Build Progress...

[Frightener]

"... at first glance those walls look textured"


They are.. now lol. I realized this morning they took more than I thought.

Many pounds of screws.
Stockpile of Sprayfoam.
The old miter saw (was burning out)
Heat gun.
Hot knife.
Cordless Drill ($100)

Well I'll stop there. I had to go get more stuff a bit ago. Spent another $200... sh.ts old already. Having to replace crap is ridiculous.

You know, I think I about figured it out. Why so many people are rude and just don't care. It's because they've been through life enough that they've gotten their share of BULLSH>T and said "f35k it" That's what it is. They've been jacked with so much already that they're already to that point that they say "Screw people, I hate em all"

Anyways, I got a few more panels built this morning, got some more foam up etc. Foam installation is about 75% done. Just gotta build the last wall and put 6 sheets up then it's all carving.

After the foam brick rooms, we're just going to warehouse style theme, then the dark surgery room with Dr. Trauma etc. Won't be any high detail except for the props and costuming. Then the torture room will have spill your guts illuzion etc.

So the construction should be EZPZ after the foam.


Dewayne

[turkeycreaux]

That blows. One of my cousins-in-law is a subcontractor and had a bunch of his tools stolen out of his truck at a jobsite. I don't suppose any of the stuff was stolen was covered by insurance, huh? In any case, good to see you're carrying on with things. I love seeing other people's progress. Maybe you can leave a spot open "reserved for tool thieves".


TC

[Frightener]

Exterior Wall.JPGInterior Panels.JPGNew Jig.JPGProgress 3.JPGProgress 4.JPG

Some pics of progress. We got a full wall up including actor cove.

I got some foam up the other day. The new wall needs foam put up on it as well, but it'll be in a different style.

I also got some more wall panels built for the interior.

As well as redesigning my jig. I can do either style of panels now. Used screws everywhere with glue so it's less likely to get loose this time.

Also we built one of the exterior wall sets. OSB with 3 verts of 2x4's. They're heavy but I wanted them to be strong. We ran out of time because we had people come up and talk to us about the haunt today, including a cute girl selling snow cones and ice cream. All in all, I think we did fairly well today. My bro helped put a panel or two together and my wife helped put up the wall. She also painted the bottoms of the panels.

[Frightener]

Wall 2.JPG

This pic didn't make it into the last post for some reason. So here's the wall.

[Frightener]

Ok guys, little update.

Actors: Wife put in 3 ads, 1 to Jonesboro Sun (77,000 ppl and 20 min's away) and 1 to our local town (26,000) and 1 to The Merchandiser which produces copies for the surrounding area, Tristate? It goes up into Missourri, Tennessee like Memphis and lots of other towns. We've gotten 22 Interviews so far and a few sound promising. We think we should only need about 15, but I'm designing the haunt to have extras and plus line entertainment. I'm hoping to hit about 50 people so we'll have a great selection. Probably try to have about 25 on hand, so it should be easy to have the 15 first up's.

Construction: Got all the sheeting of foam up. I still have lots of blocks to put up to replicate Larry's stone work, but at least all the foam sheeting is up.
I also have the facade coated with 1 good thick coat of Tuff2 / Tuff ll . So far it's still very flexible. So I went to Home Depot to buy the 2" thick foam boards to finish my sarcophagus and picked up the deck restore coating. Like someone else stated in another thread, the displays look impressive! Looks very hard, even with one coat.

Also got the North end permanent wall put up with the exit. The facade will get painted black and dry brushed with moss etc put on it. When the gable ends get put up we'll have rope netting and moss strings hanging from it as well. Should look cool.
100_3408.JPG100_3409.JPG100_3410.JPG100_3411.JPG100_3412.JPG

I don't have the pic of the north wall yet, but I'll get it up soon. Hopefully tomorrow. However we'll be very busy tomorrow. Got 9 interviews to do and I have to clean the monster room up before I can finish anything else lol.

Dewayne.

[Frightener]

NIGHT TERRORS_73012.jpg

Well, the ONLY people who got back with us on shirts... someone local. So the others... F'em. I'm not in the habit to wait weeks and weeks even for the first response.

Yeah, basic, but hey, they're our first shirts and so far people are loving it. This isn't the final version, I have different tribal work behind the skull, and both sides say "Haunted House" and Paragould, AR on the front and our facebook page on the back.

