[0:23] Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the owner and attraction entertainment community. Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you. And we return to you in the post-Halloween season. I mean, basically, we're recording this at like the worst of all times. Yeah, this isn't the news you're here, you're looking out for. Yeah, because A, we're recording this literally as election results are coming in, and we are doing our goddamned us not to look at them yeah so now we're gonna look at our notes instead of everybody else's and our notes are equally depressing and equally stressful so yeah yay yeah can someone just find us in our cave and tap us on the shoulder and let us know like in a week who won that'd be great you know that'd be wonderful but yes indeed we it is an episode of visible before therefore it's time to do the news but we're also going to take a minute to talk about our halloween night our trip to the 13th gate, and as many news stories as we can cram in a reasonable amount of time we may go a little bit over but we may also split the links up because we have so.

[1:33] So fucking many right now we may split them up between this episode and the next one just so we can cover them all because there's a lot of important news and we're behind yeah, but on that note if that doesn't sound like what you want from Haunt Weekly hey guess what there's 463 other episodes i know i count it you can find them all on hauntweekly.com hauntweekly on twitter hauntweekly on facebook and youtube.com slash hauntweekly uh pay special attention to the facebook page we're trying to set up some live streams which will be going live there when they do we'll have information for you when the time comes all right well okay i this is usually where i say every week we ask a question of the week and last week's question was blah blah blah but but in the midst of haunt season in the midst of our open season we uh we didn't yeah we forgot to put it out there so so we're just moving on just moving on because we got too much shit as it is this week's question week is do you take time off after season or do you just jump right back in.

[2:38] And, no, I think for part clarification, we need to say, like, the actual work part. Because everyone's planning and sort of decompressing. I mean, like, are you actually building anything? Are you starting? I mean, are you doing teardown? What are you doing? What are you doing physically? Like, we actually went to a bar with a laptop and watched hours of security camera footage. And, hey, got to learn how the rooms worked and what was going on. But also have a lot of great laughs at the same time. Exactly. That type of work, I think everyone does. Do you do like physical work? Let us know all the aforementioned places I already mentioned.

[3:18] Quick housekeeping note. We do have a storm supposedly coming this weekend. Oh, got it. So if we are late next week, that's why we spent today cleaning up our actor area. One of the reasons we're late today is we had to spend time expediting our pickup, basically. Exactly. That is what we've done so far for the Haunt this year. Yeah, I'm really glad for the new storage system, which I guess we can talk about next week. Yeah. Because, I mean, there's really not much to talk about, but it's brilliantly simple. And that's just it. It's so simple. It's really brilliant, right? Rather than spying a mishmash of random bullshit from wherever we can find them, we bought a shit ton of buckets from one place. Congratulations. Source system discussed. Though apparently it's the same storage system every other haunt uses in this area. Yeah. That's what I've learned this season. And this is called, you know, keeping people on the hook for next week.

[4:16] We'll tell you more about our cheap-ass rubber containers next week. Riveting content on Haunt Weekly, everyone. Like to keep them entranced. All right, but one thing we do have to talk about really quickly is our conference reminders. There are some events coming up, and we want to make sure you know about them. Crystal, please kick us off. November 8th and 9th, it's Legendary Haunt Tour in Cincinnati, Ohio at Weston, Cincinnati. They will be visiting Factory of Terror, the Dent Schoolhouse, the USS Nightmare, and Haunted Laboratory, legendary haunt tour with two t's dot com for more info and after that november 22nd and the 23rd in santa anna california it's creep it real festive at the heritage museum oc over 100 vendors check out creep it real oc.com for more information december 13th and 15th it's christ massacre i know it's christmasker but well you know what there's no good way to say that it's part of the problem it's in greenville south carolina out of it it wouldn't be that bad.

[5:22] Yes, it's in Greenville, South Carolina. They will be at the Nightmare Dungeon, Haunted Trail. More details are on the way, and hauntfest.net for info on that one. And finally, January 13th through the 15th in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's the Halloween and Party Expo at the World Market Center. Hundreds of vendors, you must have a qualified business to attend. It is not open to the public, but if you do qualify, it is a great way to get a handle on what is upcoming for the next spooky season. Check out more at HalloweenPartyExpo.com. All right. I think we did good there. Everybody did good. we can go home and then no we got to get through the rest of this no we did not sorry i'm doing i'm just doing the snl skit in my head now yeah for no discernible reason um but yes indeed it is an episode of his wife or that means it is time oh first things first let's talk about our stuff okay let's let's get through that two things to talk about first is our halloween night That was rain. Yeah, we got, like, screwed and not screwed by the rain at the same time. It was really weird because it was these very scattered but very intense showers. And one hit, like, we opened at 7, so one hit from, like, 6 to 6.30-ish. I guess we were starting to get ready to open.

