Pet Peeves!!

[Warren Vanderdark]

Pet Peeves!!

Among my favorites (?) are:

1) Big Caveman Boyfriend - We've all seen him, the one who looks like he spends 5 hours a
day in the gym and has exercised every muscle in his body ex-
cept the one between his ears. You make the statement to the
group that they might get touched by some of the characters and
Big Caveman Boyfriend goes "NO, no one touch woman! MY woman!
Me HIT anyone who touch woman!". These type of guys rarely see
the entire haunt, because they're getting hustled out a side exit
2 minutes in.

2) Litigitous Princess - The one who's busy with an incredibly important phone call while
you're talking and then goes "Whaaa?!" when you mention a
certain rule that might somehow rock her little world. This is
followed by the proclamation "I'll sue!!". THIS is the kind of
person who has made me try to get the haunt owner to issue
tazers to the cast members.

[Nightmare_Trance]

LOL... tazers would add a new element to the scare.

[IHAUNT]

The biggest haunt pet peeve for me is...

Actors who don't stay in their assigned scare spots & decide to roam the haunt leaving their assigned spot empty.

Every group coming thru a haunt deserves to get the same show as the previous group.

Our haunt has very little "DOWN TIME" between groups as we are a pre-ticketed event so there really isn't any time for actors to get bored.

Don't know why they do it but it still occasionally happens.

I blame it on MTV!

Tom

[ZodiacWarrior]

The biggest haunt pet peeve for me is...

Actors who don't stay in their assigned scare spots & decide to roam the haunt leaving their assigned spot empty.

Every group coming thru a haunt deserves to get the same show as the previous group.

Our haunt has very little "DOWN TIME" between groups as we are a pre-ticketed event so there really isn't any time for actors to get bored.

Don't know why they do it but it still occasionally happens.

I blame it on MTV!

Tom

THIS.

I agree with that pet peeve TOTALLY. The haunt I work at is volunteer and thus uses the local high school to fill most of the spots, as we have 4-5 theaters in a former movie theater's worth of space and the first weekend we were operating, there were I believe 8 refunds we had to issue (and I won't get into the damage to costumes) to guests because ALL the kids had left their spots and were all in one box. 6 kids, and all 6 were sent home before closing the same day.

[HauntedMemphis]

The biggest haunt pet peeve for me is...

Actors who don't stay in their assigned scare spots & decide to roam the haunt leaving their assigned spot empty.

Every group coming thru a haunt deserves to get the same show as the previous group.

Our haunt has very little "DOWN TIME" between groups as we are a pre-ticketed event so there really isn't any time for actors to get bored.

Don't know why they do it but it still occasionally happens.

I blame it on MTV!

Tom

The funny thing with this one in my experience is that it seems to be the veterans who are the worst offenders here. New actors tend to do what they are told, and are more concerned about whether they are doing a good job, or forgetting what they were supposed to do. Veterans get more bold and freelance more, including moving out of their areas to other areas.

[Scareside]

In my little home haunt I brought through a test group and (again like above) they wouldn't open the door to the haunt at the end of the preshow where it said to open it. So I had to go back and make the door an Automatic Pnumatic Door just so they would continue through the haunt.

[stapleton13]

Ok, here is my biggest pet peeves in working in Haunts. Come on, let's vent it out! We will feel better. What are yours?
if it doesn't scare you

In the defense of people that don't scare easily. I am one of these guys. Only because I have done this for so long, and have gone to more haunts than I can count. I do love a good scare, but for me it must be new. I expect most scares now days. I mainly go to look at the work others do, and seek inspiration.

I remember the last scare vividly. I was walking down a path toward a barn at a haunt in Denver when a tall pile of 55 gallon drums had been rigged to collapse. I almost hit the ground.

Myron

[drkside77]

I really hate it when you have one of those patrons who are hell bent on touching you no matter how much you tell them not too. Im doing crowd control one night and this girl keeps asking if she could touch me, I say no several times. This doesnt stop her from inching her nasty finger closer to my face until I have to scream at her to back up. Its moments like that that make me wanna throttle people through a wall! "sigh" gives me a good reason to send an 8 pearson group in two by two though

[ZodiacWarrior]

I'd like to add drunken idiots to my list of pet peeves. The rowdy ones who aren't breaking things or being violent, especially. They weren't high on my list originally, until two groups of them went through tonight. I got groped twice. And I'm a dude, who does NOT look whatsoever like a girl.

