dropping ceilings

[jason]

i've always wondered this since i've seen this at a haunt or two but how do you make a ceiling drop?
before the drop what is height of the room? what is it after the drop?

being 6'5, i always duck... for all i know a guy who is 6'0 could have put that room together..

[imax]

We did it by constructing a steel frame that was physically larger than the dimensions of the room, so the walls of the room fit 'inside'. Then some air cylinders with a suitably large stroke pulled the ceiling down. We did ours so it fell from about 10' to 8' high, and was pretty effective, while still being safe enough to not hurt anyone.

We did inspect the frame nightly to make sure none of the welds had broken the night before, though.... That frame went though a hell of a lot of abuse.

-- I

[Jim Warfield]

I used to have an opening ceiling . Part swung up the other part swung down to show "Cheetah Woman" above the ceiling.
I built an angle iron framework. The original ceiling height was 10 foot, I was using the old drop ceiling framework for the normal looking lowered ceiling but it was reinforced with steel and plywood and more hangers.
No one was ever standing directly under all of this at anytime either, just to make it even safer.
I would walk them into a very normal looking bedroom and say:"Have you ever been in bed with someone when you realize that they don't consider you to be anything more than just a piece of meat?"
Then from out in the hallway I would pull on the old 1/2 steel pipe that used to be a heat pipe and the lights in that room would trade to dark with a growling soundtrack and little red lights in her eyes, I'd let go of the pipe and everything would snap back to normal, almost as if it never really happened!
I quit this when after my line one girl began crying and said sobbing "Oh, Yes! Yes!"
The other three in that tour acted as if nothing had happened, including her boyfriend, of course.
Counter weights, springs and gravity powered , no cylinders of air or motors.