Haunt Weekly - Episode 425 - Dwayne Sanburn (13th Gate) Redux

[0:23] Greetings, everyone. Jonathan here. Look, I know that we warned you all that we would be late this week and that we would likely or maybe doing a Redux episode if we didn't feel good, if we continue not to feel good.
But as we mentioned in that, we both have been very sick.
It's been very tiring, head cold.

[0:45] Basically, it's just been an ugly, ugly mess. And for either of us to sit around and talk for an hour and not sound basically like a snot factory and keep remotely on topic, even for us, it's just not been possible.
We're both starting to come out of it. We're both feeling better, but we just couldn't push this back any further.
So we're looking forward to coming back next week with a good episode.
In the meantime, though, I did want to present an older episode to you guys, one that I think it's overlooked a lot, and it's from way back in our early days. It's episode 69.

[1:16] Nice. And it's our interview with the owner of the 13th Gate, Dwayne Sanburn, one of our first interviews that we did, and I think one of the best.
So on that note, take it away, Dwayne Sanburn and Haunt Weekly, way back in the damn near first year we were doing this.
Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the haunted attraction and haunted entertainment industry.
Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you.
Thank you for including us in our iTunes as we come for episode 69.
And we will try not to snicker because this week we are the presence of greatness. And I'm very happy.
He is the most humble man I have ever met, I swear to God. But we are here today with Dwayne Sanburn from the 13th Gate Hotels and the 13th Gate Room Escapes.
And I knew I was going to screw something up with that. I just always do.
It's like a ritual, I guess.
But Dwayne, how are you doing? And thank you for being here.
Thank you for inviting me on the podcast.
I appreciate it. It's a deep, deep honor to have you here.
We have been going to your haunted attractions, well, since you were in Alexandria.
That's a very long time. Yeah. And things have changed a lot since then.

[2:33] I like the 13th Gate better than Louisiana Nightmares.
But I will say we saw some influences and some things transferred.
When you moved to the 13th Gate, you still love running people over cars.
Oh, yeah. Trains, cars, anything. Whatever you can run. What is that about, by the way? Just curious.
I just think people are guaranteed to run when something big comes after you. Gotcha. Okay.
That's awful. I keep learning in New Orleans streets, that's not always the case. Not always, yeah.

[3:06] Not always the case. But, yes, we're here to talk with you today about both your haunt and your room escapes, which have become a major, major part of your business.
And we just did a couple of them on Saturday during our total.
I think of your room escapes up to three.
So we have a lot to go over the course of this interview. It could be one episode. It could be two.
We're honestly just going in with a shooting the breeze and we'll see where the conversation takes us as we like to say.

Discussion on the Haunted Attraction and Room Escapes begins

[3:31] So anyways, you know, obviously at 13th gate one of the best known haunted attractions, not only in Louisiana, but in the country. Oh, thank you.
On all the top 10 lists. It's all over my travel channel and stuff.
You have your trophies over in the corner that you guys can't see, but they're there.
We're literally sitting in the trophy room.
And by the way, this is interesting, because in one case you've got like actual trophies, and then in the case across from me you have skulls, which I'm assuming are trophies too, but of a different sort.
But regardless, I'm curious, though, how did it all begin for you?
So, greatness comes from humble beginnings. What are the humble beginnings?
I think I always, as long as I remember, had a great love for Halloween and horror movies.
And I went to a haunted house when I was about 13 years old.
Which one was it? Do you remember? I think it was the haunted hotel.

[4:31] It was in Texas, I believe. It was a haunted hotel.
And I immediately thought, this is really cool. This is what I want to do.
Yeah. And so every Halloween, I would dress up and have parties and hayrides.
As I got into high school, everything got more and more elaborate.
And when I got out of high school, I realized really quick that it was a business and I wouldn't need money to open up a haunted house.
No money. Yeah, unfortunately. Hang on.

[5:06] So I went to college, became a registered nurse.
I really love the medical field also.
And went to work for the VA Medical Center in Alexandria as an ICU nurse.
I was there for 10 years.
And then in the meantime, as soon as I graduated, the week after I graduated college, I rented the building that we built, Louisiana Nightmares Inn.
And about a year, year and a half later We opened Louisiana Nightmares And that was in Alexandria, Louisiana And for those that don't know Louisiana geography And I completely understand and respect Their life choices, It's in roughly the center part of the city It's called Central Louisiana Quite aptly, it's a modest sized town, It's pretty small Yeah, it's not a village It's not a village It's not where you're from It qualifies as an actual town It has stores and things and more than one stoplight.
Plural stoplights.

[6:06] But, yeah, so you rented the building and you opened Louisiana Nightmares.
Yeah, and it was fairly popular and it gave us an avenue to work with and meet a lot of people, including a lot of members of Louisiana 4-H Foundation.
And that gave us the opportunity to put a haunted house on LSU campus in 98.
And we started doing a second haunt, which was portable, which we would build in Alexandria.
And then we had five 18-wheelers. We'd bring the show down to the Livestock Show Arena on LSU campus.
And we'd set up – we'd have a couple weeks to set up this massive 18,000-square-foot haunted house.
And then about three days to tear it down after all. How much sleep was taking place during those stretches right there? It was a lot of fun, and I didn't need as much sleep as I do now.
Oh, the curse of age. So it really didn't bother me. I'm amazed now how much I did accomplish back then.

