Flaky Weather

Mother Nature has a pretty warped sense of humor when it comes to her, me, and haunting. Last year she ripped apart my haunt with a brutal snowstorm days before Halloween and she returned this morning with more snow that served to cancel the meeting scheduled for today with Secaucus township officials for our pro haunt.

Not that we had anything more than a dusting, mind you, but the weatherman had drummed up so much fervor that we could possibly receive as much as 8" or more of snow leading up to today that the school officials said they weren't opening the school and would reschedule the meeting.

We were already to go with our presentation too. The picture to the left shows our bound proposal; Dave had the haunt plans and a cool teaser trailer ready for show-and-tell time; Johnny devised some really cool graphics that we'll use for both marketing and memorabilia sales; and Jay was ready with his experience running Grimlock Manor as a pro haunt, all in an effort to convince them to give us the green light.

Until Mother Nature cruelly set everything back. Damn you, be-yatch!

But what's up with our weak-willed constitutions these days. My local school district just called (at 5:50 a.m.!) to say that all Saturday programs were cancelled too because of the weather. Literally, there's just a dusting of snow outside! The roads and sidewalks are clear, it's just the grass that has a covering of white. My father used to regale me with stories of walking to and from school in waist-high snow. Uphill. In both directions! Now a few flakes and everyone panics. Guess I better head to the grocery store and stock up on provisions because there's likely to be a run on milk, water, and bread.

Anyway, the extra time will give us more time to prepare our presentation and make it even better. It's just annoying to have to wait.

Update!

Okay, we got a little more than a dusting, but the 3 or so inches we ended up with still didn't warrant canceling the meeting.

Meeting a Go-Go

Well, not a stripper, or even Belinda Carlisle, for that matter, but our meeting with Secaucus Township officials has been confirmed for January 21, so we've got to get our presentation in order. We actually have much of this done already, but the four of us will be setting up a Skype conference call on Wednesday to discuss our roles and what we'll be presenting, then on Saturday we'll be meeting up once more at my house to make sure we're all on board.

Jay (FrightGuy, Grimlock Manor), as the lead contact for the effort, will be providing the officials with an overview of what we want to achieve while expanding on his prior pro haunt experience. I'll follow that up with the overview of our proposal and how we'll achieve what we've laid out. The actual written proposal will be printed and bound for distribution at the end of our presentation.

Dave (Dr. Death, Pandemic Cemetery), will follow this with a detailed explanation of the actual dark attraction we'll build. As our point man and resident expert on fire codes, we'll be relying on Dave to handle many of the questions the mayor and fire inspector are sure to be asking us. Hopefully we'll have anticipated many of the questions before they're even asked and will address them in the presentation.

Both Jay and Johnny will discuss the marketing aspects of the haunt and how we'll promote it to bring in the greatest number of patrons. Johnny will then provide a show-and-tell on the cool graphics we've (he) designed for the haunt.

Last, and the part we hope will seal the deal for us, is the quick little teaser trailer we've made for the haunt.  The 1:30 video uses scenes and props that we've built and put in our respective haunts, along with a rousing music score, to give a sense of what they can expect from us and the haunted attraction we'll build for them. It's actually pretty cool!

Taken together we hope they'll be blown away by it all and will roll out the red carpet for us. Of course, reality is always different than dreams so stay tuned for more details.

Scaring Up Some Haunt Plans

Since Jay, Dave, Johnny, and myself have agreed to keep things under wraps until our official reveal at Hauntcon (May 3-7, Monroeville, PA), it's difficult to tell much about our pro haunt planning session yesterday. I didn't even capture much video since vlogging it would have only served to reveal our plans.

However, I can say that from our end we're more than ready to make our presentation to school and township officials, which is tentatively schedule for January 21, or the 28th at the latest.

Yesterday's meeting covered the actual haunt design, logo and graphics work, and the presentation we're going to make.

What I can say is that we're going to have two haunts, a main walk-thru "maze," if you will, and a "lesser" secondary haunt afterwards. Since this is our first effort at this, we decided not to bite off more than we could chew by have three major haunts that filled up the skating rink. If this first effort is as successful as we plan it to be, we can add on modules as we go. Dave has really dug into the minutiae of the fire codes and has come up with some really exciting work that will make this a fun, scary haunt, but one that is completely safe and up to code.