[6:48] Just enough to make sure everything was good and wet. After we had a forecast, a clear forecast for the entire week, for two weeks. And then like two hours before opening, it's like, it's going to rain. Yeah. And we're like, well, we don't know where we stored the tarp for the actor area because it wasn't supposed to rain. Yeah.

[7:11] Yeah, we opted not to put the tarp over the actor area because it does get really hot with it. It traps heat horribly. We talked with the actors and everyone agreed, as long as it's not raining, no tarp. Everyone liked that idea. And it does allow a lot more breeze back there, make it much more comfortable. So we didn't do that. And then, like you said, two hours before, it's going to rain. So I was like, Jesus Christ. So yeah, just enough to fuck up our plans for getting these together and to dissuade people from showing up at 7.

[7:41] And then we had a second run right at like 9 15 9 20 for our 10 o'clock closure that sort of scattered the later crowd we still put through i think just shy of 300 people on that night numbers aren't nearly as good as they were before the pandemic for us which kind of still kind of sucks but this season was really rough because friday saturday we were competing with taylor swift and then to then halloween on thursday the rain yeah so we didn't have a single night where there wasn't some kind of mitigating factor yeah and we had fewer actors on halloween night that actually wound up making one of the scares work better yeah i think that's been the theme for the haunt for me this year is that a lot of the things that we did because we were short on time short on money short on people short on whatever a lot of the decisions we made worked out beautifully our skeleton display with the qr codes that we decided to do because.

[8:43] We only had two days to set it up yep beautiful everyone loved it so many compliments even had a lady come by today as we are recording this on the 5th who was looking at a house in the neighborhood loved the display came by and toured it and enjoyed the hell out of it i mean that that that is some shit man and the scary question was the fallen wall we used to have an actor in front of it operating the idea was like the wall was supposed to be like collapsing on the actor and without the actor there the wall had a lot more movement yeah so a decision who makes we were short an actor ended up making that room work significantly better i mean it's just frustrating to go and plan all these things and have all these great ideas and then the shit you do is a throwaway works. Yeah. And, you know, to be fair... To be fair...

[9:40] We had talked about if we didn't have an actor in that room, how it would work with the falling wall. Yeah. And that is what we implemented. Yeah, there was actually, and to be fair, as you said, some planning in the build for that possibility. Because we knew that was kind of one of the more dubious spaces, whether we wanted an actor or not. But we liked the way it worked with an actor. Yeah. And we were sad we didn't have anyone there. So it was a pivot to switch it back to the other way so the person in the other room could operate it. But it worked. yeah i mean so and if you listen to our last episode um about the little kid who joined us he was not able to be there on halloween night we're very sad about that yeah i'm sad mostly because you know and i'm i'm hoping it's just a minor mistake but we were ghosted basically by the mom yeah and i'm hoping that that that basically this kid can come back i hope whatever it is that we're getting from coming Halloween.

[10:40] Because he had just said, hey, we wanted to do trick-or-treating or something. I've been like, totally cool. He's 10 years old. What the? Of course, you know, take him trick-or-treating. I've not had any issue. But the fact we just didn't hear anything back really bothered us. And I really, there's one trend in modern times. It's not even young people. I can't even say kids these days because it's also older people too, where they'll just ghost people they don't want to have uncomfortable interactions with. Yeah that's so fucking childish and immature i'm sorry and anyway anyway that's a whole separate yeah but overall the night went well yeah everything worked there was only one minor um.

[11:21] One. Which minor incident are you talking about? I was going to say one minor injury. Oh. Which was the fix for the kid to be able to operate his scare easier wound up having a sharp edge. Yeah, that's on me. I should have done a better job of fixing that. I recognize that. That was my mistake. Yeah, but we were able to get it fixed after we were alerted to the problem. Yeah. And that's one of the things that we're going to be talking about, is how important it is to let your actors know that if there is a problem, they can tell you. Immediately. Yeah. Or at least between groups tell you. Yeah. Yeah, that was a minor question. I was talking about the power outage we had. Oh, yeah. The quote-unquote power outage. If you'll recall in the previous episode, we had that incident beforehand where half of our garage went out because we basically blew a connection in one of the outlets.

