Announcement

**drfrightner** · 03-31-2009, 03:13 PM

An email is going out today to EVERYONE who bought a ticket to our Darkness Transworld tour ... thanking them for their support.

Also we will be emailing everyone FREE TICKETS... TWO FREE tickets to every single person who bought a ticket to come back September through November and see both The Darkness AND Creepyworld in acton during the season.

If what you wanted was to see our two events in action with well trained actors, a tweaked show so to speak then come out this September through October and you will have TWO FREE TICKETS to both Creepyworld and Darkness ON ME!

If you can't make it then you can come back next March and see it for yourself!

Thanks again to everyone!

Larry

**Jolly Pumpkin** · 03-31-2009, 03:37 PM

You're right Larry. But I said that any haunt can build sets and use high end animatronics. I didn't say that anyone can build a great looking haunt. You have an awesome looking haunt no doubt, but there are some areas that need to be worked on before it can be near perfect or deserve the high ratings it's got over the years. Either way you should be proud because you're haunt is loved by many people and Saturday many were blown away while others weren't. I am one of the people who wasn't blown away in every way. But I was impressed by the amount of detail that The Darkness has.

**xxxdirk** · 03-31-2009, 03:51 PM

To me, it is always hard to judge a haunt when you are going through with the mind set as a haunter. We spend so much time studying that it is impossibe to react like a typical customer and it is hard to judge a haunt when there are a bunch of 15 year old girls behind or in front of me. Besides not going through the haunt at the 8pm start time as my ticket said and not entering until 9:25, two things that stand out in my mind is NO cue line entertainment and the Jungle area seemed to be WAY too long. I mean, how many square feet is just going from one jungle scene into another jungle scene? Maybe it would have been broken up if there were more actors or scares, but I actually felt myself getting bored. Once we got upstairs it was much more satisfying and I had fun and picked up a few good ideas from the haunt and the 3d area....

Ron

**graystone** · 03-31-2009, 03:51 PM

Larry

I can say this man your a sales man for sure LOL. This year it was about looks so you played that aspect to get people in. Looks like you accomplished that. So now your gonna add thousands of actors to get everyone back that will be a much harder sell the way I look at it. Hummmm its going to be a close call brother. Its an interesting take for sure and guess we will see how it pans out in the end .What is still on the minds of everyone ( I think anyway) is the fact that they had to stand in the rain and wait in the cold. You could have rented a tent. My rental company has a 100x100 that will fit 2500 people under it and I am sure there was tons of rental companies in St. Louis. Dont get me wrong Larry we had a good time but we and especially the ones that paid the $150.00 I think should have been catered to more. You cant say I will deal with that later and then say I will apologize later it leaves a bad taste. The offer of $25.00 for next year seems to come off as an after thought.

Will you be doing this on the same night as my dinner which will be by the way Thursday night or Wednesday night depending on when the show starts? It will always be a pre-Transworld dinner hosted by me from here on out. So I hope that it will be a night I can attend if I want to. I would like the same respect from you as I got from my other peers and give you a personal invite right now.| Shane and its it did look nice. Shane this time.

**Haunting Copy** · 03-31-2009, 03:58 PM

Originally posted by xxxdirk View Post

To me, it is always hard to judge a haunt when you are going through with the mind set as a haunter. We spend so much time studying that it is impossibe to react like a typical customer and it is hard to judge a haunt when there are a bunch of 15 year old girls behind or in front of me. Besides not going through the haunt at the 8pm start time as my ticket said and not entering until 9:25, two things that stand out in my mind is NO cue line entertainment and the Jungle area seemed to be WAY too long. I mean, how many square feet is just going from one jungle scene into another jungle scene? Maybe it would have been broken up if there were more actors or scares, but I actually felt myself getting bored. Once we got upstairs it was much more satisfying and I had fun and picked up a few good ideas from the haunt and the 3d area....

Ron

Ron! I finally remembered what I was going to tell you at TW! Check your PM box.

**drfrightner** · 03-31-2009, 04:22 PM

IF ANYONE DOUBTS I KNOW AS MUCH OR MORE THAN ANYONE YOU KNOW about how to train, operate, and scare people you are nuts! It just wasn't done because the haunt just never got finished.

Ask Rich Strelak, Jim UpChurch, Robert McBroom... all whom I want to THANK big time! We had Rich, Jim and Robert helping us on Wed night all night long finish building sets, lighting, I was at antique stores buying chairs, props and hauling them in on Wed night. We had painters painting, they came back to fnish on Thusday afternoon!

We were working on lighting in the daytime on Thursday. We had no way to know power breakers where overloaded and would trip until all you guys walked in front of everything at the SAME TIME! LOL

This was NOT like turning on a haunted house that had or has been in operation for years... this was ALL NEW! All of the eletric in both buildings was NEW NEVER TESTED!

The new building still is NOT done, they are putting bricks on the outside still right now, they are starting to finish the sidewalks even today, the building has no gutters, still needs two fire safety doors and you get it.

We tried to finish a breathtaking haunt... I posted long before we could not focus on actors. I just wish I would have inspected the actors room because that is what caused the delay to open that on no radios.

Personally I'm happy I was putting the actors in the costumes on Saturday, so I could see the problems with the actors room. It will be rebuilt from scratch... I'm having it torn out on Monday.

Bottom line is I feel 110% happy with what we accomplished and if anyone would say that wasn't one of the best haunted house they have ever seen they are just outright on crack!

I will tell you we nearly killed ourselves trying to do this...