Moving to the 13th Gate and Closing Louisiana Nightmares

[7:10] But after four years of doing that, it really started to wear on us, and we couldn't get the quality haunted house we wanted, and it was just having to tear down and start over from scratch each and every year.

[7:22] So we started looking for a location. The last year I was at LSU, they came to me and they said, hey, we messed up.
We booked a horse show the day after Halloween. You'll have to be out in 12 hours. Oh, wow.

[7:39] So all of us worked as hard as we could, and I got a lot of volunteers to help me.
And I think I went about 60 hours without sleep, and I left there and went straight to the hospital for a week.
And that really cemented the fact that I needed to do something differently And so you luckily found the old Planmark Antiques building And moved into it right after Halloween, And the next year that 13-gate was open.
And that was in 2002.
Yep. I believe that's correct. 2002. And it's been growing ever since.
And then a few years, four or five years after that, we closed Louisiana Nightmares down.
Yeah. Mainly because 13-gate was growing so big. I needed everyone at Louisa Nightmares to come help me here, and that was a much smaller market.
We decided to focus all our energy on this haunted house.
I stopped nursing somewhere in there also, and this became my full-time job, and this is what I do every day, day in and day out, all the time.
Living the dream, as they say. Definitely.

[8:58] That makes you one of the few haunters I can actually say this about.
This is literally your full-time, 24-7 job.
It is. Luckily, I have a lot of people who love The Haunted House who help me each and every year create it.
And it's been because of their talents and their help, it's grown in popularity.
And a lot of people come to see us enough that I'm able to do this year-round.
But what were some of the changes you noticed when you moved from that knockdown haunt to finding a permanent location?
Well, after we were here a couple of years, something big happened to me.
The movie industry moved into Baton Rouge in Louisiana, started making a lot of movies around us.
And I was able to one of the guys who worked for me got a job on the set of the reaping Hillary Swank movie that was filmed in a Walmart not far from here.
And I had the chance to go on set.
It was the first movie I'd ever been on, I believe.

Inspiration from Movie Sets

[9:59] And what really struck me was the set design and the realism.
And here was this beautiful morgue and a two-story sewer system and this underground tomb and all these beautiful sets.
And it was just flats on the outside and on the inside. If you woke up in this sewer use war, you would have been out of your real story. I've been very, very confused. Right.
And so I thought, man, why aren't we building like this? You know, this is incredible.
So I made one of the scenics off of that movie, convinced him to come over and work for me and also teach us how to do set construction and scenic construction like a movie being less like most haunted houses we're building at the time.
And overnight, our haunted house started transforming.
And it took us several years to change the whole thing over from what it was and to add more to it.
But it certainly changed a lot. And then we started getting national recognition after that, shortly after that.
I will say that coming to the 13th Gate the first time, I remember being outside in a line that stretched all the way around the building.
So we were there for a long time. It's okay. We weren't doing the reviews then.

[11:22] We weren't questioning the throughput at that time. By the time I got inside and into your queue line, I had forgotten that I was inside of a metal building because it was that convincing. A warehouse building. I don't know if it's a warehouse.

[11:36] Well, I can look up in certain cracks and see.
It's a lot of different materials. The main building is about 170 years old. Oh, wow.
So it's a lot of history there. Right. And then it's had a lot of add-ons throughout the years, and some of it is metal.
Yeah. Including the lobby, I think, has metal. Very funny.
Yeah. Because you've got the big arches, and it feels like you're in catacombs or something.
Yeah. And you just lose yourself in the set.
Yeah. And it's really nice. And that sequence before you go into the elevators in the beginning, the very first time I was there, the analogy I drew in my head was Tower of Terror of the Disney World.
Yeah, certainly a lot of influence from Tower of Terror.
Not just because of the elevators, but because of the detailing and the ability to get lost.
And that is what everyone says about the 13th Gate, is the detail is always amazing. They talk about that movie set design.
They talk about the look and feel of it and how easy it is to get lost. Right.

Obtaining Initial Capital for the Haunted House

[12:40] And real quick, going back just a little bit in your history, how did you get the initial capital and what suggestions would you have for someone who's looking to either rent or go broke? When I started back then.

From Humble Beginnings to Opening the First Haunted House

[12:55] So many years ago, I'm over 20. It was very hard.
I actually went to the bank and they kind of laughed at me.
Opened up my house, sure, no thanks. So conventional funding was out.