[12:24] Well, this time around, during one of the groups, during the group with one of our very good friends, actually. Yeah. One of our friends, i.e. one of our bartenders. Yeah. Same thing. Yeah, who actually goes to, who lives up where near Nile Scream Park is and has raved about how great they are. Yes. Was excited to come by, came through, and halfway through their tour. Tour, yeah, their visit. Poof. Lights out. Power went out. And we got on it. We thought it was a fuse or a circuit. It wasn't. We found out one of our actors in one of the boo-holes had flipped the power switch for the entire garage with his butt and not told anyone. Yep. And didn't put two and two together.

[13:11] I have nothing to say to that right now yeah so let's talk about 13th gate yeah let's do that um okay go ahead uh so we went on their last night of the season sorry everybody yeah it was their flashlight night it's the first time we've done their flashlight night and we've done almost every other haunt yeah in the area because as we've talked about in previous episodes our month kind they got blown up between not being able to do much work in september in our haunt between the baby shower in october then the baby coming early in october a week later our entire month got blown up and we realized we didn't have enough nights for haunt visits to get everyone and so the choice basically became like which haunt do we move to after season and we opted for the 13th gate simply because, as you noted, we had not done their flashlight night before. Right. We had done Rises. We had done Mortuaries. I think we even did New Orleans Nightmares once.

[14:10] And our actor who has photosensitivity was going to come with us so that they could see the entire haunt without the flashing lights. Even though I'm loathe, personally, to go on those nights, it made sense. Yeah. We didn't really have a choice. But I've got to say, as far as flashlight nights go, it was good. Yeah. it was it was the favorite of the flashlight nights yeah there was plenty of light um ironically yeah yeah um you could see everything you couldn't see the like the special effect kind of things but i didn't expect to no they we did see their new sewer section i actually i mean okay whenever i he said it was a sewer section i went mom i want to go to a sewer section yeah sewer sections are Bowling. Like that in my head. I basically turned into a 14-year-old girl. Which is apropos. Like I said, Taylor Swift was in town. Teasing Swifties, please don't come at me.

[15:13] But, no, it was funny because it was actually a really good, really interesting section. It made very good use of water. Mm-hmm. Maybe a little too good a use of smells in places. Yeah. I actually found that I got startled more going through the haunt without all the lights. Mm-hmm. Because there are several blue holes that I'm used to. Like, I know where they are because I go every year and certain sections haven't changed. But without the lights, it was disorienting, more so than other haunts. Because you could still see everything. Yeah. Well, my biggest, weirdest complaint is that they had two colors of flashlights, and I don't think they had any meaning or significance outside of that. No. But the green flashlight is so much brighter than the red. Mm-hmm. Like, if you get a red flashlight, you basically were stuck in the blindness. But if you've got a green one you're probably okay um once again we got stuck in a large conga line i don't know what a haunt like 13th gate can do we've talked about like hell's gate and how they built their entire haunt from the ground up to defeat the deal with this and what they had to do so you know that and that isn't an option here that's not just not no and And so I don't know what a haunt like this can do. I'm very sympathetic to that issue.

[16:42] All in all, it was an interesting experience, but I do really want to go back and see the sewer scene and haunt lighting rather than... That's the main thing I took away from it. I want to go back and see this part that I haven't seen before in haunt lighting. I've seen the other parts.

[17:02] So I've got a pretty decent idea of what's in there. But, yeah. Let's see. And I think that's it for our home visit, so we probably should actually get on to the news. And do you want me to start, or it doesn't really matter?

[17:19] Well, we're going to start with sad news. And, like, the first four articles are all about hayrides. Yeah, which is kind of weird, because usually in these post-season news episodes, there's very little about hayrides. But this time around as you know that we got a bunch in a row so get us started okay um haunted hilltop reopened one week after a fatal incident they had this is in chattanooga tennessee a 12 year old boy was run over by a hayride trailer um and it killed him this is from local three news emma karn sorry uh did that out of order it happened on october 11th he got away from his chaperone. He hid in the bushes to scare the riders on the trailer. Without, Anyone knowing he was there. Anyone knowing he was there. He wasn't part of the hunt. He got away from people and he jumped out and the driver was unaware because he didn't expect anyone to jump out from there and accidentally ran him over. Yeah, he was pronounced dead at the scene. There's very limited information. A, because of the chaos of it and B, because the victim is a minor. The hayride did remain closed for the weekend, but reopened the next week.