Interestingly, in some of the research I've done on the town of Secaucus (where the haunt will be located), I've found it has a rather colorful history. If anyone's ever driven on the New Jersey Turnpike near its northern terminus, and you've taken the eastern spur towards the Lincoln Tunnel, you'll be familiar with a huge promontory of rock closely hugging the roadway. Known as Laurel Hill Park today (and more colloquially "Graffiti Rock" for reasons you can obviously guess), it was originally called Snake Hill because of the great number of snakes that slithered in the area and in the waterways, some as large as 15 feet! "Secaucus" itself is an old Indian phrase meaning "black snake."

This hill, however, was once home to a penitentiary, an insane asylum, a tuberculosis sanitarium, a poor house (called the Almshouse), and a massive potter's field where all the lost souls of these institutions were buried. It's estimated some 10,000 people are buried there and when they were constructing the new transfer station there a few years ago, they had to halt construction when they started digging up bodies. This area even made it to the pages of "Weird N.J.,"was the subject of an independent film, and was also said to have served as the inspiration for Prudential insurance company's logo (though they ultimately went with the Rock of Gibraltar).

Our haunt will initially be a Victorian mansion (I don't think I'm speaking out of school by revealing that nugget; it's a tired-and-true haunt convention). But in subsequent years, if permitted, we plan on adding on haunt scenes based on this unique town history. Each seems perfect for a haunt -- the jail, the asylum, and the hospital. That's why I said we plan on creating this haunt in modular format so that plugging these additional scares in year after year is entirely feasible.

We've also really advanced our logo work for the haunt, and plan to have some memorabilia on hand to sell at the haunt. Since this haunt is also a fundraiser for the 11th grade class of Secaucus high school, we like the idea of having our logo on the front and a "creeped out" school building on the back. Since we also plan on selling sponsorships to local businesses (small businesses and national corporate accounts), there will be room for company names and logos too. Johnny Cross did some great work on our own business logo (yes, we have a company for this too) and both he and Jay will be working on website graphics next so that once we're given the green light (hey, gotta keep that positive attitude!) we'll be ready to hit the ground running.

I look forward to sharing the actual details on what we're doing in the months ahead. As I said, we'll be meeting with the town in two weeks so we had to make sure we had all our I's crossed and our T's dotted (!) to give the town sufficient belief we actually know what we're doing. From our meeting yesterday, I have that same confidence in our abilities!

So look for us at Hauntcon this year (oh, we won't have a booth or anything, but you'll know we're there!). Afterwards, we plan on releasing the full details of our haunt.

You Hockey Puck!

As you may recall, myself, Frightguy from Grimlock Manor (Jay), and Dr. Death from Pandemic Cemetery (Dave) are joining together to put on a pro haunt to be held at Secaucus High School in 2012. Nominally a fundraiser for the school, we're not looking at it as "just a high school haunted house" but rather a venue where we can try our hand(s) at a pro-style haunt.

Today we met with the principal of Secaucus H.S., Dr. Bob, as well as some of the support staff that will be coordinating it on the school's end. While the first idea was to have half the gymnasium as the venue, it was then decided the new two-story foyer for their performing arts center -- yeah, my high school didn't have a performing arts center either -- would be a better location. While it did present some challenges (a 30-ft high wall of glass being one of them) it was definitely workable.

However, Dr. Bob offered a third alternative: the town's ice rink.

This isn't a small rink like you might find for roller hockey or something, this is a full-size -- NHL size -- rink! I just did a Google search and an NHL rink is 85 ft. wide by 200 ft. long, or 17,000 square feet total! The amazing aspect of this venue is that not only would would we have full use of the rink, but also the "midway" areas that surround the rink, the ticket booth foyer, the concession stands -- everything!

But wait, there's more! While that's almost too much space for us to fill, we would have immediate use of the space following the winter sports season. So we could start building early in the year and keep it stored right there under lock and key. And after the haunt was over, the high school has facilities to store all of the panels and props in trailers.

One last unique aspect of the rink is that it is adjacent to Route 3. Now anyone from out of state wouldn't realize what that means, but Jerseyans understand the incredible advertising opportunity this represents. The highway is a major, major highway heading into New York City and is one of the feeder highways to the New York Giants football stadium.

