Halloween 2014

Christmas seems to come before Halloween this days, as stores like The Home Depot and Lowe’s carried very few items for this scary celebration. Now that Halloween is over and we look forward to closing out 2013, it’s not too early to start planning for Halloween 2014. Laugh all you want, even with about 50 days to plan this year, we still could have used more time to get the haunt ready. Next year we won’t be running around, hours or even minutes before putting the final touches on the The 6th Fright at Vintage Parkway Elementary School.

Not more than 3 days after the Harvest Carnival ended I was already writing up my post mortem experience. I also put together a more comprehensive review of our design and layout, construction, rooms and our time to haunt. While this year was a “learning experience” I believe we can improve the haunt for 2014 and possibly generate even more revenue for the PTA. I have already begun working on a new layout that will still contain 6 individual haunts, but will do away with some of rooms we used this year.

With any luck we will have 30+ days to prepare the stage, build our structure and piece together an impressive display of haunts for The 6th Fright at Vintage Parkway, for this temporary project. For the most part, we will still use PVC as the main structure, but will introduce some wood facades, as well as hanging our cloth sheets for the dot room. While there are still details that need to be worked out, Mark and I will have 10 months to build whatever props we will be using next year.  For example, one idea I found was a garage door mausoleum. These faux stone panels could easily be attached to a wall, but creating each of these panels would take time to make.

One of the bigger projects I am planning will require eight 4’x’8 sheets of plywood. While I won’t reveal what these plywood sheets will be used for, it will take time to prepare, cut and paint them in order to include them in a convincing haunt. This could actually end up as the centerpiece in 2014, much like the dot room was so talked about this year. You tube as been invaluable since I have taken a fondness to Halloween. I have included another unique scare that might or might not come off. Unfortunately, one piece of the equation that was missing this year, volunteers.

Three years I put my name on a piece of paper to help at the haunted house. Last year I believe Mark helped at the door, while I was inside the haunted house. This year, Mark and I were responsible to build the haunted house or sadly there would be no haunted house. Were the hell are parents to volunteer? Why not take an active interest in your children and get out, support the PTA or one of their event, such as the Harvest Carnival. Thankfully the gals of the PTA, as well as my wife and mother in law came up huge to help out and paint some of the sheets for the dot room. Aside from them we had no volunteers ask to help build the haunt. At the start of the carnival our wives ended up taking tickets and playing crowd control into the haunt. In order for the plans I have to be successful I will need more than just 5th graders inside to scare guests.

One area that we failed at this year, which will be organized prior to the start of the carnival was ticket taking, guides and crowd control. Funny to put the wives in charge with nothing more than 2 chairs, a can to take tickets and flashlights for the guides. Have at it ladies! I thought the flow of guests was really slow this year. Part of that was due to the fact we only had 3 flashlights. How something like that was overlooked is beyond me, but it happened and didn’t think anything of it until that afternoon, by which team is was almost too late. Ticket taking wasn’t a problem, but my wife believes we could have moved more people through, especially those who offered cash. Unfortunately, the carnival doesn’t work that way and all money is handled by PTA board members. So the long ticket lines is something the PTA needs to address prior to next year. Crown control wasn’t bad from what I heard, I would like to decorate the ticket taking area/entrance to the haunt, giving guests in line something to watch on a few TV screens. Many good ideas have come up, but due to time this year, we didn’t put any time into this area.

Hopefully my early planning and opportunity to build props through out the year will pay off and Mark and I won’t find ourselves struggling to decorate and finalize the haunt moments before we open. Lots of work to do, but after seeing the turnout this year and the excitement of everyone who went through it, we look forward to this in 2014. Be prepared for an every better haunted house at the 2014 Harvest Carnival.