[18:43] You know, one of the fears I always have when we talk about these stories of people being hurt or killed at haunted attractions, it's like, okay, what new regulations, what new policies are going to come out of this? This particular one, I don't know. So, yeah, this one, if this one were by itself this season, I would say probably not much. Yeah, this is probably just a freak accident. Moving on. Let's move to the next story. But that's not what we get to do this time, unfortunately. No. Because literally in the same news cycle, Harvest of Horror Hay Rye canceled its season after a 13-year-old died. This is an article by Corey Schmidt at the St. Cloud Times. In San Augusta, Minnesota, a 13-year-old boy was run over and killed by a hayride trailer. The details of this accident have not been in any article that I've seen. But he was once again pronounced dead at the scene. And here, the hayride simply opted to cancel the rest of its season. Yeah. Which, I mean, I see both arguments.

[19:52] I don't really want to tell people what they should do in an horrible situation. These two situations are different, so maybe different responses were appropriate. Right. But, yeah. and then next we had an orchard accident where 25 were hurt as a hay wagon overturned on a school trip in wisconsin and this article was by zoe henry at wisn this was in chippewa county wisconsin um at the bushel and peck market in a hayride trailer yeah to be clear this was not a haunted attraction this was like an apple picking type hayride thing but still obviously could have impacts on the haunted attraction industry sorry right because it was in october yeah um and yeah but three people on it sustained life-threatening injuries five with serious but.

[20:52] Not life-threatening injuries and nine taken to the hospital and included students from saint mark lutheran school in eau claire uh still no reports of fatalities yeah these three are the ones that like i kind of want to group together because here you have 25 people being hurt three with life-threatening injuries two people who died on hayrots yeah in one season in fact there was even less than one season i think these happened within like two weeks of one another yeah this was like mid-october that all this happened and i i remember like a few seasons like it was 2020 i think where it seemed like we were talking about a haunt shooting every five minutes yeah that was crazy and we couldn't figure out what the heck was going on and And admittedly, like, the next season was much quieter on that front.

[21:56] So maybe it was just a fluke, or maybe it was just people being super tense because of the pandemic or whatever. But the point remains that people... Um, that when you see this kind of pattern, I think we can expect that regulators are going to be looking more closely at hay rides because historically hay rides have not, I'm not going to say they haven't been regulated because that's not true at all, but like the Haunted Castle fire at Six Flags brought a slew of fire code regulation to haunted attractions all over the country. Right. Basically, you know, one haunt did some very reckless things as we went back and discussed it in that one episode, did some very reckless things. And the fire marshal, admittedly, who fire marshal was very lax here and did make a lot of mistakes. But the fire marshal took a lot of blame for it. And the result of that was new regulation came down. I have to wonder if regulators get blamed for these issues, if that's going to cause more clampdown elsewhere. Because that's kind of how these things seem to work. Yeah. I don't know. It's too early to tell.

[23:12] It legitimately could be years, especially if there are lawsuits and litigation and investigations and things like that. So it's way too early to tell that definitively. But the fact that there have been so many fatalities and serious injuries this year on Hayrides, this is something to watch for in future months. Yeah, because I do think it's going to lead to at least a discussion, if not some new regulations. And one of the things we don't know right now is, other than the story we know about the kid who tried to jump on the trailer, we don't know how these incidents happened, what the cause was. And once again, there's probably an investigation in all of these.

[24:00] But, yeah, hay rides have always been thought of as probably the safest type of haunted attractions because you're not walking, you're not running, everything is in a controlled environment.

[24:13] Theoretically, it's supposed to be incredibly safe, especially since you're going to be moving really slow. Right. But we live in New Orleans, and we also used to say that riding a Mardi Gras photo going to a Mardi Gras parade is incredibly safe because, you know, those go incredibly slow, too. And then we had that one season two people got run over and killed by mardi gras floats there was more than that they were injured too yeah and there were others injured and so yeah even these slow moving you know things were can be very dangerous and very deadly and this is just a reminder of that well the next story does involve a hayride but luckily no one was injured or killed in this one a community's haunted hayride had to be shut had to shut down after being swarmed by approximately 200 plus juveniles uh this is an article by wkrc in knight park new jersey the haunted hayride had to be shut down because it was as the headline said swarmed by juveniles now many of these kids had just been dropped off and yeeted by adults yeah added and And basically, there was such a crush of kids there that fights broke out, vandalism was taking place, theft was taking place, and the police had to be called in to disperse the group. Someone broke away and ran through nearby yards, and apparently another 50 to 70 overtook a nearby Wawa. Yeah.

