Haunted Ideas

[LaurieS]

I have been a member of HauntedDenver.com for several years but have not participated on the forum before so this is my first time posting a message. My husband and I have setup and run an amateur Haunted House at our home for 5 years. We love doing it but we do as a community service and we don't charge. This year, we have been approached by our local radio station to do a "Haunted House" for them for a fee. This is great for us as we are exhausted of the setup and tear down at our home, we work out of our house so it's not the most professional look we like to put forward.

Our issue is, the only site that it appears we may be able to set up the "Haunted House" in is a very large square footage open backyard of a community center. To truly get the results we desire we would have to create some sort of 'structure'. The location is close to a highway (noise and lights) and a parking lot with overhead parking lights which would be difficult conditions to deal with in the least.

We would like this opportunity to make a little money doing something we love but we are hesitant about the circumstances and the costs we are looking at seem too high for the station to justify. Does anyone have a suggestion of an outdoor type haunted attraction that wouldn't be too hard to construct? We don't want to go into this knowing it's going to be lame because the starting location is substandard. We still haven't agreed to do it yet but would be open to some suggestions.

Thanks for your help!

[Scarica]

Hi Laurie and welcome to the boards!

Your situation sounds just like what my hubby and I used to do. For the community in our house (also running a business out of the house) and finally getting cleaned up about Thanksgiving! We rented our house and the management company paid us to be their official haunted house...it was cool but grueling.

Every year ours grew bigger and by the end we had to build a structure in the driveway to make it even bigger. We used PVC framing and that heavy black plastic, which we airbrushed with spray paint on the outside. We used that translucent plastic (painters tarp) for the roof to let in a little bit of light and spray painted it with green and brown to diffuse the light a bit. I know camo netting works really well, too.

My biggest concern with the whole thing would be the legal aspect of it...is the radio station going to handle all that? The fire marshall, the insurance, etc.? As long as you're not legally responsible for any of that, it sounds like a great endeavor. Even though it's a one-off sort of thing and not permanent, I think you'll have a lot to worry about. At least when it's just you in your house for fun, you can really fly below the radar and get away with a lot more! Good luck!

You might ask Welch Witch...she's likely to post anyway...since she is running a house this year!

PS-If you want pix of the PVC thing, I can email you a few.

[SChaser783]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Scarica @ Sep 1 2006, 02:23 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=495)</div>
We used PVC framing and that heavy black plastic, which we airbrushed with spray paint on the outside. We used that translucent plastic (painters tarp) for the roof to let in a little bit of light and spray painted it with green and brown to diffuse the light a bit.[/b]

Be careful with that, it is very flammable and puts off toxic smoke. The firemarshall will never go for normal plastic.

First off what city are you setting up in? If its Denver, good luck. If its an outlying city around the area then your chances are better. You probably need to begin by talking with your local officials, namely the fire marshal. Talk to them and tell them what you would like to do and ask a lot of questions, but when you finalize a plan, go in and look as professional as possible! This will make it much easier on you! If you don&#39;t look like you have your stuff together, the fire marshall is more likely to want to keep you from opening. Discuss this all with the radio station as well and maybe they can help out too.

I would say to try to go without a structure since that removes many limitations set forth by the fire dept., however it sounds as though it may be a challenge considering the noise and lights. Feel free to post any questions you have, or email me at olmstedj@mscd.edu if you need any help. I&#39;ve setup a charity haunt for the Denver Indian Center a few years back, so I might be of some assistance.

[LaurieS]

On the Liability aspect, the radio station has agreed to take all that. The Insurance, the responsibility to the fire marshall and such. My husband is a builder so we have an advantage knowing what would and would not pass with inspection. We aren&#39;t in the Denver area, we are in Carbondale up in the Mountains about 10 miles outside of Glenwood Springs.

Our ideal location would be a building that is local that is not being used for business. Due to the setup of such an event we can&#39;t possibly work with people who are trying to operate under normal business circumstances. A lot of people don&#39;t understand the undertaking of such an event and how long it takes to really setup. We actually had some people with their business tell us they would be willing to close for two days so we could set up! Two Days! It takes us every weekend in October just to set the one up at our house!

