Darkness Tour / Thanks

[damon carson]

Ya that is pretty p*** poor I cant believe that! Ya lets buy a ticket to tear up the Darkness and then we will have others bash it all over the msg boards. Bunch a little pansies! Its too bad cameras didnt catch who did it. Or more Darkness staff couldnt have seen who done this. Then you would have to pay for what you did. It really is unexcusable coming from so called haunters.
Damon

[voodoo willy]

Hey Larry..no worries . I know you did a lot in a short amount of time. I was just hoping for more from the lights on. I really wanted to get a good look at your set up and with show lighting I just couldn't do it. I did get a couple of ideas from what I did see so that made the price worth it....to me anyways.

[Darkangel]

Anyone who intentionally damages his property should be ashamed. How ridiculous don't take your personal feelings out on someone's property are you 10 years old? A lot of hard work went into the show from people other than Larry. As haunters you should know the hard work that goes into doing this, if you damaged things on purpose remember karma can be a b***h and wait to your stuff gets damaged then you'll remember why it came back to you...

[Motograter]

That's really a shame that some people tore the place up and flooded your bathroom out Larry. I wouldn't expect that coming from another haunter. That's just very unprofessional.

[IHAUNT]

Sorry about the JERKS bashing The Darkness Larry. ( Both literally & figuratively )

I think it all boils down to one thing.............JEALOUSY.


Tom.

[Raycliff Manor]

Larry,

Regarding the Lights on Tour:

Three of us, Lee, Ree and myself, went through on Thursday night for the Darkness Lights on Tour. We had seen your progress pictures posted here on Hauntworld and I have to say, the pictures do not do justice to the real thing! I was one of the people who came back on Saturday and told you that I felt the Darkness was "Disney quality". 360 degrees of incredible set design and detail!Seriously, I still don't know how you pulled off what you did in just 4 months. Our hats off to you, Jim Kelly and the rest of the crew for "moving mountains" this year! Even if you only had the Darkness to work on and were not dealing with all your other clients projects, this would still be nothing short of a miracle. It's great to see you receive and process the constructive criticism from haunters professionally, while maintaining a focus on the positive feedback as well. It takes thick skin to open your show to haunted attraction owners who can be your most critical audience!

I know it has already been mentioned by another, just the inspiration for ideas we were able to generate from the lights on tour make the tour worth thte price of admission. We took tons of pictures until our camera battery finally died. You're right, the flash pictures captured incredible detail, especially the wall treatments, faux painting and design. We didn't feel hurried along in the lights on tour, but made sure to keep a pace in consideration of others. We had enough time to explore each room and the setup, operation and detail within them. We're VERY glad we took the tour!

Regarding the Saturday night show:

We had 9 of our crew go through the Darkness and we must have looked like a bunch of tourists pointing in all directions saying things like, "Oh my God!", "Wow!", "Look at that!", "Awesome!", etc. I'm not sure if we hit the timing just right or what, but we found the acting from the cue line to the exit to be great! We had a couple of our crew who were singled out as targets, and rightly so, and even though the rest of us were still focused on analyzing the sets, scare locations and acting, the Actors did an awesome job of getting screams from our team members and hysterical laughter from the rest of us! Lee almost added to your tinkle tally, he was laughing so hard at how effectively the Actors were targeting and delivering scares on Ree and Amanda in our group.

Kip did an amazing job in the cue line and we can't figure out how he was able to reappear throughout the haunt to locate Amanda and Ree and deliver scares over and over again! Several of our group lost it in the doll room when your "little man" Actor NAILED US! Seriously, we all FREAKED in a chain reaction of screams and hollers! Please let him know that! There were too many great Actors to even try to name them all. I'm sure it helped to have two people in our group that were actually good targets for scares and that probably energized the Actors and reinforced their desire to deliver, which enhanced our overall experience.

We were lucky enough to also have Brad, Tyler and Eddie join our tour group and they added to the laughter and fun! Sarah, sorry you weren't able to make it out to the tour with us, but you were a kick at dinner!