[25:39] No arrests were made, but wow. Yeah, and thank you, Shannon, for sending this over our way. Oh, yes. Thank you, Shannon.

[25:50] So, yeah, that is definitely not on the hayride, that one, because that's just parents dropped off a whole bunch of kids and they decided to move in as a group. Well, once again, in 2020, there was a similar story where a haunt decided to open, didn't do time taking, and didn't do anything to limit admission, even though it was the heat of the pandemic at the moment. And like this crush of juveniles once again teenagers mostly arrived and had to be dispersed and there was rumors of shots fired and all this other crazy stuff so yeah these situations can get out of hand so easily and you know what it seems like the haunt here handled it the best they could but i really wish there was maybe this is the best argument for time ticketing as much as i dislike time ticketing, especially when it isn't enforced. Yeah. As much as I dislike that... Um yeah this is like the argument in favor of it right here.

[26:55] All right all right next up we have a death trap that's a quote haunted house shut down in new york this article is by janice you at eyewitness news we do have a follow-up article also on this um or a separate one from ndtv uh but basically in queens the fire department shuttered uh haunting on in hollis which was a haunted attraction based in a home so it was an overgrown home haunt yeah it was charging very professional level ticket prices exactly which and operating very much like a pro haunt in all ways i could see yeah they had celebrities come through there's videos up on youtube um in fact we watched one where uh a woman and her father went through it and they mentioned And the slide that wound up breaking both ankles of one of their customers. They said, that's a dangerous slide. And then we saw it on the news. Hmm. Yes. Yes, it was. Yeah. But basically, this was shut down due to a slew of fire code violations. Yeah. This included blocked exits, poor electrical practices, and quote-unquote accumulation of combustible materials.

[28:18] They issued a full vacate order for the building. And like you said, this was also the place where the woman is actively suing them because she broke both of her ankles on a quote-unquote defective slide. Right. And she, I believe referencing that video. Yes. Said that they were aware of it at least 15 days before the incident. I mean... You know, I hate seeing haunts get shuttered, but I do not feel the same when it's an obviously unsafe haunt. Right. And I believe that this is the one that was still selling tickets after it was supposed to have been shut down. Oh, yeah. This is them. Yeah. They never shut down ticket sales, at least not until some significant time later. I know that they were petitioning and trying to reopen, but judging, I mean, go back and watch the video that's included in this, if you want a moment. If you want to see a fire marshal, basically die inside.

[29:25] Because he's like, yeah, I can't think of any place in the world there's been more fire code violations in that small of a space ever. It's damn near a quote. Yeah. And I'm like, this is coming from the New York one? Mm-hmm this isn't coming from some random county somewhere this is freaking queens no you know i'm sure this guy has seen some shit and even he's blown away yeah poor bastard man someone buy him a beer um because but yeah i was really happy to see that this was shut down after hearing about it i am surprised honestly the ankle breaking wasn't the worst because breaking both ankles yeah i don't i mean i've done slides recently in a haunted house and we did the ones at raven's grin in um and i don't see how anyone could break their ankles on those no unless maybe they they tried to like stop their knees up yeah yeah but well i'm sitting there thinking like of the two sets of slides i've done recently the beast or set recent ish uh as an adult ravens run in and as you mentioned the beast slash uh edge of hell mm-hmm.

[30:43] Raven's grin in was the safest slides I've ever... They were absolutely batshit insane. Yes. You could tell, built by a madman, in the best possible way, I mean that. Yes. But they were incredibly safe. I never felt like I was in danger. The Beast, I actually had a few moments where I felt like there was a potential danger. Mm-hmm. But, no, Raven's grin in, totally safe. And so, like you said, breaking both angles, how? Not unless, like, you come out and, like, there's no bank at the bottom, or I just, I don't know. Well, they indicated it was, like, a drop at the end, so I'm wondering if maybe there wasn't, like, a smooth landing. Exactly. That's what I mean by a bank to come out on. Or it could have just had, like, an actual drop onto a pad, or maybe, like, a pad or something, you could land it. Or the angle was wrong so that you didn't, like, gradually slow down as you got towards the bottom. Like, yeah, this is just, this is. We've spent a lot of time. This is not the first time we've had this conversation either, to be clear. Since reading this. This has been a bar topic at least two or three times. And we still haven't figured it out. No. So, yeah, Jesus Christ.