[13:12] So I got a second job working at agency nursing.
It was very good money. And I picked up a partner who was also a nurse, and he worked agency nurse as a second job.
So between the two of us, we made enough money to open up a first one.
Of course, it was a lot cheaper then to open up a haunted house.
And the expectations of the public was a lot simpler back then than it is now.
Now, nowadays, if I had to start over with no money like I did then, it would really be difficult to open a big commercial haunted house these days.
It would be tremendously more difficult than it was back then.
And I found an old building that had the roof was caving in, and the owner was an elderly attorney in Alexandria, And I made a deal with him, hey, I'll fix this building up if you give me a good deal on a rent. And he did.
And we did fix the building up for years.
And so that helped quite a bit also.
And that's one of the things, I guess, is that's haunters for opportunists first and foremost.
Yeah. Everything from dumpster diving to finding those random locations.
Yeah. That's, I guess, opportunists. Yeah.

[14:38] Yeah, I did find it interesting that you got your start in Alexandria in a smaller market, then moved into Baton Rouge, which also, of course, serves New Orleans, because it's about an hour's drive, and I'm sure you get plenty of people from New Orleans. I'm not from Lafayette, too.
You're right on that Iton corridor at the bottom of the state.
How did things change for you moving from the smaller market to the much bigger one?

[14:59] Well, when we moved to LSU campus, we probably doubled our attendance, which was fantastic for us.
It gave us enough capital to keep growing and keep rebuilding.

Significant Growth After Moving Into Own Location

[15:11] And for the next four years we were on LSU campus, we grew a little bit every year.
But when we moved into our own location here, we had significant growth every year.
And then when we got into Hot World Magazine and started getting a lot of national recognition, that's when we saw the most growth out of everything that we've been doing so i i think that was her biggest the fact that i changed the haunt uh to a much more quality haunted house uh and then started getting national recognition for that that changed things for us and the location was really good it took a couple years for everyone to figure out now that we were here and so after about three years we started doing very well enough that we were able to support of, you know, what we do and I was able to hire a crew and, you know, today we have a crew of about 12 people that work year round on the hot and escape games.
And then a large crew of escape also that run escape. So, yeah.
And we'll be definitely talking more about the escape games in a minute.
There's a lot of really good questions I want to ask there. there.

[16:22] How did, did, did you do anything to cause national attention?
No, just spontaneously combust. Does David say? I think, I think so. I mean, we, we, I had to create a hot world for one major introduction because they they did a big article on us.
And I think we sent in some video to them and then they got took an interest in our haunt and did an article on us.
And then from that, I think we got on their list that next year.
And and then we started getting picked up.
We also became a member of America Haunts, which has helped us quite a bit also.

[17:06] I'm just curious. So there's some potential suggestions for getting attention. Great publications.
So you actually have a smaller crew than what I would expect for a haunt this size.
My crews, we bring in guest workers also throughout the year. Right.
For example, the sculptor who I met on that movie still works for me.
And in between movies, he comes in and does things for me.
So he's still working for me years later but he's not a full-time member so i have probably 10 part-time guys that come in from everything from costumes to special effects and things or do doing a custom piece for some things like that so uh between those two is probably 20 you know total yeah and then you know when we get closer to halloween uh to opening there's a lot lot of crew members that's come in and then we start seeing the ads and craigslist everywhere yeah um do you work any with lsu since you're right next door with their theater group have you been able to recruit any from we get a tremendous amount of uh theater students from lsu each year that work for they come to work for us and we also take on some interns each year year, a couple of year in terms, and sometimes they're from LSU.

Recruiting Theater Students and Interns from LSU

[18:30] Yeah, I always tell people, never come to the 13th gate on the day of an LSU game. Oh, yeah. We've made that mistake once.
I try to tell people not to come the two Saturdays before Halloween because it is a very, very long line.
And the sad part is the Thursday before that, you can walk right in the door.
Yeah, we've done that. We've actually done exactly that. I just don't understand why.
You know, everyone wants to go out on Saturday night and show up here at 8 o'clock. And then stay until 11.
Yeah. That's one of the things we've been talking about a lot on this podcast has been how internationally haunted attractions are not just purely a Halloween thing. They're not seasonal.
We go to the UK, you go to Eastern Europe and so forth. Haunted attractions are a year-round deal. They're smaller, but they're a complete year-round deal.
And you can find those throughout the United States also in tourist places like Ripley's that are open year-round. But here we definitely have a haunted attraction market that is purely seasonal.
And it's, as you noted, it's not just purely seasonal because we think the season is six to eight weeks.
It's oftentimes purely those two weeks right before Halloween.
That's right. Where the bulk of it comes in. And that is, I agree, that's insanely frustrating when you're trying to provide a good experience.
Right. Right. Exactly. And you're thinking, like, I mean, if half you guys showed up two weeks before, we'd have our lying times and have the same through. Right.

