Haunted Hayride and Paintball?

[chipw]

Hey Haunters, I have an agreement with a paintball park to use their facility in 2012 for my haunt. They will provide a wagon ride to the haunt site and want to charge the riders to shoot zombies with paintballs along the way. I am not sure if this is a great idea, thinking it might turn some customers away. Has anyone done this or have any suggestions? Thanks.

[Terrorknight]

I would suggest building a zombie shoot out booth as an add on, but to hand people paintball guns on a hayride and let them go wild sounds like a accident waiting to happen. You'll have customers shooting each other, just not a great idea. Do it on the side a make extra money.

Robert

[chipw]

Thanks, I had not even thought of the safety aspect. That was my idea as well, to have the paintball to the side. I think the safety issue will help changing what the paint ball park wants to do.

[Terrorknight]

A safe bet is when taking on anything new , think about the safety of the customers. Think off them as little kids because thats how they will act. Even with most paint booths they they put the gun on a short chain so that you can only shoot the gun down the range at the targets / zombies and not be able to turn the gun on the people next to them of behind them or run off with it.

Robert

[screamforadream]

The best way to do that, is load each hopper with a set amount of paintballs, and have the guns mounted to the side of the trailer, guests must remain seated the entire time, and if you're using "real" zombies, they better be wearing protection the entire time covering every part of their body. I would prefer to see that as a side attraction...but if you did do a hayride as your haunt, make sure you time it well, if you charge $15 for a haunt and theres little to no interaction...i'd be unhappy, and if you didn't have a few trailers running constantly so your customers and actors aren't waiting FOREVER to get in, I would be an unhappy customer and actor. Unless you're just using the trailer to get people to and from your attraction, in which case ignore what I said lol.

[Allen H]

I did a monster safari paintball hayride a few years back- Greg Allen Has one now. My advice- Dont Do IT! very tough to find actors for (for me) and it pumped up the crowd so they wanted to hit all the actors in the next show (a walk through).

[N2SPOOKINU]

Zombie Safari Paintball

Fearfest Haunted Attractions operates a paintball hayride attraction. Our guns are mounted on the trailers and we have an excellent safety record.
We are going to have a booth at TW offering our attractions up for sale.
We will be showcasing our Zombie Safari attraction at CreepyWorld in action on a tour Friday night. It will be in connection with the Lemp tour and motor coaches will be available for transportation.
Larry will fill you in with more information about this tour soon.
As far as our paintball attraction it gets rave reviews and brings younger children and families that normally wouldnt come to a haunt a chance to have a hauntingly great time.
As far as actor issues, our actors are troopers! We have been doing this attraction for 2 years and our turn over is minimal. They are well padded and actually have fun chasing after the trailers as they move thru the containment center.
We offer many custom trailer options from our Double decker design to our stretched 32' monster series. We can custom make anything you need to make your paintball trailer attraction a reality.
Come see us at TW and come experience our Zombie Safari Paintball Hayride attraction for one night only during TW at Creepyworld part of The Haunting of the Lemp tour Friday night.

Greg Allen
Fearfest

[chipw]

Thanks for the info everyone. Sounds like good and less than good experiences with this. I am thinking of doing this as two separate attractions, which might be good if it does attract a younger demographic with the folks in tow. Still debating Transworld this year, would like to see Zombie Safari in action.

[N2SPOOKINU]

Chipw,
I hope you get a chance to come to TW. There are so many things you can learn by going not to mention the opportunity to network with haunters across the country. The vendor lists are awesome and cover a large variety of haunt related items.
If you can only make it to one show make it TW. Its a great time and a great show!
Larry has given us the opportunity to use CreepyWorld and the Tombstone Hayride Attraction to showcase our Zombie Safari Attraction instead of having to go to Columbia Mo..
It is different than our own attraction because of the close quarters it is in, our actors will be VERY CLOSE to the trailers.
At our attraction our actors keep a distance of 25-50Ft. Tombstone will force us to narrow that gap to about 10-15Ft.
This will be a major test for our new costumed gear and we cant wait to give it a try with fully loaded trailers.
I hope you are able to make it to the tour and I hope to see you and many other haunters in St. Louis for TW.

Greg
Fearfest

[rwrussom]

In my tours of shows in CA this season I ran across this very thing in Bakersfield at a show called Talladega Frights. It was well run and safe and had the US Army sponsoring it. It was an add on attraction in a cornfield. It was very popular and I did not notice any raised level of energy that would cause other problems.

[N2SPOOKINU]

Bakersfield

Randy,
Thank you for that reply!
Last year Mike and Adam from Talladega Frights contacted me after hearing about our Zombie attraction. We met up with them at TW and we discussed our many trailer options and the propulsion system we custom designed for our own use. They decided the double decker trailer system would be their best option for their attraction. We flew out in July and fabricated the systems needed for their attraction.
They were very pleased with our system and Mike actually called me this week and told me he just did a private birthday party for an 8 year old girl.
The party was a huge success and he wanted me to know how happy he was and that it wasnt just limited to a seasonal attraction.
They are planning big things for an expansion of Zombie x next year and I was glad to hear things went well for them.
Thanks again for mentioning it Randy and glad you enjoyed A Zombie Paintball Experience.

Greg
Fearfest