[31:52] Oh, we forgot about the slide at Hell's Gate, though. That one barely feels worth mentioning because it was only a very short slide. Yeah, it is a slide in a haunted house, but it is very short. And it's very different from the others. Yeah. We just mentioned. all right well moving on to another unfortunate story uh the chaperone policy was implemented at dent's schoolhouse after shots were fired at incident nearby this is an article by brian hamrick at wltv5 this does not appear to involve the haunt in any goddamn way except that they put in the chaperone policy exactly the actual incident does not seem to involve the haunt There was a shooting at a property nearby, no injuries or arrests, suspects were identified. I have not heard anything about them being arrested so if anyone has an update on that, that'd be great.

[32:42] But basically, Dent Schoolhouse, I got to admit, like when I heard how Dent Schoolhouse responded to this, I was blown away at how good it was. Yeah. Because they first got everyone who was outside into safety, everyone who was inside the haunt was sort of sheltered in place. They put in these really great protocols. Everyone, actors, customers, was safe. They did everything they could to make sure everyone was safe.

[33:09] And basically, they cooperated fully. And then afterward, they implemented the chaperone policy, which basically said anyone 15 or under needed a parent or guardian to go with them. And that if you went there and you couldn't vouch for your, prove your age, I mean, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be like checking our IDs because that'd be silly. But, but yeah, they also greatly, anyone who can't vouch for their age will not be admitted. And they stepped up security significantly adding more detailed officers and putting more people up front and in front of house right i get why this was a traumatic ordeal for the actors there and i know that some people we know were traumatized by this but take heart that you guys did every goddamn thing right i can think of yeah i'm genuinely impressed by how well you did i hope every other haunt in this country would act the same way. I know they fucking wouldn't. Right. But I would like to pretend. Well, we know that they wouldn't because we've seen haunts that had shootings on the property and didn't respond as well. Or at all in some cases. Yes. Yeah.

[34:28] Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Let's just move on. Okay.

[34:34] The Blount County Sheriff's Office is investigating an incident at Maryville Haunted House. This is by Josh Jernigan at WWL-TV, and the haunt is located in Knoxville, Tennessee.

[34:47] AMS Haunted Attractions and Maryville released a statement stating that a customer allegedly assaulted several actors. The haunt was working closely with law enforcement to track down the assailants and were putting in additional security measures and training workers to ensure the incident wouldn't happen again they also listed things for customers not to do like show up intoxicated that kind of thing um but i found an update to this article on wait.com w-a-t-e.com yes i'm getting there um w-a-t-e dot com where one of the teens that was working that night, she says a man came through and was intentionally punching actors and it was so bad after her night of work her mom came to pick her up and she was having trouble breathing they took her to the hospital he had broken her ribs and it was multiple people that got hit by this man as he went through and this is this goes back to the statement earlier about let your actors know who to tell if there's a problem to get an immediate response yeah i mean.

[36:05] Like obviously i would hope that this haunt will implement better procedures so that if something like this happens they can't make their way through the haunt but i mean the other side of the coin is this is absolutely bananas yeah it is like we've had people come through and, I can hear them outside gearing up to say, oh, watch this. I'm going to bow up and I'm going to hit somebody. By the way, not this year. Not this year. No. Not this year. I didn't know who you were talking about. Go ahead. Yeah, this was several years ago. Well, we have a reputation for stopping that. Yeah. Because I threw them out. Yeah, and part of that reputation is if anyone in your group takes a swing, the whole group gets trespassed. Yeah. And what happened with that group that you're thinking about, one idiot was wanting to act tough. We threw out the entire group and his friends were pissed at him they basically man you got us thrown out of the haunted house now we can't see the rest yelling at him the whole fucking way off the property you know what good on those three you three are welcome back your friend can stay his fucking ass home exactly.