There's still a lot of work that needs to be done before we even get to that stage, but Dr. Bob seems like he is fully on board and supportive. So that means we need to come up with a professional presentation because it still needs to go through the Mayor's office (who is likely to be supportive) and the Township attorney's office (and we all know what sort of curmudgeons lawyers can be).

Halloween is apparently a big deal in Secaucus and the town comes out in full force. In past years when there was essentially little more than black plastic and kids yelling "Boo!" they had some pretty good turnouts. Hopefully, with a bit more professionalism and planning, we can far exceed those numbers -- and dollars raised.

After all, this is a fundraising event for the school. We're also approaching it as an educational opportunity for the students. They'll be able to learn construction and set design techniques as well as acting, makeup, costuming, lighting, sound, etc. All the things that go into creating a successful haunt.

Again, we're still in early stages but the situation has improved considerably and the stars certainly do seem aligned in our favor.

Keep an eye out here and on the vlogs of Grimlock Manor, Pandemic Cemetery, and my own Devil's Eve for more details and updates.

Graduating to the Next Level

If you saw Grimlock Manor's latest vlog on YouTube, you know Jay (FrightGuy) announced some exciting developments for the upcoming haunt season.

I waited for Jay to make the official announcement before saying more, but him (he?), Dave from Pandemic Cemetery, and myself will be teaming up to "go pro" this year, taking over an established annual haunt conducted by the junior class of Secaucus (NJ) high school. In past years it has gone by the name "Haunted High School."

Okay, "going pro" might be a bit of an overstatement, but my understanding is that the high school already has a pretty successful operation, featuring thousands of patrons passing into the nether realm each year, but they want to get even more out of their efforts this time around. That's where Jay, Dave, and I come in. We'll be the creative team behind the haunt and apparently will be able to bend the students to our will and use them for slave labor. Awesome!

The high school uses the haunt to raise money for the class each year and they want to step it up a notch in 2012 to do even more by bringing in someone to run it for them.

Naturally I have to thank Jay for the opportunity to be a part of the effort since he was the lead contact and graciously extended the offer to me to assist. I had to think all of about 10 seconds before agreeing to do it.

As Jay mentions in his vlog, we'll be meeting up this weekend for the first planning session, getting an idea of the layout and seeing how we want to tackle this. Definitely lots to do and with only 337 days to go before Halloween (actually less since it's open the weekend before) there's so little time!

Expect to see lots of vlog and blog posts about what we're doing, the building phase, and of course the final walk-thru. For now, check out Jay's vlog where he gives more details.

Now What?!

As I was in my yard today adding some details to my display -- I went to the local swamp (actually an overgrown, abandoned roadway) and pulled up some vines to wrap around my columns and fence -- a car pulled up in front of the house and the woman driving complimented me on the display.

I graciously accepted the compliments but she began to explain that she ran an entertainment company and they were putting on a haunted house in Hoboken. It was really a series of haunted tents, and what she does is drive around to try and steal ideas from home haunters. She said she really liked my display and wanted to know where I had gotten my various props. When I told her I built most of them, she was more than effusive in her praise.

Then she asked me if I could build her a groundbreaker! She would pay me for it! But it would need to be done before October 29 when the event was to take place. Oh, and how much would I charge?

I had no freakin' clue. I've only been doing this for a year and while I think my groundbreakers and corpses are fine for my little yard display, are they really "professional" haunt quality? I don't think so, but neither am I one to dismiss an opportunity either, particularly since I enjoy doing this stuff and I'm doing it every day anyway.

She said she was just starting out in the entertainment business and she had done this particular haunt last year and they liked it enough to ask her to come back. But she wanted to up the effort this time around to try and branch out and perhaps do it for more places. Of course I was thinking to myself, well, nothing like waiting till the last minute...but she said she would be willing to have me join her in her business. I'm guessing as Chief Prop Maker.

I figured I could make the props and even if she never came through I'd at least have another prop for my own display.

So, would anyone care to suggest what a groundbreaker would go for? Oh, and then after she left, she came back five minutes later asking if I could make a reaper too! Would it take long? Oh boy. Now what am I gonna do?