something about me

[christian14]

hey my names christian and i am new to the haunt industry but plan to have a haunted house up and running by 2009 with a good friend of mine.
im open to any suggestions that people want to give because i can always learn something new.
one of the subjects that i would like some tips on would be the designing of my haunted house.

thanks for everyones help in advance and i hope to hear from you soon.


christian14

[Mr. Haunt]

A lot of times haunters do their haunt to a story that is made up or true in some fashion. Then from there the begin so draw up plans. There is no wrong way to haunt and many ways of doing it.

One thing that I would suggest is a book series by J.B. Corn. He was a pro haunter that passed away a while ago. But he wrote these books on haunting and I think you will find them a lot of help.

You can down load them from another haunter on this form. His name is "NightmareToney". If you search him in the forum, click the link to his web site and you should be able to find the book series on his home page. Or he will pop on and give you the link in a forum reply.

Mr. Haunt

[Nightmaretony]

Thanks on the plug, Mr. Haunt. Here is the link to the books.

http://www.nightmarepark.com/JBCornCDPage.html

Every bit of information helps, specially if free....

[gadget-evilusions]

The best way to learn and figure out all the little tricks, do everything for a commercial haunt for about 5 years. You'll learn how to design, what to design, how to build, and maybe even some of the business side of it all.

[Jim Warfield]

"5 years", good advice.
But if you begin working in a haunt and you seem to already know everything and have it all figured out, Then the realization might overpower you as you figure it all out, You are the spawn of satan!
(small "s' not big "S")

[Motograter]

It takes A LOT of blood, sweat, money and tears to build a haunt.

[Jim Warfield]

Think about the "work" part of creating a haunted attraction in terms of just doing a regular job like building a simple house...how long would that take one or two people to do? Don't forget all the inner systems that have to be built, figured out, everything requires so much time.
Now consider the special /house display items that have to be built/figured out, sort of like building a housefull of furniture and strange appliances, more time, more special tools and skills born of previous experience by "Doing".
Not done yet. Now come up with some pure entertainment ideas as far as a possible storyline and characters, then some make up and /or costumes or just keep it real dark?
Now with all of these things on the time consideration list, just how many hours in say six months can any one person afford to give this project?
When I was in a service organization of volunteers doing fund raising it was a real estimate that each adult member only had ONE or TWO hours each MONTH to donate themselves to any project. Be sure and subtract time required as mandated by Work, School, Family, Emergencys (real and imagined) and just needing to relax every so often.
Nothing beats the "Burning Desire " card, many things will possibly make your desire begin to fade but remember the fun that awaits!!
(Oh course my "Fun"card I play , I play every night of the entire year, there is the depth of my mania!! "WHOO -HOOO!")
We have had a terrible winter here in Mount Carroll way more snow and ice than we have ever had , yet this winter I have had patrons come here from Minnesota, Conneticut, Iowa, Chicago and a bus load of 51 Art & Music students all the way from Kentucky. We could have had alot more busy nights but it snowed almost evey weekend, scaring people to stay home and rightly so, I tell everyone on my answering machine to check the weather first.

[brad]

Go to as many conventions and seminars as you can. You can buy lots of goodies there, but most importantly you can meet&greet other haunters from all over the country. You will learn lots of info from the seminars themselves, and probly even more from your fellow haunters there.