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  • #61
    My uneducated guess would be a radio transmitter setup. It's the only thing to guarantee contact with the lighting or animations. Much like Bluetooth, some transmitter/receivers only work within. 30-40 feet of each other, to prevent cross garbled signals before or after they come to a scene.

    I would love to hear what you come up with though. A solution would translate to audio timing possibilities as well!!

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    • #62
      There are a lot of options, really.

      You could use drive over sensors. There are several versions. Some lay on the ground and you drive over a tube which sets the trigger off. Others are like a heavy duty step pad. Still others mount in the road. You can search around for drive-thru sensors and find these fairly easily.

      You could use optical beam break sensors that can tell when the hayride is passing because it breaks the line of sight between the emitter and receiver.

      You could use some sort of Bluetooth, GPS, IR, etc. signal, but I think that's a bit overkill.

      It's really just your preference and your budget...
      Kip Polley
      www.palenight.com

      Pale Night Productions
      We Engineer Fear

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      • #63
        Kip I appreciate it! Do you recommend a drive over sensor or optical beam break sensor? I mean a company that makes them that you like? I appreciate it. And loved your new products at Transworld by the way. Thanks!

        Rich
        www.night-mares.com

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        • #64
          I own 2 of Gregs Trailers. we have a haunt and this was a 2nd attraction and we sold it as a combo ticket. $13 each or $20 for both. 90% of people bought the combo ticket only a few came just for the paintball and some came just for the haunt. We have a small space and had lots of the same issues. We had no were the same numbers as larry.....I could not Imagine the HELL it was with that many people per night. We put a sound system on the trailers with hard rock music. People seemed to like it very well. it was also good for the actors they could hear them coming. We added lights to the scenes as the trailer lights were good but we wanted the zombies to be very well seen. We found out that a tractor could not go fast enough so we used trucks to pull the trailers. our trailers were for the most part very close to the actors. And yes we too found that you could turn the pressure down from the 800psi. We used bigger tanks and had more volume so we could go as low as 250-300psi. Even with that our costumes were busting up every night. We tried EVERYTHING we could think of at the time. As the season ended we took time and made some really Great padding that REALLY WORKS!!!! and the good thing is you can put any kind of clothing over it each year to change it up. it was hard to keep actors mostly because of being alone in the dark cold wet and kinda board....I know? but yeah I worked more than a few nights and it was boring. as a haunt actor you get a kick out of peoples reactions to being scared, but this you have on a helmet thats hard to see out of and hear so you get no reactions at all just a guy comes by every 20-30 mins saying hey man are you ok do you need anything? I agree that the custom balls are well worth the extra they cost. The guns had an issue but was fixed and didnt have any other probs. Every night you needed to clean them out. we sold 75 paintballs for each ticket. the hoppers hold 150 so I did hear people say thats a rip off that you only get 1/2 a hopper of paintballs but our tickets were only $10 and for $5 more they could buy 75 more paintballs. MOST EVERYONE bought another 75 paintballs. I found it was hard to advertise because its so new, people thought they would get shot too. But that comes with anything new. we increased our ticket sales , about what any haunt would increase each year....But with a second show we doubled our money. as a small town haunt we didnt break even on the cost of the paintball setup, but intend to this season and make a bit of profit. as in any business a big investment like this you dont expect to brake even for the first few years. This is not a quick buck. To me this is a way to show our fan base that we will do whatever it takes to keep them entertained even if it takes a while to make money at it. 2012 was a Very Hard season....THANK GOD the haunt went smooth. Even with the learning curve and costume issues No one was hurt customers loved shooting zombies. Fad or not there is NOTHING out there that can compare to this ride. We will be doing this again this year. Larry or anyone I would not recommend doing a Entire Actor free paintball ride. I had people ask all season if it was real people they were shooting at. Thats just my 2 cents. My customers loved it and have had more people ask about the paintball than the haunt so far this year.
          BLOOD, GUTS AND GORE!
          www.horrorfields.com

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          • #65
            I will NEVER AGAIN put actors into this situation too many things can go wrong when actors or people in general are being shoot at. We had no injuries and I'm grateful for it...but no way would I suggest anyone do that! Too much risk involved there. We bought paint ball masks from one group and the eyes got shot out... just imagine that injury.

            Even with better masks the paint got all over their face... the heat was the worst of all! The actors just flat out over heat and that alone was not worth it. You are NUTS for putting actors into that environment ... you are simply asking for something bad to happen!

            I'm going to build all animated targets and run the whole entire attraction in pitch black so targets will activate with lights... I'm not taking any chances. No Way.

            In 2014 I'm going to tear down the hayride totally ... everything in the trash and build a real hayride a traditional one from scratch.