NEVER AGAIN... LOL

NEVER AGAIN! I will wait until afte the Transworld show to renovate and wait on seeing all the new cool stuff all the vendors have to offer like everyone else does. I really felt bummed out at the show because I saw some stuff I'd love to have but couldn't afford anything. We're broke!

Seriously BROKE!

Not only that but we alreadly re-built the haunt so now we can't add anything and that was kinda a bummer. I get inspired by some of the stuff I see at the shows and it makes me want to build new sets. None of that at this years show... for that reason this was the must bummer show I've attended.

So I will not do all of this again. Too expensive. Too much time spent. Too much work and too much stress.

Next year we will just open up, I'll work on getting the actors together for a month just like we would if we opened in September. We'll focus on operation, we'll open 10 minutes early, and we'll have radios that work! LOL

Bottom line we accomplished everything we wanted to accomplish. I feel great about it based on all the awesome comments I have been given!

We'll see you next year with a different agenda and a different plan... SCREAMS! I've laid down the hammer... next year you can hold my feet to the fire if you don't get scared and come out crying!!!!

LOL

Larry

PS: NOAH... we do have areas that need to be worked on such as tweaking the lighting, tweaking the sound, little stuff. Your comments about scares or us not having any scare area's is wrong... Noah we have some of the best scare spots you will ever find in a haunt. Next time you are in town I will show you myself you will be amazed at how well hidden they are, you couldn't see them because they are camoflauged into the detail like nothing you have ever seen. If someone didn't use them that is another story all together. We don't need help scaring people, we don't need to modify anything... just FOCUS on what is important making our guests scream. We have been in business Noah for 20 years scaring people, if people didn't get scared they would never come back.

We just didn't have time to focus on opening everything and operations. Just couldn't do it... if the show was a month later as I posted on these forums for the past two months we could have. We have SIX MONTHS before we open Noah SIX! We'll get it done just not in March with everything else we did.

**Spookyfinder** · 03-31-2009, 08:07 PM

Well, I know we can't wait until the 2010 show... just let us know when tickets go on sale and we'll be there. No way we're missing this! -Tyler

**PhantomSW** · 03-31-2009, 08:33 PM

Larry.
I had fun!... I also told the actors that did a go job.."That they were doing a good Job".

Thank them all for Me...

THANKS..

**annarchy** · 03-31-2009, 08:42 PM

Who do these people think they are for cutting him down on all the things that weren't done? Anyone is this business knows the challenges we face---year after year---no matter how long we've been doing this. Perhaps these complainers should slap themselves for paying $100.00-$150.00 to see this haunted house!! What the hell were they expecting? I can spend a whole day at Disney for alot less than that. I DID, however, pay the big dollar and did not set my expectations too high; I feel I got what I paid for. I saw some things that I can take back to my attraction and implement. I have certainly pissed away $100.00 in my attraction before and have nothing to show for it!!! As long as I came away with an idea or two (which I did, and more), I am satisfied. If I didn't like something Larry did, I don't need to complain, I just won't make the same mistake in my attraction. I could consider this a $100.00 lesson in what NOT to do, right? Perhaps as individuals and together as an industry, we should worry less about what others are or are not doing and focus on how we can learn, teach and share with one another in order to help everyone get better."

**screamline studios** · 03-31-2009, 08:49 PM

Larry,

I CANNOT SAY ENOUGH about how good it makes me feel that you want to make the actors room a success. It is the begining and the end.

Jason Blaszczak

**damon carson** · 03-31-2009, 09:54 PM

So is a tour of Creepy World for next year out? If the weather isnt any better than this past T.W. it may be best just to do the Darkness.
Damon

**Grimley** · 03-31-2009, 09:56 PM

I enjoyed everything except the weather and the timed ticketing. If a person buys a ticket and waits in line they must simply wait until it is their turn. They can be entertained and still have a good time waiting. But if you have a ticket with a printed time and you are two hours late then you are going to be pissed no matter what. Because the ticket says you should have been in and out already. But this was a valuable lessen I learned. It only cost me a few bucks to decide against time ticketing. The haunt was great. And look on the bright side Larry that haunt is ready for action and you don't have to worry about it again until Sept.

**screamline studios** · 03-31-2009, 10:02 PM

Good job Larry,

Everyone had alot of fun and loved your haunt!!! This does not shock me, this haunt holds to much love to be a failure...

Jason

**stafford** · 03-31-2009, 10:28 PM

I've said it once, I'll say it again, anyone who opens off season so we can go through, thank you.

As far as the complaining about timed ticketing and waiting in the cold, here's a couple things to think about.

It was opening night, and opening night off season, haunt owners, actors, staff, etc. do you open right on time on opening night? In as long as I've been doing this, we've never opened on time on opening night. Maybe it isn't 45 minutes late, but come on, don't judge if you're guilty of the same thing.

How many times have you gotten hit with crazy weather that you didn't expect? I've stood out by our que line on several occasion, looking at the people standing in the rain (or snow) and feeling really bad for them. I may have some pull, but not with mother nature. I'm sure Larry didn't order up the rain especially for the tour. As I checked the weather forecast a few days before the show, it looked like 60's the whole time, they were wrong, big surprise, they also didn't see the foot of snow we got in Denver on Thursday. Man I wish I could get a job where I could consistently be wrong, and still keep my job!

If there hadn't been timed ticketing, I bet most everyone would have shown up at 7:00, that would have been fun huh? If 1300 people showed up at 7, that would be good right? I'm still glad there was timed ticketing, regardless of the delay (disclaimer: this has nothing to do with the fact that several of our crew stood in line while I stayed dry back in the auction room, honestly guys, it just happened I didn't plan it that way

)

Chris

Announcement

Darkness 2010 Transworld

Darkness 2010 Transworld

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