Regarding the damage to the Darkness:

I know it's already been said, but KARMA can be your best friend or your worst enemy, your choice! To the people who damaged the props and sets, I'm just glad you are the exception and not the rule in the Haunt Community! I did notice some damage on Saturday that I hadn't seen during the lights on show and I wondered about it. Larry, I'm sorry this happened to you and I'm sure with your exhaustion and fighting illness, this had to be a blow. I know it would be for me! Again, I'm glad to see you are focused on the positive feedback you've been receiving and still able to capture the pride and joy of a job well done! I hope Jim and the rest of the crew are following suit. As a pioneer in the industry, you will always have critical eyes on you and in some cases, jealousy to contend with. Of course good constructive criticism, like has been delivered in posts in this thread, is helpful. Destruction to your property is obviously not! I hope you and the rest of your team can get a little R&R and recuperate. Then I hope you can get together as a team and celebrate the success of the tours. Thanks for a great time!

Kel, Lee and the Raycliff Manor Fright Team

[Haunting Copy]

Larry, I'm so sorry to hear that *haunters*, of all people, tore up your sets. How infantile! I will be sure to hear Criticism of Larry with a careful ear, more so now than ever.

For me, you have earned yet another notch of respect, simply for the way you handle the bashing of you and your property. I guarantee you I would not have been so kind!

Warm regards,
Sarah

[Tater]

Larry

Sorry to hear about your Haunt getting torn up. That under NO circumstances is right! The bad thing is that the people readign these messages might of known who did it. If anyone out there knows someone that torn up larrys Haunt please Private message me...There is a reward for info as long as you have proof. On a side note larry when we went threw on saturday around 10 I didnt see any thing missing or broken...However I was paying more attention to all the detail that yall put in your haunt then looking for broken props...

[Haunting Copy]

Larry,

Regarding the Lights on Tour:

Three of us, Lee, Ree and myself, went through on Thursday night for the Darkness Lights on Tour. We had seen your progress pictures posted here on Hauntworld and I have to say, the pictures do not do justice to the real thing! I was one of the people who came back on Saturday and told you that I felt the Darkness was "Disney quality". 360 degrees of incredible set design and detail!Seriously, I still don't know how you pulled off what you did in just 4 months. Our hats off to you, Jim Kelly and the rest of the crew for "moving mountains" this year! Even if you only had the Darkness to work on and were not dealing with all your other clients projects, this would still be nothing short of a miracle. It's great to see you receive and process the constructive criticism from haunters professionally, while maintaining a focus on the positive feedback as well. It takes thick skin to open your show to haunted attraction owners who can be your most critical audience!

I know it has already been mentioned by another, just the inspiration for ideas we were able to generate from the lights on tour make the tour worth thte price of admission. We took tons of pictures until our camera battery finally died. You're right, the flash pictures captured incredible detail, especially the wall treatments, faux painting and design. We didn't feel hurried along in the lights on tour, but made sure to keep a pace in consideration of others. We had enough time to explore each room and the setup, operation and detail within them. We're VERY glad we took the tour!

Regarding the Saturday night show:

We had 9 of our crew go through the Darkness and we must have looked like a bunch of tourists pointing in all directions saying things like, "Oh my God!", "Wow!", "Look at that!", "Awesome!", etc. I'm not sure if we hit the timing just right or what, but we found the acting from the cue line to the exit to be great! We had a couple of our crew who were singled out as targets, and rightly so, and even though the rest of us were still focused on analyzing the sets, scare locations and acting, the Actors did an awesome job of getting screams from our team members and hysterical laughter from the rest of us! Lee almost added to your tinkle tally, he was laughing so hard at how effectively the Actors were targeting and delivering scares on Ree and Amanda in our group.

Kip did an amazing job in the cue line and we can't figure out how he was able to reappear throughout the haunt to locate Amanda and Ree and deliver scares over and over again! Several of our group lost it in the doll room when your "little man" Actor NAILED US! Seriously, we all FREAKED in a chain reaction of screams and hollers! Please let him know that! There were too many great Actors to even try to name them all. I'm sure it helped to have two people in our group that were actually good targets for scares and that probably energized the Actors and reinforced their desire to deliver, which enhanced our overall experience.

We were lucky enough to also have Brad, Tyler and Eddie join our tour group and they added to the laughter and fun! Sarah, sorry you weren't able to make it out to the tour with us, but you were a kick at dinner!

Regarding the damage to the Darkness:

I know it's already been said, but KARMA can be your best friend or your worst enemy, your choice! To the people who damaged the props and sets, I'm just glad you are the exception and not the rule in the Haunt Community! I did notice some damage on Saturday that I hadn't seen during the lights on show and I wondered about it. Larry, I'm sorry this happened to you and I'm sure with your exhaustion and fighting illness, this had to be a blow. I know it would be for me! Again, I'm glad to see you are focused on the positive feedback you've been receiving and still able to capture the pride and joy of a job well done! I hope Jim and the rest of the crew are following suit. As a pioneer in the industry, you will always have critical eyes on you and in some cases, jealousy to contend with. Of course good constructive criticism, like has been delivered in posts in this thread, is helpful. Destruction to your property is obviously not! I hope you and the rest of your team can get a little R&R and recuperate. Then I hope you can get together as a team and celebrate the success of the tours. Thanks for a great time!

