Day 183! The Journey to Halloween 2011 Almost Here!

Welcome back Ghouls! OK I couldn't resist. The garage is not exactly open for haunting yet, but I believe this year it will be soon. Hope everyone survived without halloween to this point. Of course the holidays are a diversion, but once you get into Spring we start eagerly planning. For this post after months of reflection we review those things that we need to improve on and give some clues about what we have planned this year.
1) Obviously the 'vortex' is going to be a yearly thing as we mentioned. The winter was very bad in New England and we did get some water leaks down into the basement but thankfully all of the wood components have survived. We will move the vortex location to the other side of the garage so people trying to get to the haunt entrance will not be running into folks exiting. We will create ramps this year going into and out of the tunnel and do a better job of eliminating the white areas inside the canopy esp the exit so we can create complete darkness.
2) Lighting was a big problem last year. I understand darkness is your friend but I think we went a little too far on that. We actually had a wall go down because people couldn't see an exit from one of the rooms. Plus we shot ourselves in the foot in the entrance hall as no one saw the really amazing crypt panels after all that! We will use those again in a different capacity. I found this source for LEDs that looks very interesting.
3) Actors- what actors? I bet a lot of you are in the same boat. You're in the community. Everyone thinks we're crazy and no one really gets into this like we do. The neighbors are gracious enough to come by and help, esp during the work week (which btw halloween falls on a Monday this year!)but let's face it, after several years of this they don't even dress up any more. Can't ask them to be obsessed with this like we are. It is what it is. I did have one high school kid who was terrific, but he is in the high school drama program! So hopefully we will get him back, but honestly I am going to have to accept more responsibility for remote scaring. It just cannot work to have people show up at the last minute and expect things to work in the haunt. I did use 'operators' to deploy certain things behind the scenes. That can still work. I have one of my sons and his friends handle that. They are definitely into it there! Bottom line is I bought a 3rd night vision camera to help me with this situation! They had a 25% off sale.
4) Doors- the coffin gate was verry cool but cumbersome and difficult to operate. The sliding doors are a great concept but as I recall in 2009 we had problems back then, and last year as you recall the door going into the 'bee room' totally failed so we had to leave it open. That killed the whole effect. This year we are designing the sliding doors based on a suspensory system (wheels on top as opposed to the bottom)and we will need them to work perfectly because there will be a lot more of them!
5)Crowd management- it broke down when our signaling system failed. We will need some fullproof signaling method to let people in line know when to enter.

We will also want to finish with plenty of time to test all features of the haunt out. Last year we really couldn't do that.

Every year is great but we're always looking to improve and I think last year we were so focused on getting the 'vortex' to work that we kind of lost the edge on the rest of the haunt. This year we will be able to spend more time on the haunt. We plan to do only 3-4 zones and really spend a lot of time on the details in each one. All I can say is that it is the most ambitious haunt yet! Of course! Because of that we will probably be starting verrry soon, so stay tuned!

Day 350- Final wrap up

Well ghouls, this is it. Halloween 2010 wrap up and looking forward to 2011. This video below reviews some of the things that worked and some things we can improve. The vortex will be a definite yearly event since it was such a huge hit. Here are a few things we are planning for next year:
Haunted house theme with:
1) an elevator
2) crush wall
3) expanded peppers ghost illusion with a moving ghost in a hallway
4) air blasters- to be used instead of live hands
5) a lot more moving doors

Have a great holiday season everyone and look for a new chapter of Xtreme Garage Haunting 2011 to start up again around July. (hmmm. the elevator looks pretty daunting....might have to start earlier..............)

Day 364

Happy Halloween hangover everyone! Hope you had a successful show. We certainly did! My ears are still ringing from all the screaming. The vortex was a huge success. The weather was cold but dry and very little wind. Special thanks go out to all the neighborhood helpers who had to work pretty hard for 3 straight hours. Overall no major mishaps. Some minor sheeting damage but nothing major. I think all of the events were popular. We had one mat switch fail at the entrance and the hand drop got snagged very early on so I just left it hanging there. We did a quick test just before the crowd arrived and the consensus was it was a little too dark in the hall leading up to the gate, so we left the light and sound on from the area just before that and that seemed to work fine.
OK, so now the take down. A lot to put away, but before we sign off for 2010 I will include some details from this year's event as well as a vortex page for those interested (see page entitled 'Spinning tunnel that you walk through').

Beyond the Infinite

This is our finished vortex tunnel complete with sound. Unfortunately the broad daylight video does not come close to the full night time effect. The sound track is from 2001: A Space Odyssey
Enjoy!

Day 1- That means Halloween is tomorrow!

Hard to believe. 4 months have basically vanished. So now it's the last minute preparations. Basically all that is left is the entrance/exit sheeting. All of the halls are done. The cave eyes were finally installed after I shorted out the light board trying to set up a triggering relay. I had to have Cowlacious overnight another one! I am just going to leave it on all the time during the haunt. The cave room is very small and by the time the eyes turn on and off when guests enter and leave, the effect does not have a chance to get started so leaving it on continuously should be fine.I think it's a pretty cool effect. I put 20 pairs of 'eyes' randomly positioned in the back of the cave. My son Max will have a black mask on with one pair of eyes secured to the top of his head somewhere and will walk forward a couple of steps coming out of the darkness.
I spent about 4 hours last night fussing with the vortex. OK, so we're in New England here where the weather is crap much of the time. We set up the canopy and structure maybe 3 weeks ago and we had in that time span a Noreaster, a bunch of rain and earlier this week a low pressure system with super high humidity and more rain. Last night was the 3 hour vortex test and I swear it took about an hour and a half before the thing would turn on its own! Finally it worked fine, but attention all ghouls who want to build this and live in places with significant weather! It definitely can work, but it does require a fair amount of attention. I was afraid the hoops warped or something despite the fact that the structure is enclosed and the wood is treated. The more you run it, the better it works.
At any rate I finished the sheeting for the back of the vortex and the entry way. Having a completely black exit from the tunnel makes a HUGE difference.
Tomorrow we will set up the sound for the vortex and I need to start practicing my hauntmaster tasks from the control room. We will power everything up and test it!

Day4- Weather update

The ghouls are apparently watching over us as it finally looks like cool and dry for Halloween! We're expecting a front to pass through today with rain and wind but things should be drying out over the next couple of days. Once I screwed the canopy feet down to 2x4 blocks the tent stability problem was basically cured! It can handle up to about 15-20mph wind with no major problems. I haven't had to put any legs back in place or reattach components in the last couple of weeks. The vortex apparatus is definitely affected by humidity and weather. Last night during the test it was very sluggish. We are having unusually warm weather and high humidity. I had to keep cranking the hoops around for about 20 minutes before it would run on its own. That would be a drag if we needed yet another person to assist tunnel rotation but I am certain once things dry out we'll be good.

Vortex update

Well we did successfully run the completed vortex with 2 black lights and the effect was very intense! My son Ben and I added many random fluorescent dots, plus it is important to place black wall covering at the exit of the tunnel to eliminate any stationary reference points. We had plenty of extra fabric. I added a long 2x4 on both sides of the bridge below the railing to mount the lights. These were placed exactly 4 fingerbreadths below the rail. This seems to be a good location. The light and extension cords can be secured to the rail structure with duct tape. We have 1 power strip on both sides and extension cords which run to the vortex entrance and down to the ground alongside the 'doorway' to the tunnel.