[37:13] But yeah I do not understand people if you are an automatic reflex puncher don't go to walnut house this is not a hobby for you i'm sorry well and this one was especially scary because he hit her and she was on the ground and he bowed up to hit her again yeah and then saw you know she was just a kid and he said oh sorry and went on and punched other people yeah this was deliberate malicious and an attack on multiple actors this wasn't a fear react is what i was about to say yeah it's like if you have the fear react just don't go to a haunt please if you are deliberately hitting actors bear in mind these actors are often very young i mean some are often as you said like here teenagers does it make you feel good hitting kids who are just trying to provide some entertainment for halloween and have fun for themselves yeah does it make you feel good does it make you feel strong does it make you feel tough hitting children.

[38:16] Yeah, I mean, at least the guy that wanted to take a swing in our haunt decided to take his swing on the biggest dude we had. And also didn't come anywhere close to connecting. That swing was in a separate zip code.

[38:29] No, and at that time, I was right behind the group, saw what he did, and stopped them. You know, told the next scare, don't pop, because we're stopping this group, we're getting them out. And yeah it was but i i wish that more haunts would make sure that things like this are implemented ahead of time before incidents happen yeah it it is a really frustrating thing that people do try to do this and i do not know why there's no explanation for this there's no justification so i hope they do catch this person and i do hope he is he is punished appropriately yeah me too all right moving on uh more slightly sad news uh this is an article by colleen clapp at 14 news um this is in evansville illinois the old county country courthouse in evansville was the location of a haunted attraction known as the catacombs however workers who worked in the basement found radon levels that were twice the EPA limit. This is an article from a doctor explaining the dangers of radon gas. And basically, it has a strong connection to lung cancer and why they needed to do the remediation and not open this year. Exactly. Yeah. And...

[39:58] You know, there may be a case for actors who were stuck in the basement with twice the level of radon. Yeah. You know. It opens up a significant number of issues, both legal and safety issues. So, yeah, it makes sense to close it. I mean, I get it. Like, radon is one of those more vague threats. It may cause problems down the road. But I would put this in the same category as asbestos. Yeah. Where, yeah, it's a theoretical longer-term thing, but you still don't want people breathing it, especially in confined quarters for long periods of time. Right. And the remediation, although it seems like it's mostly a specific type of paint and filling in cracks. Yeah. Yeah, it's not like asbestos where it's this significant removal process. Right. It's weird. It comes in through the walls underground because there's a house that we know that has a little bit of this in it. Yeah. And so one of the reasons we included this story is, like I said, we have some family members living in a house with a radon issue, and they're working to address it, too. So we kind of sympathize and empathize. Yeah. Moving on.

[41:22] All right. This article is by Isabella Belletier. Yeah, I gave you the hard one. I've gotten all the others so far. The Haunted Labyrinth in Cranston announced that it would close before its 40th season. So they announced this back in September because, as you remember, we missed September and October news until now. Um but yeah it's the attraction raised money for multiple programs at the rejoice and hope youth center no indication about why it's chose to close and not reopen and it was the longest running haunt in the state yeah this one is interesting because they announced it like right before they would have opened uh-huh so it's a bit confusing as to why they decided to close they didn't state a reason they didn't mention why um but yeah i it's it's sad especially to see a charity haunt close like this but that was a hell of a run 40 years it was a damn long run well speaking of haunts closing ames haunted forest closes after 26 years of scaring iowans this is an article by Chris Alks at the Iowa State Daily. In St. Ames, Iowa, the Ames Haunted Forest has shut down after 26 years. They did complete the season. Mm-hmm.

[42:49] But the move comes as the owners are aiming to basically use the land for something else. Yeah. They have found, apparently, that they have a really great profit center in parking and tailgating for college football games. Yeah. And looking at the photos on their site, yes, they do. I understand that completely. We talk about all the time, there's a parking garage near the 13th gate that we used to be able to park in for free, but it's now closed-closed. Yeah, because the casino that owned it closed, and now it just sits in a little... Whoever owns it could make some easy bank during haunt season. Well, not only haunt season, but also football season, because it's right next to Titer Stadium. It's near the LSU tailgate area in particular. Yeah, so you could open that up and charge people, and you would make bank. Yeah, but this haunt had been running since 1997, and basically now it's permanently closed so they can expand. They already had an existing game day parking area, and now they're looking to more than double it in size by expanding to where the haunt is right now.