            Larry

            PS: Speaking of Greg I'll be in Columbia MO all weekend.
            Larry Kirchner
            President
            www.HalloweenProductions.com
            www.BlacklightAttractions.com
            www.HauntedHouseSupplies.com
            www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

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            • #66
              We are losing our outdoor location next season so it makes no sense for us to invest in an attraction that we are only going to get one season out of and possibly lose money on. So we are going doing this a bit differently. First, we are doing this Larry's way. NO ACTORS. We are going to automate the whole thing, but we are going to name it in such a way that lets the people know that this is what they can expect. I remember when the MIB alien attack ride came out at MGM or Universal or wherever it was, and it was awesome. No actors, just automated targets to shoot at. It can be just as fun. But we are not using the high powered paintball guns. We will be using the Splatmaster spring loaded toy paintball guns. Been testing them and they work great. They are inexpensive so we are buying a lot of them so that we have extras in case a few break. The balls are also half the size of regular paintballs, so there is less mess, but the effect is still nice. And they are biodegradable and wash away with water. So the danger is less of an issue there for us, and the expense is now just in the automation. But when we lose our outdoor location, all that automation is coming with us to our indoor location so nothing is wasted. Frankly, filling it with actors is a complete waste for us. Plus, we are only upcharging an additional $5 per ticket. We feel that we should be able to get close to 100% of our customers to buy the combo ticket at this price, which will guarantee us a nice outcome. The individual ticket prices are just not worth it compared to the combo. That's the plan anyway. Now its just working out the automations. We are outside, so these needs to be protected. And we get a TON of wind up here they have to be secured as well. Whatever goes up has to come down. We cant leave anything up unfortunately. So it makes set up a bit challenging.

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              • #67
                To answer the triggering option. Bill from Dark tec effects sells a GPS system that can be programmed for triggering sound and effects while the trailer is moving. It has an accuracy of within 2 feet from what he told me. It is a new system on the market. I havent tried it personally but plan on looking into it more closely for this season. Check with him and he can put you in the right direction for this product. He seems to be pretty knowledgable on it.
                I hope this helps.

                Greg
                Zombie Safari Paintball
                573-881-7061
                Greg Allen
                scarygreg@andersonfarms.com
                www.andersonfarms.com

                Comment


                • #68
                  Brighton,

                  I buy a lot of sensors and whatnot from a great company called Automation Direct. Here are a couple thru-beam sensors I like...

                  http://www.automationdirect.com/adc/...es)/FALN-BN-0A

                  http://www.automationdirect.com/adc/...es)/FARN-BN-0A

                  The first one supports a distance between the emitter and receiver of 20 to 30 meters. If you need a long sensing distance this is a great option. The second one has a sensing distance of about 3 meters if you don't need the 20 to 30 meters. They're great sensors and Automation Direct is a great company to work with.

                  I've never used the drive over style sensors so I can't recommend one of them.
                  Kip Polley
                  www.palenight.com

                  Pale Night Productions
                  We Engineer Fear

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Greg the GPS system is 900 per wagon. It sounds very interesting, but 4500 bucks for simple music control and an addition 900 per scene for Dmx controlling is way out of our price range.

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                    • #70
                      I assume your talking about the information I provided and your mistaken. You do not need a DMX playback for each scene. You need one (most likely) for your whole attraction.

                      So your pricing is slightly off but we really did not go into details about putting together a system for you.

                      Thanks.
                      Bill Rod.
                      Dark Tech Effects
                      Automated DMX Lighting
                      Show Control - Audio / Visual Effects

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                      • #71
                        So for a hayride that is 2-3 miles long, one DMX unit will suffice? Having been very involved and familiar with Dmx lighting and setups throughout my career as a DJ with intelligent lighting, I'd have to say probably not. Not to mention each of our scenes are run my generators. That's how far apart everything is.

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                        • #72
                          By generators*

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                          • #73
                            And even, lets say, I COULD use one unit per every 4 scenes (have over 20) I'm still out 4500 for scene control and an additional 3600 for 4 wagons to run.

                            That's way out of my price range. I think looking at trigger beams like a few others here are looking to do, along with 140 dollar scene controllers per scene is much more practical.

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                            • #74
                              Once again, we never went over details of your particular attraction. You emailed me and asked questions about GPS and if it can control lighting, audio, and props. I explained it could, but you never explained anything about how your hayride would be setup. I encourage you to do your homework and if pressure or beam sensors is the way to go for you then great. However, please do not knock something just because you view it as expensive.

                              I have installed over 165 lights in an attraction using only one DMX playback device. Once you add in wireless DMX anything is possible. I am not encouraging you to use this system, as you have already explained it is too expensive for you, but I ask others who might be interested to contact me regarding your individual setup. Thank You.
                              Bill Rod.
                              Dark Tech Effects
                              Automated DMX Lighting
                              Show Control - Audio / Visual Effects

                              Comment


                              • #75
                                Wow you guys are all the same. I didn't KNOCK anything. This thread is mostly about my particular situation, therefore I stated that it wasn't financially feasible for MY situation.

                                Jeebus people need to lighten up.

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