Going Permanent..

[Nic Miele]

The Massacre and Fear Factory 3D has been a set up tear down haunt for 3 years now with over 80+ animatronics, 90+ actors and we decided this year is the year we finally go permanent!As much as I love unloading 7 PACKED semis every year and setting up 10,000sq foot haunt and 5,000sq foot 3D haunt it'll be nice to actually have time to add the amount of detail that id love to see in our haunt.
I wanted to post this to reach out to all of you that own a permanent haunt already, and see if there is anything that I need to do differently when designing the layout of a permanent haunt or if you had any words of wisdom! thanks.

-Nic

[Deathwing]

Congrats. This is a huge step and a true leap of faith! One thing that hit me off the bat was you said you have 80 animatronics and you can fit all of them and your show in just 7 trailers???

You have already leased or bought your space? I'm assuming it's already sprinklered?

Its going to take time to really build up the layers, but don't go everboard with the finer details. Sure, it looks great for photos but your guests will never see 90%+ of any of that stuff. Make your scares count and enought cool detail to sell it and distract from the scare.


Jake

[Nic Miele]

We will be signing a 5-10year lease and yes its sprinklered.
and when I say packed I mean PACKED! This was a photo I took during pack up. We stack everything like hoarders haha from the ground to the ceiling so it would all fit in each trailer. and yea I fully agree with your bottom statement sir (:
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Its going to take time to really build up the layers, but don't go everboard with the finer details. Sure, it looks great for photos but your guests will never see 90%+ of any of that stuff. Make your scares count and enought cool detail to sell it and distract from the scare.

[Nic Miele]

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[Nic Miele]

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[Nic Miele]

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[Nic Miele]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btOSLWb0H6g

[Deathwing]

Looks like youre off to a great statrt and ready to be pro for sure. Great photos!


Jake

[Haunted Illinois]

You guys have really improved over the last two years. Keep up the good work!

[zombietoxin]

Well, in my novice opinion, permanence requires flexibility- isn't that sorta ironic?

I mean, the skeleton of your structure must allow for easy modification. Building structure that restricts, limits or are use-specific only amount to more expense when it comes time to shake things up a bit. We had to build up to get the square footage we wanted, but that means that a lot of the lower walls cannot be moved.

A simple way to look at flexibility would be by considering your prop air supply. Thankfully we set up ours in a loop around the haunt, with taps that drop exactly where we need them. We used a plastic type air line that can be cut and a tee installed, or an old one capped, in minutes to add or remove a new prop. Simple, efficient, fast and extremely cost effective. We did the same thing with our electrical by installing numerous junction boxes along the runs so we could drop an electrical connection anywhere.

That's the kind of thinking you need to consider when setting up- imo.