Worst "In the dark injury"

[machetemachine]

The purpose of this thread is to highlight the inherent risks and countermeasures employed by haunted house actors to prevent injuring yourself in mostly complete darkness. lessons learned and experiences most welcome. Yall know you have ran into some crazy things in dark, flashlights aren't always an option when you have a group bearing down on you and cant ruin the setup.

[Jim Warfield]

In the dark, move slowly, moving slow scares more people, I mean genuinely scares them not just a quick fleeting screamed in the face scare, "Oh some idiot just screamed in my face!" Their brain informs them a milli-second after it happens.
The shape,or was it my imagination? Moving, or did it really move? What is that? What was it?
Their own imagination begins to answer itself, filling in the blanks with those dreaded things their mind fears most (items you can only guess at)
"No running, you might fall down, ram into each other, impacting body parts incorrectly, elbows in eye sockets, teeth in foreheads."

[machetemachine]

There's nothing amazing about it. I know this ship like the back of my hand.

[Jim Warfield]

Could they break something? Then that "something" would be laying in the middle of your path?
Or a customer decides to squat down to scare you!
Are display props securely fastened down?
Just a soft ,felt cowboy hat laying there in the dark, catching you at the beginning of your stride could cause a stumbling/falling potential problem.
I know my house very well too and walk through it in the dark sometimes but I usually only do this to surprise an actual ghost, or raccoon, stray cat or someone hanging back trying to do mischief although when groups are here to play Hide & Seek it is fun to sneak up on some of them for a good scare opportunity.
Many years ago a 3rd grader told his classmates that he was sneaking into my house at night. I never caught him but then guess what? as a high school senior he got arrested for sneaking into homes and molesting women!
He is now in a location that is VERY difficult to sneak out of.
You never know what might be waiting in the dark.

[machetemachine]

So you haven't ran face first into a corner? Knocked yourself down in full view of people and had to try and recover, lol right.

[nzanesmith]

both of mine were not in the dark but actually in the fog and yellow light and had nothing to do with not doing something right it was just bad luck lol. first was hidding behind a wall in the room next to mine after scaring a large group i went to slam my hand on the back side of the hide and thank god i had leather cloves on because i had the head of a nail come through the palm of the glove and just barely got me... didnt bleed but could have been a lot worse if i didnt have the gloves on... Thats what i get for trying a scare in a room that wasn't mine that i wasn't totally familiar with the hazards in lol. Second was just me running down the hallway of that same room to get a similar scare one of the nights we were short handed. And yes by now i had taken the time to give that room a good once over before we opened so i had fixed any nails sticking out and new where a few other probs could show up. So i get my scare in my room and turn and run through the plastic flaps into the next room where i knew no one was in since the didn't show for that day so i was covering both... I was aiming for a hid maybe 6-8 feet down the hall that was a step covered by a camo net that you could hide behind. So as i enter at a full run i notice in the middle of my last running step into the hide that holy crap my boss is standing right there and theres no way i can stop in time since by now im at a full run and a foot or so from him. I slam into him with my shoulder/back since i was going to just kind of let the wall slow me down originally.... So i hear the wind go out of him and his weight lands all on me and i say "shhhhh there coming...." I lean out half heartedly since i know if i jump out he will fall to the ground lol. I get the first 1 or 2 in the group and let them pass. After i step out and he stumbles out of the hide after getting the wind back into him haha... Later i find out i gave him a bruised rib and a bloody nose but he said at least i got the scare lol.. After that he made sure to let me know if he was working the rooms before or after me especially if we were shorthanded and i was covering multiple rooms. Lesson learned.... always know your surrounding 2 or 3 rooms well in case you need to cover multiple rooms and never go blindly into another room or hide faster then you can stop yourself short. Other then that the big thing i learned is WEAR GOOD SHOES AND SOCKS... its like they tell you in the army... you spend your work day on your feet so take care of them...

[EngineerofFear]

Could they break something? Then that "something" would be laying in the middle of your path?
Or a customer decides to squat down to scare you!
Are display props securely fastened down?
Just a soft ,felt cowboy hat laying there in the dark, catching you at the beginning of your stride could cause a stumbling/falling potential problem.
I know my house very well too and walk through it in the dark sometimes but I usually only do this to surprise an actual ghost, or raccoon, stray cat or someone hanging back trying to do mischief although when groups are here to play Hide & Seek it is fun to sneak up on some of them for a good scare opportunity.
Many years ago a 3rd grader told his classmates that he was sneaking into my house at night. I never caught him but then guess what? as a high school senior he got arrested for sneaking into homes and molesting women!
He is now in a location that is VERY difficult to sneak out of.
You never know what might be waiting in the dark.

As a personal policy I immediately break character and warn the customer of their transgressions. If they are a cool person they'll understand, if not, they'll only get themselves in trouble by repeating their offense.

Here is my rational:

You have auditioned and or put hard work and time to get ready and get your scene set up. A customer hiding in your scene is ruining your scare. A customer "taking advantage" of the scene will undoubtedly endanger themselves or others.
Perhaps they are hiding in your running path and will cause you to injure yourself and them. They maybe hiding in the path of a prop and could get seriously injured. They might injure another in their group and cause an major incident. Any number of scenarios you might never imagine could happen, so handling the situation seriously is the only way to dissolve it. This is why I break character to address the customer who tries to steal my scares.

The last incident in which a costumer tried to run ahead of his group at my haunt ended with him running forehead first at full speed into my chainsaw. Was it my fault? Absolutely not, I was doing my job and scaring with my cues, in this case a shadow on the wall that gave me the signal the group was about to pass. This guy (shorter man) turned the corner as I lunge and ends up feeling the full force of my rush coupled with his drunken sprint. In this case I broke character to make sure he was okay, he had been warned once so he knew it was against the rules.

So to sum up, I advise you to always stop an intruding customer, you worked hard to be where you are, and if you allow a customer to do what they please, they'll only ruin your scene or someone's body.