all, then about a month or so ago my parents agreed that I could do it at our house again for at least one more season. I contacted the city and got to work on getting all the information I needed in order to make sure that the haunt was 100% okay with the city so nobody can say they didn't know about it!

Anyway, I'm currently working on getting some promotional items put together. I put together a poster as well as a t-shirt design I'm getting printed onto a few t-shirts to raise the hype about the haunt (Though there's already a TON of it!)





I'm also in the process of trying to get a new website put together - Something I've wanted to do for MONTHS.

Anyway, I'll try and keep this thread more up to date! Stay tuned!

Still nothing construction wise going on right now... Still trying to get everything planned out before we start doing anything.

I have, however, been working on getting more promo type stuff together. I just received our first shipment of t-shirts for this year. I'm going to be selling this to some of our fans and volunteers in hopes of raising some hype for this year. I'm going to have two or three different t-shirts designed - This being just one of them.

If you are interested in purchasing some, they are only $15.00 +S&H. I will be placing my order at the end of the month - So please get back to me before Friday, August 27th. I would prefer Paypal as it's easy and safe for the both of us!

On to the pictures!

Zach,

I'm a little late here but thought I'd chime in. I like the clown entrance. You could change his mood completely just by centering the eyes and making the teeth straight.

Love the shirt design.

What do you think about that flat skull you bought? It's been on my ebay watch list for a long time but I still haven't committed to buying one.

When I thought I had everything figured out with the city we hit another snag...

For the past month or so I have been e-mailing back and forth with the city zoning official to assure that no more "hiccups" happen again this year. I supplied all the information to him and told him exactly what was planned. About a week or so ago I sent a final draft of the final layout of the haunt and which showed where it would be located in our yard. He shortly replied with an e-mail saying that everything looked great, and now I was to contact the building department about getting a permit.

Permit... WHAT permit!?

Last year with the big hiccup with the city I was asked to fill out a permit application in order to continue construction on the haunt. Shortly after they deemed it not necessary and allowed me to finish construction without a permit.

Anyway, I ended up going to the building department and gave them the same map of the final layout. I attached my contact information and told them to contact me as soon as possible if they needed anything else from me.

I got a e-mail last Thursday morning from the county building inspector asking me to fill out the attached building permit application... This of course the DAY before we are supposed to start setting up.

I filled out the application, scanned it, and replied to his e-mail as fast as I could and told them that I needed a reply quickly as we had planned on getting things set up that weekend. Of course I didn't get a reply. Here it is Wednesday (Thursday now I guess) and still no reply. I will be contacting them Friday if I don't have a reply by then because I simply can't just sit around this late in the game!

Anyway, aside from all that, we were able to get SOME stuff done last weekend. I started to clean out the garage and started to get some lumber from the storage unit moved to the house. I ended up having a friend from work come and we started to get wood cut for our new clown facade this year. Shortly after another one of our volunteers showed up and we started to get things put together. By the end of the night we had the entire framework for the facade done!

Saturday we started the day off by picking up a U-Haul and heading out to the farm our walls were located at. At first it was just four of us but luckily we were able to get some more help later on in the day. We were able to pick up all of our walls and get them back to the house in a couple hours.

From there we unloaded everything and got our walls sorted as far as which ones we were going to use, not use, or needed repair. We got them all stacked up into four piles in our backyard... Waiting until we get word from the city.

Here are some photos of our first weekend of construction.

This weekend I will be getting to work on circus sign and hopefully get that all painted. We will also be fixing up our wall panels and putting the others into storage. I'm also hoping to get started on some dummies to use for clowns... We'll see how everything goes!

I'll keep you posted.
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Still no real progress as of yet... I spent all day yesterday working on the new circus sign I have planned... Got a lot of it done... But a lot is left to do! I spent the better part of the day continuing to work on the sign, as we as getting some things moved out of storage. I was able to get some help from a friend of a friend and her roommate.... It's amazing how many people you can "sucker" into helping out!
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We got some plywood moved out of storage and all piled up to be moved back to the house tomorrow (was without a truck the latter half of the day.)

Tomorrow I've got a small crew coming over to get some more things done. I'm going to start screwing some walls together and brace them with 2x4s on the top and bottom. That way, come set up time, all we'll have to do is flip the walls and up go to town on getting everything set up as fast as possible.

I also put together a blueprint of the entire haunt and numbered every wall panel as well as listed each number and what kind of wall panel needs to go there... A LITTLE overkill, but I want to make sure that come set up time EVERYONE knows what's going on and what needs to be done... We've got 40 days until we open and not a single wall is in place... I'm KIND of starting to freak out.
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Things are slowly but surely progressing. Today was spent on getting some more prep work done for the big day (set up) which will begin tomorrow. More pics have been added to my Flickr account... I promise the next time I upload photos it will be a LOT more interesting!
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachwie...7624788943781/

Today started off with my friend Nina, her boyfriend Chris, and myself. I was a little disappointed with the turn out, however we were able to get a LOT done in a short period of time with just the three of us! Luckily, over the past two weekends, I've been able to plan everything out to a T to assure that once things got rolling, it was smooth sailing. Luckily, it was just that! The three of us were able to get the facade front up, along with the side supporting walls. After that, walls were going up left and right! We had a few girls in the garage sorting through screws while the three of us continued to get walls up. Then, as the day went on, more and more people started to show up. We had roughly 10-15 of us out there getting stuff up! It had also started sprinkling out when we were about 1/2 way done but we worked our way right thought it!

In the end, we were actually able to completely build the circus building!

Tomorrow will be spent on touching up paint as well as painting the new walls we added. Then electrical, props, and all that other stuff will slowly make its way out there... It's amazing to think that just 12 hours prior there was nothing but a facade sitting in the yard!!!

Here are some pics... I will get some more taken tomorrow once things start to look spooky!
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachwie...7624788943781/