[hauntedghost]

people who say...

I'll sue...

how much do you make?

can i marry you?

how do i get a job here?

OR people who does..

the "party boy"

take pics of you..

use there cell phones as a light




you know the rest.....

HG

[ZodiacWarrior]

use there cell phones as a light

I agree with that one a hundred and twenty percent, considering the room I was in was pitch black with just a focused black light over the directions for the gimmick in that room and it really needed to be as dark as possible for the effect to really do what it's meant to. However, I still scared the idiots with their cell phones out because it's a blind corner and I hide in the middle of the pitch black walkway. If I saw a light coming and it wasn't one of the staff, I'd just come right up next to the blind corner and wait for them to turn with their phones. I made some dude almost drop his iPhone. lol.

Also, I'd like to bump drunks a few notches up on my list after Halloween. lol.

And people who can't follow directions.

[Jim Warfield]

This Has Been Interesting Reading

Yes I know or have endured most if not all of these peevie situations. (Being open almost every night of the year for 21 years gives one such an opportunity.)
Drunks don't get in if they are loud, aggressive or have trouble walking. Happy drunks are fine but if they ask to drop out of the tour or say they might feel sick , they go out the nearest door real fast (I don't like cleaning up puke, do you?)
"Hecklers"..hahahah! I eat them ALIVE! Right infront of their family and friends!
I sometimes make them look stupid by pretending to be more stupid than they are, which may come across as a very passive-aggressive solution.
I perfected doing a trick which used to have the "Macho" boyfriend in my face or with a fist drawn back ready to punch me but testing various procedures over the years I found a perfect mix and approach alternating insanity (mine) with goofy humor with the actual implied threat= no more attitude or fist threats.
I have had the time and the freedom to figure out many such things that most of you have not , I really do realise this and am not trying to brag or belittle because most could have also accomplished the same results given my advantages.
I think customers do behave better for me simply because they are not actively traveling at any given pace through my house, I control their freedom of movement here and most immeadiately realise this, hence , better behavior.
I usually lead the entire group through the entire house. I own the place. Another advantage with heckler-wanna-bees.
Maybe these mentioned items give me more advantage, maybe at 60 yrs. of age, they give me more respect than you young whipper-snappers?
I could be their Father, Grandfather, or a combination -a mean, abusive Father plus an aultzheimers Grandfather!
After insulting them, if they still are causing problems, I walk them out for the sake of the other customers and the quality of entertainment I am attempting to provide the group with.
Some horrible scary parents of small children seem to fall victim here to scares too, sometimes manifested by the helpers here, sometimes by their kids helped to make this happen by our helpers.
I usually never get anyone asking me "How much do you make?" Probably thanks to some local barstoolers nearby (who have never been in my house) who loudly inform everyone that I make "Millions" doing this!?
The personally hysterical thing is, they were saying this when I began here when admission was $2.oo a person and I was running the place all by myself and the tours here have to be "Guided" and have never been quicker (even back then) than a min. of 35 minutes, somehow my math doesn't even come close to "Millions"?

[ZodiacWarrior]

I think that the "courage" the drunken idiots and hooligans have with us in most haunts comes from the fact that they KNOW we're low on the totem pole for the most part. I'm lucky enough to have been moving up in pecking order along with my friends and my brother due to being knowledgeable and having done this for a couple of years. But to the drunks and thugs, they assume we're just another faceless worker they're never gonna see again in all likelyhood.

[soultrkr]

I don't really have much in this category I would say billigerant drunks maybe it but that's what we have plain clothes police officers for.

[Jim Warfield]

There may seem to be no Police anywhere around my house but response time can be as little as 10 seconds!
It's a small town of sleeping elderly with the County Sherriff's office maybe 500 feet away.
It's always so amusing when a "drunk" finds sobriety as the front fender of the squad car is coming around the corner. It can be like flipping a switch!
Faux-drunks?
Sometimes.