maze

[rrandrok]

we are trying to build our first maze ever. Does anyone have a diagram or suggestions regarding how a maze should look?

[screamshow]

Inside or outside?

By "maze" do you mean with dead ends or are you referring to your haunt as a maze? In other words, is it a puzzle or a set of rooms in which you scare people?

[rrandrok]

It is just one area in the haunt. Some people have commented that you don't need dead ends because it holds up the flow of traffic. I would like to have some difficulty built in to the maze so it wasn't just a matter of someone following a hallway. Any suggestions? I guess when I think of a maze I think of those puzzle book mazes that you would trace a pencil through.

[screamshow]

Dead ends are a bad idea and could well be illegal in your area. In an emergency a "dead end" could well become just what the name says. You can make a very small maze/labyrinth very confusing if it's dark. Also, adding a couple pieces of plexiglass will confuse them further (we did this last year). You can control the crowd by having an illuminated exit -- just turn it on when you are ready for some folks to leave.

[SpFXChic]

Check with your local Fire Department or Fire Marshall before building a maze with deadends. Some really frown upon them, and if it is an issue in your area, they may not let you open.

[brad]

Screamshow had a good idea with the illuminated exit.

We had a maze last year, which worked great but we had it at the very beginning of the event. It was only about 350-400 sq. ft. What we did was that when group 1 was walking through the maze and then finished the maze then we would let groug 2 enter. As soon as they finished the maze, group 3 would enter, etc. This worked well to control the flow of the crowd because there was about a 2 minute gap between each group when they entered in. It wasn't all that great when we had 150 people waiting outside and we had about an hour and a half wait.

What we are gonna do this year is have the maze bigger than last year and put it at the end of the haunt. This way we can have groups entering about every minute rather than every 2-3 minutes. This way if group 1 cant find their way through the maze and group 2 caught up with them then we wouldnt have to worry about the congo line effect that everyone has to deal with. Because once they finish with the maze then they are done with the whole haunt. This lets us build a bigger maze than last year, and put more actors in there to work the crowd. We can still easily control the flow in there, but we can have a lot more freedom in the maze because its at the end.

I hope this helps!

[Jim Warfield]

I have found that you really don't have to build a maze very tricky at all to confuse most people.
A dead end only has to be 2 foot deep to pile up a bunch of people, yet they can surely retreat well from a mere 2 foot indentation of the wall.
A bus load of Transworld haunters were finishing the tour here when I quietly opened a secret passage door and then they went "aahh" and simply walked into it without a single invite or word from me!
As maybe 18 of them were now swallowed up in the passage I closed the door and the last few protested that they wanted to go in too!
"But it's only a dead-end!"
The unlucky ones then proceeded to laugh alot .
I often wonder what befell the small woman who was the first one in who was followed by a rather larger than average man...as the bodies were maybe all pushing and working to get down the hallway that went nowhere?
It was a work-in-progress then and then only, but I knew haunters would fall for it!

[Thorswings]

We have a 30 by 50 foot horse barn that we do a maze in. The past several years I spent time working it up on computor so everything was just right. We put this years maze up as we went along and in some ways it worked out better. Of course we had several years of experiance to fall back on. We also do our maze at the end so that its the last thing they do and since we get some big scares out of it they tend to come out screaming on the way to the cars. This year we are also starting out with a short hall that has three doors to choose from, two dead ends one not.... the dead ends are short but they have to open the door to see what is behind it!

[TheNightMare]

Very cool Thorswings, did you use CAD to draw your maze or a different program?

[Jim Warfield]

I have tried to eliminate the door-swing problem by making them swing both ways so no matter which way someone is going they can push the door open.
I also build my own hinges making them heavy-duty welding them up from pipe nipples with solid steel bars runningf through them, a ball bearing carrying the weight.
They resemble hinges on a bank vault when done, they don't distort, break or screw up no matter how big or rambuncious the customer may be.
I really don't like building stuff twice because of breakage.

[rrandrok]

Thanks for all the feedback. We still have not started on the maze. We have saved it until last because no one really knows where to start. Does anyone have a drawing they would be willing to share of a maze they have done in the past? Thanks

[Jast223]

You could almost say a room full of body bags is a Maze hell if you have the right actor in there u can get them lost in there for hours

O i remember the times when i worked the freezer or leading people in circles saying its this way.

O also another saying i liked ot say was Look for the Trap Door IN the floor. Of corse this was ontop of concrete but i still had people lookin for a Trap Door.

But anyways yes I think a large Body Bag room should be enough. Just contact me I have contacts with the local morgue that will help with the bodies. Just spray them down with lysol everynight and it should keep the smell down.

[Jast223]

O here is a real Funny one I should of put this idea with the other one? Is your Maze Close to the Exit and Enterance wot im saying is put two exits one that sends them back to the Enterance to restart the whole show and then put the Real Exit. O that would be fun. Then u could charge 20 dollars and have a reason to. lol

[Thorswings]

Finished our maze today. We have the three doors and on one we put a 1/4 inch piece of plexiglass half way down the corridore. Our poor dog ran right into it! Should be a GREAT year!! We open next weekend so the push is on!