Tye, I would definitely be interested in getting some more information on the Charity Haunt you did. It might give us a good starting point. Right now all we can come up with is building a "structure" out of Scaffolding and Black landscape fabric and spraying it down with a fire retardant. It&#39;s too expensive to rent the scaffolding, buy the fabric and the labor to get it all set up so that idea has already been shot down and we don&#39;t have much else that will be sturdy enough it can take some abuse, be safe and will pass fire inspection.

Thanks for your time to respond!

[SChaser783]

That&#39;s the problem, most people that haven&#39;t done something like this before don&#39;t understant how much time and money it takes to put something like this together. Have you talked to some local businesses about donating supplies? Even stuff such as pallets can be used. In the last Haunted Attraction Magazine, they had an article on using palletts, to make pods. Its essentially making 8 foot tall cubes with pallets on each side. You could use thing such as barrels or almost anything you wanted.

Is the radio station using the proceeds for themselves, or charity? Charity haunts are probably more likely to receive donated materials, but perhaps you could talk to the radio station and your local hardware store/lumber yard about trading air time for materials.

[LaurieS]

I think they are planning on a portion of the proceeds to go to a charity but I&#39;m not sure how much. We are basically just in charge of doing the HH. The GM of the station was going to hit businesses up for donations or advertising in excange for supplies we would need.

I will have to check out the pod idea. There are probably a ton of ideas out there that we don&#39;t even know about or haven&#39;t thought about yet.

[Scarica]

Thanks, Tye! I knew you worked in a haunt, but didn&#39;t realize you had been on the building/creating end.

I certainly wasn&#39;t advocating using the black plastic for a haunt where you charge people...add some of the insulating foam I use for scenery and it&#39;ll be a great time!! http://www.octoberlounge.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif

This is just the stuff I did for my home haunt. There&#39;s a reason we never took it to the admission fee level...did NOT want to deal with those headaches.

Thanks for pointing Laurie in the right direction and helping her out. Laurie: keep us updated on the progress...I assume you&#39;re pretty local to Denver...if so, let us know when it&#39;s up and running...I&#39;m sure a lot of here would love to check it out...especially if it&#39;s for charity.

[SChaser783]

Well, my passion is designing haunts and that is ultimately what I would like to do. I hadn&#39;t worked in an actual haunt so I decided that I needed to last year. Hehe, and believe me I understand, I used black plastic and foam in my home haunt for years!

I too would like to see how this turns out, but Carbondale might be a bit far... Hopefully she takes lots of pics and video to post on here after the season!

[LaurieS]

I will definitely keep you all updated as we move along with this project. I just hope that since my husband and I are ALREADY obsessing about Halloween, if this radio station doesn&#39;t come to pass, that we don&#39;t get carried away at our house again.

Tye, thanks for the advice on the Haunted Attraction magazine. I actually subscribed and am excited to get my first edition. My husband and I are kicking around a trip without our kids to the Haunted Attraction convention. Wish we would have known about it last year, we would have made the trip to Denver for that.

[WelchWitch]

Sorry to post so late, but was out of town for the holiday. I think this is great and look forward to seeing how it turns out. This is my first year running a haunt, so its alot to know. The great thing I have is Marc who owns the Haunt there for support and brains. With talking to him with Ideas and seeing what is happening behind scenes, I know you could use almost anything to get an effect. Broken down or damaged cars, netting, even drop down walls where someone could pop out from nowwhere. But the one thing I have learned is the Inspection. So many things I have seen at Haunted houses and wanted to bring to the house I am with now to only be told no by the fire marshall.Went to one house that the entrance in was by a large slide that was so dark you didnt know what you were sliding into. Liabillty concerns can for tamper with a house. But if you have someone to help with that, its a big help. Mirrors and real snakes are cool also in tight places. To dark blanked hallways with no light and someone tottaly painted black only to be felt by someone passing by. Felt by the heat of their growl. I think it was couple of years ago, there was a haunted house here, it was in Broomfield and was owned by universal studio. I went to it with VIP media passes and their idea was not what was in the movies but the theme was a digging that found something. It was set up underground and the only problem I saw was being short staffed. Movies like The cave, Descent and others could be used in themes that may be cheaper to copy.Just my 2 cents, hope it all works out.