[19:57] But yeah so one thing I've really always loved about 13th Gate besides the set design though is the creative way you do handle the line and do handle bringing people in and you have that area which is like a little Disney-esque and that it provides things for people to look at and do and interact with and then you separate the groups using elevators usually and that, seems to have had a I would say I've had greater success and making it through the 13th gate and not bumping into other groups than just about any other haunt.
It's certainly, you know, on the business nights, it's always going to be a problem.
And that's with any large haunted house.
And unfortunately, I wish there was a solution, but we all talk about it's the one major problem that all big haunted houses have is, you know, what do you do when there's a tremendous amount of people show up all at once?
And then, you know, people don't want to wait in line for three hours.
But they don't want to be rushed in, too. So there's the rub.

Challenges of Managing Large Crowds and Limited Time

[21:00] What do you do? And you can't, because you're dependent on that.

[21:05] Income the last couple weeks you can't just turn people away right absolutely so so there that is certainly an issue uh we've tried to educate our customers more about coming on different nights coming early but well you know even we would just our short three night run for our odd we're like hey don't come halloween night try coming the friday or saturday before yeah they don't listen no yeah no um is that part of why uh necropolis was built was trying to take some of the line and spread it out a little bit?
Definitely. I was hoping that it would alleviate some of the line, but I don't think it really changed anything at the 13K.
And that raises the next question, tell us about Necropolis 13.
We completely forgot to mention it in the intro because I feel very remiss right now.

[21:54] Necropolis 13, personally, Becca, I was standing outside the haunted house one day, And thinking about the throughput of the haunted house and thinking I needed to move the box office out of the doorway and that would help things.
And then I was looking around thinking, OK, where can I put it?
And I turned around and there's this empty lot there with trees and an old house that was falling in on it. I actually remember when it was exactly that.
Yeah. And so I approached the owners of that property and ended up leasing it.
And they also own this building, so later on, they leased in this building from them also.

[22:36] And we cleared it and fenced it up.
The first year, first we moved our box office over, and that was a great thing for us to do. That helped us a lot.

[22:46] And then, well, I got all this extra space. What do I do with it? Right.
So we decided the first two years we had it to put in a mini carnival.
We had a lot of games. We had a lot of different vendors come out. We tried...
I think we had like 15 different things going on from zombie paintball to laser tag.
And laser tag of Baton Rouge had a booth and lots of different stuff out there.

Buried Alive Simulator: A Major Fail at the Carnival

[23:14] My friend still talks about being buried alive that year. Oh, yeah. Buried alive simulator.
That was a major fail because we put a tremendous amount of work in it.
We had a video that you looked at, and it looked like you were looking through a hole in the top of the coffin. and you could see yourself being buried.
Yeah. And the palm bearers carrying you out to the grave and then burying you.
And then the rats and all. Yeah. But unfortunately, no one wanted to get in the casket.

[23:47] Well. Claustrophobia. I couldn't believe it. And I thought, man, they're going to be lining up for this. It's such a fun ride.
Yeah. And no one wanted to get in it. Not just relatives. I've never actually done one of them.
Well, no. No, and we've seen them at a couple of other places.
Yeah, Rye's had it one year. Not exactly like that, but we've never seen anybody in them.
No. I only know one person who's done it.
In fact, recently when we were at Poplarville of all places, they had one set up there for their little theater haunt, and once again, no one in it.
Yeah. So I guess there's another lesson here.
We're in some words of wisdom this week. Right. So we ran the Chronum for a couple years, but it was so much work, is particularly working with other vendors and trying to get them to come out on the right times.
And it was more work than I wanted to deal with.
I really needed to control it all. So at that point, I was either going to start buying, cornmeal stuff or do something different.
And ultimately, I decided to put a cemetery out there for a second attraction.
Right. And it's been popular.
It's a very unique attraction in very Louisiana, a very New Orleans cemetery.
It's about 400 crypts, underground catacombs, lots of zombies, lots of overhead scares and scares from different areas.

[25:17] Hard to change. It's not without its issues. It is a cemetery, so it's hard to do.

[25:25] Something completely different. You can't just move a few panels around and you can't. You all know it's definitely all concrete out there. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Is that frustrating, the designer in you?
Well, my main focus is always on 13th Gate.
Right. And whatever time we got left, we go over and scramble and try to change things for Necropolis.
For someone who's never been to it, it's fantastic. And there's a lot of scares out there.
And the people who do go to 13th Gate, I mean, Necropolis, they say that it's – a lot of people say it's scarier than 13th Gate.
Well, and I think a lot of that's because Necropolis, to me, is very actor-driven. It is.

Necropolis: Actor-driven and Close Quarters Experience

[26:08] Where 13th Gate is more scene and set and more – Right. Character-driven.
Character-driven, scene-driven. That is definitely actor and scare-driven.
I often refer to it as an actor playground because that's what you basically seem to have done was give the actors all these opportunities and let them use their judgment in God's feet.
It's also much more close quarters. Oh, it is very close quarters.
Very in. A lot of pop-outs, a lot of things you don't see coming. Right.
And quite a few dark areas or dimmer areas and on. Yeah. So, yeah.
And I love voodoo theming and that particular thing. so it's it's a lot of fun to do things out there but you know.