Kel, Lee and the Raycliff Manor Fright Team

Kelly, thank you. What a treat it was getting to know your team and yourself. I love your upbeat and positive attitude.

For anyone reading this post, if you are a haunter and you want to be a better haunter, follow Kelly's methods - of marketing, in particular. Reach out to your customers and let the fun jump out of the box!

Study how Kelly did it. Get his book, "How to be a Haunt Entrepreneur." He knows his stuff.

(NB: When I say "Kelly," I do mean the whole team. )

In haunting love,
Sarah

[Ken Spriggs]

Larry

Larry.......Dream Reapers offered up 5 actors for Saturday night.
We would have loved to show off our costumes in a haunt!

BUT when we had them get suited up and work the tradeshow....we inquired about working.

We were told.......well you can bring your costume and we will see if we need you.

Well I don't know why someone would have said that to our guys.....who like I have said before.....I would rank as some of the top in the industry.

If DR's folks and Svenpuss would have been there.......that would have been pretty crazy!!!!
Kev we miss you here!!!!!

[drfrightner]

Ken,

I never said that to anyone. I wish they would have come by for sure! We needed them... your costumes looked awesome, fantastic, I got to see them for three days since the kept walking up and down our lane.

Great job! Anyway that was a missed opportunity! I would love to know who told you this? That is amazing! I do want to take this opportunity to THANK the guys who did work in our haunted house from other haunted houses... does anyone remember the guy who got in his underwear and was pulled around by a golf cart? We worked the GREEN HOUSE and I heard NOTHING but amazing reviews of his performance!!!!

We had two guys work our clown maze and they also did amazing!!!! I wish we could have had the Dreamreapers guys as well that would have been nice. I also heard awesome comments on our front door guy GARY, and I know CAM scared almost EVERYONE who entered the building. Cam is our little person and we brought him to the show on Sunday. I know a lot of people got photos with him on Sunday...that made him feel pretty SPECIAL! So thank you again!

Larry

[hauntedhousenut]

Larry

I'll keep it short, your show was Disney like and the only complaints I have is the acting.

[Jim Warfield]

Destructive Tendantcys

Cannot be tolerated in a haunt, the stuff is too rare, expensive, time consuming to get, find, buy or build.
Alcohol abuse makes some normal people turn this corner from respectful and normal law-abiding to the vandal/idiot.
Of course in their own mind (or what is left functioning of it) they come up with lame excuses when caught. No, I don't think the ticket price was too high but if you did , don't buy a ticket!
I wanted to keep an emergency baseball bat handy to adjust their shoulder blades with one swing.
I eventually made everything outdoors from steel, welded and bolted together, this slowed down alot of the crap from happening.
Halloween as practised by most is at least a rude holiday at the other extreme an aggressive holiday. Intentionally scaring someone is considered "Rude" in polte society, afterall.
Yelling in someone's face and threatening them is a "criminal" offense if pushed in our normal day to day lives, so just as racing fans might leave when the event is completed with their gas peddle buried because of what they just spend all that time watching and listening to, so do haunts and haunted entertainment affect some customers who get abit caught up in the basic mood of the holiday...but being drunk does propell many into areas of bad behaviour.

[Mike Honcho]

Larry

That's really a shame that some people tore the place up and flooded your bathroom out Larry. I wouldn't expect that coming from another haunter. That's just very unprofessional.

I agree with bill,
the show was fantastic, I can tell you and your guys put a lot of effort into your work, and it shows beautifully.
as for people trashing your haunt, what are you 5 again? I mean the guy opens his haunt to us and your gonna break his stuff WOW.... thought most of us were out of high school ...

oh and for some of those saying there was a congo line, well thats because a lot of folks stopped and took pictures as if it was a lights on tour

[Phil Miller]

Darkness Tour

Larry,
Awesome work!
I thought the actors did a good job when I went through, I would have enjoyed it without actors just to see the lighting and effects. It would have been worth the trip even if Transworld wasn't in St. Louis. Thank You, Phil Miller