I can't complain seeing as to how they're $7 a shirt w/ no design fee, no setup fee and no min. order.

I've been sick to my stomach all day, I thought hanging out inside would be fine, so I started work on the props again... got sick. So I stopped to work on the digital side of things... got sick! So now I'm back from taking a nap (got sick lol) and here checking msges, facebook etc.

Work day tomorrow tho!! Brother and wife is getting prepared to help with the facade tomorrow! I got the door built and stained "Old Weathered Barn Gray" semi transparent stain. I have to rust the metal hinges (spray foam and painted) and do the header board, base coat the bricks, dry brush the bricks, lay the moss and hang some rope drapes. Don't know if I'll get the gable end enclosed yet but we'll try.

FRIDAY! We've got 2 radio stations coming out to talk about advertising, and Premier Magazine, a local magazine that goes out everywhere in town and such, they're coming to take progress photos. We're suppose to be getting an article next month, and a cover for October! I'll DEFINITELY post pics of the magazine when it comes out, wish us luck.

[turkeycreaux]

FRIDAY! We've got 2 radio stations coming out to talk about advertising, and Premier Magazine, a local magazine that goes out everywhere in town and such, they're coming to take progress photos. We're suppose to be getting an article next month, and a cover for October! I'll DEFINITELY post pics of the magazine when it comes out, wish us luck.

A word about radio advertising, if I may (being in the biz and all). They may want to push a remote on you. A lot of businesses like remotes because they're tangible, you see the jock there at the venue, he's talking about your haunt live in front of you, you see immediate results. However, depending on their set up, for the price of that remote, you could get more coverage with just doing straight ads.

For example, I'm part of a group of 5 stations, 3 FMs (Country, Pop, and Oldies), 2AMs (Talk and Sports). We do our remotes exclusively on the FMs, usually on the Country station (our biggest stick). We do 3 - 90 second remote breaks an hour per station, unless you do all three FMs, in which case it's 2 per hour per station. Usually, it's a two hour remote. And they're not guaranteed to get people to come to where the remote is at. There needs to be a pitch/sale/gimmick for people to show up during the remote. You have the benefit of having something for people to do once they show up, but I've experienced many remotes that failed because there was no pitch. (I once did a remote at a grand opening of a Packing and Shipping business. Seriously, unless you need to pack/ship something, why would you go to a place like that, even if it was the grand opening?)

Unless you have a particular reason to get people there on a specific night, you're much better off with 30 sec spots over the course of several weeks. Better/longer coverage that way. See if you can get added value, such as live reads from the jocks (where they mention your haunt during their announce breaks) or spots on their smaller stations if they've got a group of them (a lot of people want to put ads on our Country station, but because it's so full, our sales people often suggest a better deal if they choose a different station that needs the inventory). See if you can get any extras if you give them free tickets for the jocks or for them to give away. (We jocks LOVE getting free stuff. ) If you can get the jocks to go through your haunt and they talk about their experience on the air, that does the work of a dozen ads.

Above all, make sure the station they put you on fits your haunt. It would do you more good to put your ad on a country or rock station as opposed to a gospel or oldies station.

Also, on a personal note, ask the sales person to send you a copy of the ad script before they send it to be produced and proofread it. I can't tell you the number of times I've had to redo spots because the salesperson sent the copy straight to me and they put the wrong address/phone number/whatever on it.


TC

[Frightener]

Thanks for the info, but we kinda realized a lot of that already.

Our remotes are 1. Popular gas station. Why: Our ghouls will be out pumping gas for folks and terrorizing as we do it. 2. Sat. 14th at the local Theatre. our ghouls (zombies) will be out to promote the Resident Evil movie and our haunt. We have permission from all aspects and will be giving away shirts etc.


We're not gauranteed to do it. I may do just ads, like you talked about. The thing is, we're splitting the costs! The whole thing (both remotes and 195 air times ... 1 MINUTE air times, but only being charged for 30sec's) will cost us only $385ish.

PS! BTW, I got my wagner spray rig out today. Painted the end wall on the north side of bld 3 and got 40% of the inside of bld 2 and the facade. I had to spray it tonight because we're detailing the facade tomorrow.