[26:52] It is what it is. It is a cemetery. So you can't put a clown house out there.

[26:59] I'm sure many people are very appreciative of that.
I don't know. For an add-on haunted attraction, it's a sister attraction to the haunted house. And I think it's done great.
And it's also, I think, one way it helps, at least I imagine it helping, is from a business standpoint, those yummy combo tickets.
You can sell, get more money per customer. Yes, definitely.
So that's always been one of the dreams is to get those combo tickets and get the ability to sell multiple attractions.
A lot of hunters would absolutely kill for that opportunity.
And so I think that was a great move to do that.

Struggles of Running an Outdoor Attraction in Louisiana

[27:39] So, yeah, has it been a little bit of a struggle, though, having it be an outdoor attraction? Oh, absolutely.
The year before last, we had rain almost every night. It was just.
Welcome to southern Louisiana. May I take your order, please?
It was the worst rainy October we've ever had from doing it.
Do you carry rain insurance on the crop? Well, normally October's dry for us.
But that particular year, we just got hammered.
So it was closed a lot. And we had to bring in a lot of gravel when it wasn't closed. So, between days, we just fought with that for the whole month.
But normally, it's great.
Yeah. I guess you are right, though. Southeast Louisiana is not a bad place to have an outdoor attraction, realistically.
Southern Louisiana in general. Yeah. In terms of how many rainy days you can expect. Yeah.

[28:39] So, yeah, you know, you've got your two attractions, you've gotten all this, you've gotten all this acclaim.
What was one of the moments that made you realize you've got something special here?
Or do you still not believe you have something special? And I'm completely putting you on the spot unfairly.
You know, I'm happy that our customers are happy.
You know, I want to put on a quality attraction, and I love it that people are enjoying what we do.
Because it does take a lot out of us. We work year-round on this haunt.
People do not understand. Y'all do, but the general public do not.
They don't understand how much it takes to put on a haunted attraction.
They think you plant a seed and the haunt grows. I sit on a couch all year, and then in September, end of September, I get up and open the doors.
Exactly. Tell me how it works. No.

[29:39] So, yeah, I take it to heart when something fails, and I'm very happy when we do have successes in the on-house, when things work according to plan, it's great.
Now, one of the things that I know has been part of your business these days and something I think is very interesting, you know, what we discussed earlier is movies shooting at the 13th gate.

Movie Industry Decline and Haunt's Appearance in Films

[30:03] Yes. Although it's in decline now, it's really changed over the last year and hopefully they'll be back.
But I think they've changed some of the tax codes and the movie industry is pretty much in a decline over the last. At least in Louisiana. Yeah.
It's definitely less throughout the state. Is it ever surreal, though, seeing your haunt in a movie?
I wish it was a big movie.

Movie Night: Selling Tickets to Movies Filmed on Set

[30:33] It's a little more sci-fi, but that's okay. I'm happy.
Well, you know what you should do? We were talking about this in the last episode when we just posted.
You should have a movie night where you come and sell tickets and bring people to see the movies that were shot there. Oh, yeah, definitely. In the set.
In the set. In the set. Instead of the set still up, you can shoot in the.
Our biggest one we had was Pitch Perfect 2. So that was a big movie.
They shot it. I would not have guessed that. I am not going to lie to you.
If you had asked me to start naming movies that might have been shot at the 13th gate, how would I have gotten through about a couple hundred before I made it down there?
They shot here for about three weeks. Wow.
And they were here 30 days total with prep.
And they built a set in our warehouse. But it's the underground scene for the riff-off, I guess it's called, in the mansion when they go under in the basement.
Let's see the first one. Yeah, so it was a good movie.
And then we've had three sci-fis, and they've been a lot of fun.
My favorite was Dead Steel.

Small Movie, Big Fun on Set

[31:40] It was a very small movie, small casting crew, and we got to be on set every day and help out, and that was a fun experience for us.
Nice little change of pace. Definitely, yeah. Yeah, it's nice to do something completely different.
It's very stressful because a lot of times you'll have over 100 people and you're hot. Right.
Camped out on wires and pulling walls down and drilling holes.
Yeah. It's very stressful. Yeah.
But food's good. I love that. There we go.
So they bring you food while you work. It was Taco Tuesday every day.
But yeah, they're a lot of fun.

[32:29] So, I'm sure we'll continue to do them if the opportunity arises.
We've had a few music videos also shot here.
It's been fun. Yeah. I'm always fascinated by that idea of having something shot and seeing it on the screen that you built ending up in a movie.
That's always very, very cool.
So, since things have changed over the years, how involved are you still with the build and everything?
It sounds like very is the short answer. I have my hands on everything here, but I'm pulled in every direction all the time.
So, luckily for me, I've got a good crew that understands exactly what I want. Yeah.
And I'm able to step away from a lot of the smaller projects now.
And unless there's something that's a very big, very important project, then I'll jump in and help with construction. But I don't screw up too much plywood anymore.
Right. Yeah. But you do most of the planning still. I do all of the design. I'll never give it up.
Yeah. That's the funnest part. That's the fun part. Yeah, that's the fun part. Yeah.
So all the design, I continue to do, yes. Right. Okay, cool.

