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It’s 6:55pm on November 5th. It’s our industry night. Our way of saying thanks to all the haunters in our market. Our way of giving Halloween to all who are involved and a chance for customers to be able to redeem their tickets before the end of season (Our lines can get long, so our tickets are good all season). Jack O Lanterns are carved and placed, shows are 100% ready to open, actors are in their spots, air compressors are fired, fog is flowing and the pyro is screaming. We’re ready to give our friends and customers the best show ever! We have a parking lot full of customers waiting for the hayride into the park when suddenly the entire park loses power. No electricity! In fact, no electricity to the entire city. We have no idea why. So here we are on our final night of the season with tons of other haunters and halloween enthusiasts ready to get scared and we’ve just been slammed with a major problem. No Electricity? What to do? Well, we put a show on no matter what.
Luckily, we had a backup plan. With the help of Allen and his crew at Screams/Trail Of Terror and our other wonderful friends who came out to play on the midway, the customers were entertained while we quickly flipped all of shows to Holiday In The Dark (glowstick night). With a crew of 3 people we were able to convert both of our shows to a lights out event, while our makeup crew jumped at the opportunity to prep our actors for it as well. We rounded up all the leftover glowsticks, Props were moved, foggers, spark fences and breakers were all disengaged until we had enough juice from our generator to provide music and power for our crisis control system to the 2 shows. We’re in the dark completely but we’re ready to open. The park was lit up from jack o lanterns and all of our trusty 18v battery powered Ryobi flashlights. (Never thought we’de ever have a reason to own so many flashlights, but I’m glad we do now.)
At 7:30pm we were 100% ready to send customers into our shows and determined to provide an excellent evening for all who made the trip. We ran the shows for almost an hour and a half this way until the power was restored. We then put both houses on break for 15 minutes, ran thru both shows in costume quickly converting them back to our normal show. Again, I’m so glad we had such a gracious midway crew this evening as customers never once complained.
It’s 9:15pm now. The park is packed and both shows are fully operational with all fog, snow, lights and air functional. Our actors did such a great job moving from one style of show to the other. Our staff is outstanding! We had a great attendence this evening and it turned out to be a very memorable experience. All of our local haunt friends as well customers were all so much fun and patient. We scared guests till 2am and then naturally partied the night away. It was a very stressful situation, but did you really think we were gonna miss out on a chance to scare people? I don’t think so!
Guess the moral of this story is... Always have a backup plan and good friends! Hope everyone’s season was great! Anybody else have any crazy nights?
Blammy!
Luckily, we had a backup plan. With the help of Allen and his crew at Screams/Trail Of Terror and our other wonderful friends who came out to play on the midway, the customers were entertained while we quickly flipped all of shows to Holiday In The Dark (glowstick night). With a crew of 3 people we were able to convert both of our shows to a lights out event, while our makeup crew jumped at the opportunity to prep our actors for it as well. We rounded up all the leftover glowsticks, Props were moved, foggers, spark fences and breakers were all disengaged until we had enough juice from our generator to provide music and power for our crisis control system to the 2 shows. We’re in the dark completely but we’re ready to open. The park was lit up from jack o lanterns and all of our trusty 18v battery powered Ryobi flashlights. (Never thought we’de ever have a reason to own so many flashlights, but I’m glad we do now.)
At 7:30pm we were 100% ready to send customers into our shows and determined to provide an excellent evening for all who made the trip. We ran the shows for almost an hour and a half this way until the power was restored. We then put both houses on break for 15 minutes, ran thru both shows in costume quickly converting them back to our normal show. Again, I’m so glad we had such a gracious midway crew this evening as customers never once complained.
It’s 9:15pm now. The park is packed and both shows are fully operational with all fog, snow, lights and air functional. Our actors did such a great job moving from one style of show to the other. Our staff is outstanding! We had a great attendence this evening and it turned out to be a very memorable experience. All of our local haunt friends as well customers were all so much fun and patient. We scared guests till 2am and then naturally partied the night away. It was a very stressful situation, but did you really think we were gonna miss out on a chance to scare people? I don’t think so!
Guess the moral of this story is... Always have a backup plan and good friends! Hope everyone’s season was great! Anybody else have any crazy nights?
Blammy!
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