How do you feel about

[Mr. Haunt]

Using rope rather then making a wood railing to keep guests from walking into sets? I was thinks around the lines of using rope in area's that walls would be used.

[Kevin Dells]

Cheaper but they will climb through it for souveniers! If you have enough actors you can use some sort of border and make a bed area, the actors within sight of each other would have to keep people out.(the actor could be in the bed area)
That way you wouldn't need either, but again your actor may take the display apart by end of season, young,bored Teenagers are good for this!

[MindWerxKMG]

I think it is a mistake to keep your scenes roped off from patrons. I believe that a haunt should be an immersive experience. Guests should walk through scenes not past them. I have a high-end haunt with expensive props and animatronics and I did not have any issues with guests damaging them.

[Jim Warfield]

Does damage not happen because you keep the drunks out at the front door? Or because the customers respect your efforts because your ticket price is in line with what they feel the experience is worth?
These two items can make the difference , or so it has always seemed to me, although a vandal is a vandal is a vandal and screening them out would require a battery of tests to be sure.
Of course keeping the customers in smaller, better controlled and entertained groups also helps immensely.
Bored customers begin to touch things.

[MindWerxKMG]

I keep my group size to 5 persons max and drunks are either not allowed in or are followed closely by security staff. My actors are responsible for watching over the props their rooms. If a prop is touched the actor instructs the patron to not touch anything (while staying in character hopefully). More serious issues are radioed to security and the appropriate action is taken. And I think my patrons felt they got their money's worth.

[Greg Chrise]

I'm surpirised no one has considered fence shockers for props? Wonder why everything looks greasy? And why are these floors all wet?

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz zzzap!

Dude, your hair is smoking.

[SpFXChic]

I have to agree with the above posters, I much prefer a house that is more interactive/immersive. I like to be in the room/cemetery/crypt, rather than passing by just looking at it. That little rope also acts as a "safeguard"...they can't get into the scene, therefore, the monster probably can't come out, either.

However, I could see a museum type of scene with the velvet guard rope working out.

I guess it's really each to his own on this.

I've worked at haunts that had the barrier, and I've worked at haunts that didn't have them...people seem to be more entertained without those barriers.

[jack]

The Nightmare had, this past season, a huge open area that was comprised of several interconnected scenes(some you went through on the way in, and some on the way out). There were some barriers, but they appeared, while going through, to be more pathmaking than blocking. There were many props within easy reach of patrons--one dead end had people running smack into a body on a gurney--that they could touch.

Immersive seems to be a better way to go--though, if done well, blocked off areas can appear less blocked off than simply hard to get to.

[TheNightMare]

Im with everyone else, I feel that roping off your haunt, makes the customer/patron feel like there not wanted. I would let people walk through the room and feel like they belong. That way they can absorb what there going through while walking through your haunt. Itll also get the customer to believe in the story of the haunt and feel for the story. Unless its a jail scene then I can understand it being barred off.

[Jim Warfield]

Rope can work two ways. Tie the bad customer up with it, roll it around them like a python!
Originally I was going to go one better than rope for a railing. I was going to have a wooden box with the vine roots then the big jungle vine would wend it's way up the stairway to be used as a railing.
An elderly farmer informed me that my big jungle vine from over the cliff behind my house that I was planning upon re-planting in the wooden box might be Poison Ivy?
I asked, "Can poison Ivy grow to be that big?"
"You bet it can, and does."
Now wouldn't that have been "interesting"?
It would make a good way to keep customers off the displays, use poison ivy roping!