[33:46] Every haunter loves to talk about their challenges with the local fire marshal.
Have you run into any issues? uh i've had uh uh more i've got more stories than probably you got time but it's a big sd card i'm just telling you no time no we have a good relationship with a fire marshal and uh they we we have the uh fire marshals here every night that we are open uh they do fire watch and uh and And we've worked closely with them every year on design.

Importance of Working with Fire Marshal

[34:22] And they come in and inspect us before we open.

[34:26] And, you know, been working with them for years. And I think it's a good thing.
And I think any haunt that misses that is putting the entire industry in jeopardy.
You know, they skip over that step. And I always tell newcomers when I do have the opportunity to talk to them, like at Transworld, that that's one of the first things you have to do is go see your fire marshal.
Because I have been to a lot of haunted houses over the years and a lot of dangerous haunted houses.
It's only going to take one to have something bad happen that's going to change the entire industry. And that can not only be said about Haunted Houses, but also this new industry, the escape games.

Escape Games: Lack of Government Regulation

[35:20] Especially with something like the escape games that has a lot of electronics and a lot of people jumping into it, not really knowing what they're doing.
As a matter of fact, after we opened up, I was called to the State Farm Marshal's Office to explain exactly what an escape game was because they were getting so many requests and plans, medals and things.
And they did not understand it entirely. entirely and they've since changed the code since i opened to be more stringent uh at three or four uh escape games in right i started seeing that this was going to be a trend and they needed to pay more attention to it well so and i've noticed the regulation of escape games has not been in place the government in general did not get ahead of it because i we went to the one in new orleans we noticed that they were registered as a museum because that was the closest thing they could register their business.
They're not sure exactly where the place is. Yeah.
It's such a new thing. It's a different thing for sure. It's so new that I don't think they're fully ahead of, the government's fully ahead of the curve on it yet. Right. Yeah.
With your teardown plot that you did at LSU, what were the permits and fire marshal things like that? Well, when we were on LSU campus, we worked with state fire marshal, but that's their jurisdiction.
Right. And so they were...

[36:46] We worked very close with them in the show arena. They had sprinklers there, but we also had fire hoses.
And it was a long list of stuff we had to do. Okay.
Submit plants every year and go through the inspections and had to be ADA and everything.
So it was a lot of stuff. So from the detection system, everything, we had to install it before we could open. Yeah. Yeah.
I know that's a problem a lot of knockdown haunts face, though.
Yeah, there was actually a haunt shut down in New Orleans this year.
Really? Yeah, for lack of any permits, really.
14 violations, something like that. Just decided to open without calling.
Yeah, they were an art space. We could talk about it later, though.
Let's talk about it later.
But long and short of it, yeah. And also, I mean, I remember one we visited in Slidell, but I sat there wondering how the hell did it pass any fire inspection whatsoever. whatsoever.
That one's long gone the way of the Dota. That one's been gone.
We only got to go to it one year. I think that thing disappeared not too long after you guys were opening.
Yeah, I don't think I've ever felt unsafe in your haunt. At any point, in any iteration.
Other than the intended levels of unsafe. Right.

[38:00] That's what I always tell everybody. We want you to feel that you're in a very dangerous situation, but really you're very, very safe.
I like to compare it to a roller coaster. right where it's going to seem like you're about to die and we're trying to get those emotions out of you but you're really probably in the safest place you can be in the universe right right, because not only that not only do you have all those code compliance but you have emts usually and police everywhere and outside of actually being in the hospital you're probably safe as it kids so you mentioned that um a lot of people have or some people have said that necropolis 13 is actually scarier than 13th gate right what do you say to the people who think that the 13th gate is not as scary because we've actually gotten flack for saying that we really love we really love your haunt well well i think um that we have uh i i wouldn't say that okay let me start So if you went to House of Shock, House of Shock is definitely scarier than on a certain level than 13th Gate, I think, personally.
Okay. But they are touching on themes that we do not because we're trying to –.

Finding the Right Balance for a Scary Experience

[39:24] Be for i'd say if you compare this to a movie we probably are pg to r yeah they're not on edge r but not house shot definitely are yeah hard yeah yeah hard and and and so uh that that's definitely going to be more scarier to some people yes but because we're trying to reach a wider demo I think that we have to tone it down a lot.
I mean, that said, I think we do some very realistic scenes.
Oh, yeah. Some of the things we have, I believe, are as scary as any haunted house you'll come across.
But also, when you come on a night when there's thousands of people in line and we have to increase throughput where there's 15 of you in a group, it's a lot different going into a haunted house with 15 people than it is with two.
I agree with that. Yeah. And that's going to change your scare factor. Or 15 with 100.
And when one person stops and won't go because they're scared, then they back up. And there's no way to change that. Yeah.

