1st Walkthrough Setup this year

[Chainsaw Ronnie]

Question for Home Haunters that have had walkthrough attractions on their property. I've had a yard haunt for the last five years but have had always separated my scenes and actors on my property and crowd on the street.
This year I'm planning to set some scenes on the street, and have people walk between them and the ones on the yard.
My concern is over insurance issues. How have other folks dealt with that issue with having people in your yard or garage?
Only plan on having this up for 2 hours during halloween night.
Thanks for any ideas or suggestions.

Chainsaw

[scarygoat]

We actually went to the permit office and asked them about any problems we might have with our haunted attraction and they sent us over to the sheriffs office who said what we were doing was alright. So I would recommend doing the same thing, just go to your local permit office and explain what you are doing and see what they say. You might want to think about doing it for 3 hours, because you might find you want more time.

[Chainsaw Ronnie]

Definitely going to check that out since part of my setup will be on the street.
I'll have to see if they will let me extend for 1 hr more. Unfortunately we have an 8 pm curfew in the village where I am. If so it would be a more intense, splatter filled event then the regular hours that includes T'oT'ers and their parents.
Thanks for the advice!

[scarygoat]

Ya another thing is that I know last year with the date of daylight savings changed it didn't start getting dark till around 7PM.

[Chainsaw Ronnie]

Wasn't too bad in my neck of the woods, but I hear ya. Unfortunately we are
stuck with a 6pm to 8pm time frame in my village. Another reason to do a mostly
covered, indoor type of show this year just in case. Basically using plywood roofs, a covered carport and some black plastic.

[scarygoat]

Ya if it is covered then you shouldn't have a problem with the light. It would probably still be nice to do it a little longer though. Ours is uncovered and we opened at 6 last year and it wasn't really good until 7 to go through. Luckily people were smart though and didn't come till then. We had a pretty steady stream of people from about 7:30 to 9. So this year we're expecting to have more people since last year everyone loved it. Were doing ours from 7-10 this year which is a pretty short amount of time considering all the work we put into it, but that way even if we have double the amount of people we should be able to get everyone through and if we have to stay open later we can. Plus it is always nice to have a consistent stream of people and if we have double the amount which would be the most I will expect we'll be busy all of our opening time.

[Chainsaw Ronnie]

So you have people come on to your personal property, and no issues with
insurance or fear of accidents and someone suing? That's my biggest concern right now. I'm very focused on safety, but anything can or will happen.
How do you handle those issues if I can ask.

Chainsaw

[scarygoat]

Well I'm guessing you mean walking though the haunted house because no matter what people are going to walk on to my property to get candy. But as far as people getting hurt on our rules sign we put "ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK." I mean no matter what you are probably going to run into that because I am not sure that there is anything you can do about it. When we talked to the sheriff she didn't say anything about that so... we just don't really worry about it. I think having the "enter at your own risk" helps. What kind of layout are you thinking of, is it like an enclosed maze type think or an open walk?

[Chainsaw Ronnie]

I'm actually planning a gauntlet type of walkthrough,
almost completely straight through with scenes on both sides, and
a small maze like at the end,
just a serpentine shape so that I only need 2 chainsaw guys but can still
"get them" 4 or 5 times. The whole structure is only going to be 48 to 53 ft long,
with two scenes outside, 1 before and 1 at the que line.
Appreciate the insights and advice Goat.

Chainsaw

[scarygoat]

LOL, that is funny we had actually though about doing that before, but we never did. Now we are actually doing a haunt in our front yard. Good Luck