[40:29] It's definitely a scarier, more personal show because our actors have more time to get personal with you when you come on a slower night.
And you'll see a completely different kind of show on a slower night than you will on that Saturday before Halloween.
It's just the way it is. Definitely. I agree with that. And also, when I think of the 13th Gate, one of the first and foremost things I think of is the set design, the immersion factor, the getting lost in this alternate reality.
Yeah. I mean, it's not...

[41:00] Always like a lot of haunts they really love doing pure distract and startle room after room hit after hit 13th gate likes to take its time and toy with you in certain sequences sure i see a different pacing in 13th gate than and all of them are i i think also i'm trying to put on a show also yeah i agree um it's not all about jump out jump out jump out jump out you know for me i want to do a little more entertainment i think i want to tell a story and that's why i really I think I fell into the escape game so well is because it's storytelling.
It is. And that's part of, I think, what makes this a little different from a lot of haunts is that you will see characters that are not there just to jump out at you and scare you, but are being part of an overall story.

Characters that Enhance the Overall Storytelling Experience

[41:49] Like in London, when you go through, you're going to see a lot of different characters that are doing their own thing.
They're living in that space. They're invading their space.
Yeah but they're not hiding waiting for you to jump out per se not everyone yeah my favorite line well one of my favorite lines my 13th year character was in that lung sequence.

[42:07] And it was it was going around that hairpin turn at like the stable area that this might have been a few years ago if i'd done a redesign and the exact one was it was just some dude laying on the ground in the shadows his plague victim victim and just called me like the hell Well, subtle stuff like that, I really do love it.
I mean, I so enjoy that.
I enjoy the creativity of it, both on the actors and the set design, the side of it.

[42:36] What would you say is your most successful scare that you've ever done?
Oh, nice. Uh-oh. Running people over. I know it's coming.

[42:45] I don't know. There's been so many. Yeah. Well, your favorite one, then. Maybe not most successful. Oh.
Now he just has to choose between his babies. Oh, I'm sorry. That's a tough one.
I can tell you that, speaking of big things chasing you, the funnest spot to stand is at the end of that train tunnel. Right. Okay?
Because people fly out of it, and they are screaming.
So it is definitely effective to have big things and loud things chasing you.
But it's really hard to say.
I've been doing this for so long.
We've had some really great scares throughout the years.
Um and i've noticed you guys seem to follow the principle that the simple of scares are the better ones too as far as the actual scare part sure you don't overthink things well it's not overbuilt it's not overbuilt yeah we over i i like the overbuilt yeah like i remember a few years back and i think this is a scare that went away was you had a clown actor way above a head had a fence Yeah, they would pretend to shove it.
That was one of the few times I really and truly got startled in the haunt because the way he shoved the fence, the way everything was positioned, it looked like it was coming down on you.
It's not only that, but I think that was the first from above scare that we saw. Yeah, that's the only time I predated Metropolis in that regard.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, above the head scares weren't very common then, but yeah.

[44:13] But do you have the train tunnel or anything else that comes to mind?

Different Fears and Popular Rooms at 13th Gate

[44:18] Well, let's see. The elevators are very popular.
You know, it's very strange. Everyone is scared of something different.
Oh, yeah. You know, so, or snakes, for instance. Right.
People are either, they have no interest in snakes whatsoever, or they are terrified of that room.
I know. And it's either one or the other.
Yeah. So it really depended on the person.

[44:46] I'm sorry. We have a friend who was working in ours for a little bit.
She's since moved out of town. But we try to drag everyone helping us out.
Yeah, you're going to come and you're going to have a great time.
As many people as can come whenever we do and buy their tickets and come inside.
And so, on the way here, we're almost here.
And she's like, well, what's the first thing you see? Like, it's just an elevator.
It's an elevator. She's like, an elevator? Really? And gets really scared.
And then it took 15 minutes to get her to go into the snake room.
Ah, see. Because both of them, both of her phobias were there.
Right, right. So, that's our goal, is to try to get a little bit of everything.
Luckily, we have enough space that we've been able to add a lot of different phobias.

[45:47] Whatever you're scared of, somewhere in here, you'll find it.
Well, on the opposite side of the question, what is the thing that you think did not work as well as you? Oh, goodness. We have...
You know, sometimes you can build and spend a lot of money on a set, and it just fails completely and people ignore it.
And then the simplest thing will scare the hell out of people.
Right. And you wonder, why am I doing all this?
It's like the kid playing with the box and stuff. Just turn it into a giant blackout maze and you'll be fine.
So, I mean, I've had many things like that happen. But you think something's going to be cool and it just falls flat. And then other things.

[46:39] Y'all talked, and many people said, oh, the beehive. We hate the beehive.
But then I was in a store somewhere, and I had my T-shirt on.
And a girl said, oh, I love the 30K, except for that one thing that scared me to death. I won't go back. What was it?
I'm thinking snakes or elevator, whatever. The bees. The bees scared me.
I'm not going back over there.
I'm like, well, there you go. You know what?
Fine. That's three years of long review work. This is probably down the drain. Thank you, ladies.

The Beehive: A failed attraction but still memorable

[47:13] But for the majority of people, that one probably was a fail.
But it's got the train in it now. They're in that space now. Right.
Well, I always loved the part that came after, but the life that followed you and...

[47:27] They came after for a while there. They did the behind the going to the temple, I think.
I know what you're talking about. You're talking about it was like Egyptian writing on the walls that lit up as you passed.
Oh, yeah. That was a while ago. Yeah, that was a long time ago.
Yeah. Okay, I'm dating myself.
That's where the cave is now. Right. So the cave's been in for about four years.
Yeah. And I'm dating myself quite thoroughly here. That's fine.
I'm good. I'm okay with that.
But it lives on. It's in a movie. Yeah. it should have been that was a really really cool looking set it could have been like some indiana jones adventure stuff that would have been great in a film i don't know why that one wasn't, but yeah but yeah that's i guess that's the thing when you do a haul especially when this size you're gonna have hits you're gonna have misses sure and you can't always predict what's gonna be why no no and after doing uh a haunted house this big for so many years uh it gets more It's more difficult to come up with new things, entire themes, to build a whole set that's completely different that we haven't done already. Yeah.

[48:35] Everyone always asks about bringing an asylum back, bringing an asylum back.
We did an asylum. Then we updated the asylum.
And for seven, eight years, we did the asylum. And then we wanted to change. So we put in London.
But, I mean, you want to not do the repeat yourself. Right. And I remember the first year you did that because we were taking someone through.
And I go, okay, you're going to come out and then it's going to open or it's going to be asylum. And it opens the door up and it's like, oh. Well, hell.
Everything's new. We don't know what's going on. Well, screw it. You're on your own.

[49:11] Nice talking to you, buddy. Yeah. Because we were trying to coax someone else on the going through. Yeah. Trying to give them a little encouragement. But yeah.
And I do like that you have, bigger scary things all the way down to fart jokes with you know in almost every horror movie there's humor oh yeah and it makes you relax and it it makes it i mean if you walk too stressed uh it's hard to scare you because you're expecting it but we can make you laugh a little then relax and it's easier for us to get you again so your shields come down a little bit yeah so uh dark humor is it's a lot of fun to build into your heart yeah yeah i mean okay so we'll move on to the escape rooms in just a minute let's talk about that because i think we guess about got enough for one episode okay so we can break here and just do the second one on escape rooms okay well i do want to okay well of course quick well no no no you can't do it no Oh, okay. Fine.
Fine. There. I'll go with it. I'm the girl. I'll be quiet.

Ensuring Safety with a Crack Security Team

[50:20] So whenever last year, when we were going through both Necropolis and through 13th Gate, there was a security issue.
And you've got a crack force on your team, which is, do you train them in-house?
Do you hire an outside company?
How do you make sure that the people going through are safe and that your actors are safe?
Well, I have a great relationship and a lot of the East Benner and Sheriff's Department are friends of ours.

[50:54] And we've been working with them for years. And they are here on site each night that we are open outside.
Right. And in-house, we have an excellent in-house security team that are most of them are members of our crew and year round workers.
Right. And so they know the haunted house like that. You know, they can get anywhere in the heart.
And that's very important when you're security, obviously, is to be able to get anywhere, anytime, really quick.
Right. And and so all of us are linked by two way radios. Then we have about a little over 100 in service while we're open.
So each room or each actor or in each security and stage manager, crew member all have radios. Right.
So we can all be in constant communication with each other.
And we have a lot of actors here. So when a person enters the haunt, we pretty much, someone has their eyes on them the whole time they're going through. And I'd love to say that we never have any issues with anyone, but that's, of course, not true.
Every once in a while, you know, we're very close to LSU.
After LSU football game, we get a lot of people in there drinking.
And, of course, then you'll have some issues.

[52:08] But people are really surprised how quickly that we can be in a scene if there is a problem and how quickly it's taken care of.
Right. Yeah, I was impressed with how quietly, too.
Um and you also last year incorporated metal detectors for the one uh i have a friend uh who uh has a very large traction and he uh.

[52:35] Uh started uh uh repping for metal detectors and uh as you know we had some shootings in baton rouge right uh and uh he called me up and said hey uh would you like one of these uh it it couldn't hurt you know to have one and uh so i said well you know what it wouldn't be a bad idea so we put one in uh and it's not because of anything that happened here right that's just uh just one one additional security measure for us.
And it's worked great since we've had it.
Move into the room escapes? Yes, I'm done. No, no, those are some very good questions. I'm glad you asked them. And so what I'll do is we'll stop here.
And we will pick this up next week as we continue the conversation with Dwayne to discuss his foray into room escapes and what you guys may be thinking about it can expect as you jump into the business for yourself.
So until next time, follow us on Twitter at Haunt Weekly, follow us at Facebook at Haunt Weekly, and we will continue the conversation with Dwayne next week.