[44:03] I can't fault them for that. They're making the business decision that's probably best for them. I mean, gang-day parking is going to be a lot less work. It's going to be a lot less people, a lot less overhead, and probably a lot less stress. So, all in all, it's sad to see a haunt go, especially when they've been operating for such a long time. But, you know, they've got to do what they've got to do.

[44:28] Yes, they do. All right. And we have another closure. The Ghostly Grove Haunted Attraction in Pickney, Michigan. Pickney, Michigan. Announced that they would close and not reopen this year. So, they closed before season also. and this was a post on their Facebook page. There was no reason given other than that it was outside of their control. Asked customers to support the nearby Shaw Haven Haunted Forest, which is very nice of them. Said many of their monsters will be going over there. And the haunt had been in operation since at least 2019. Yeah, I couldn't get a lot of details on the haunt when I was looking at the details on this one, but they'd definitely been open for a while. What I was really impressed by is what you pointed out, that they have two posts about the closure. One saying, hey, we're sorry, we're not going to open. Thank you for all the wonderful stuff. And the one above it is a big ad for the Shawhaven Haunted Force. Hey, go see our monsters here. Yeah. And it does not appear to be owned by the same people. It's just a lot of the actors are probably moving there. So that's really cool to do that. And that really keeps that haunt community vibe going for me. you know? Yeah, it does. So, yeah, it sucks to close, but, dear God, that's a very, very tactful, that's a very, very classy way to handle it, I think.

[45:54] Alright, well, a reopening after a closure now. The Tri-State Haunted Attraction returns after a shutdown. This is in Henderson, Kentucky. The article is by Alea Maluro. Oh, I guess I did get a tough one. From 44 News. But basically, Henderson Haunts has reopened now in a 7 000 square foot space and i love the shit out of this story the reasons we're going to get into basically they were operating a home haul and admittedly they seem to have gone a little too far with it they're opening at multiple weekends they had a lot thousands of people i they did say it was a free home haul but they were clearly creating neighborhood problems, So the city had no choice but to shut them down. However, the city did not just stop there.

[46:44] You know, they didn't just, you know, pin a little notice on the door. No, the city actually worked to help them find a commercial space and reopen the next year. Yeah. The city gave them the support and the resources so that they could turn around and open bigger, badder, and better than ever in a commercial space with permits and all that shit and be a proper business in 2024. That is fucking awesome. It is awesome. And it's great to see the city reaching out like that and helping. And that shows you that that home haunt had great community. Like, it provided a lot of value to the area. Yeah, and it makes sense from the city standpoint, too, because they're going to collect taxes on this now. Yeah. They're going to get their money from it, right? And so, like, the city wins, the haunt wins, the community wins. Everybody, and whoever owns this commercial property, if they didn't buy it outright, wins, too, because they've got a renter now. Yeah, exactly. Everybody wins with this. This is just such a great example of a city taking a bad situation where, for reasons I fully understand, they had to shut down a very successful and very popular home haunt, but turning it around and making it a big, great thing. I just love this story. Yeah, me too. Almost as much as this next one, where Oxford County has given, they received FedDev Ontario investing funds.

[48:11] And part of that went to Snyder's Family Farm, which is going to develop a concession pavilion and a new haunted attraction called the Asylum. And this is all to bring more tourism into the city because they see the advantage and the benefit that seasonal events provide. Yeah. Now, they've been providing seasonal events, but not a haunted house. Yeah. And they're getting $130,000 for this upgrade to their farm to include a haunted house. Yeah, and that's, like you said, includes both the concession pavilion. Very smart. Yep. Love those second lines of business around here. And a new haunted attraction.

[48:53] This is great. I mean, and of course it's Canadian. Yeah, and this was from Lee Griffey at the Pentacon Herald. Yeah, that's the Pentacon. The Pentacon? Here. I don't know. But no, maybe that's something you can only say if you're Canadian. One of those words. But no, it's so cool to see federal support going to opening a haunted attraction and understanding the benefit that seasonal attractions can provide both a community and the local economy. Chef's kiss. Gotta love it. Well, another closure, but this one I don't think I can say it's for a sad reason. Right. A Georgia haunted attraction, Haunted Montrose, invites their enthusiasts for one last fright as the founder announces his retirement. This is a press release by the organization, but they announced that it will, Haunted Montrose announced it will be their final season. And they announced it with about a week to go in season. Yeah. They announced it late, but they did announce it before their last nights were done. It is set in an actual ghost town. The term ghost town apparently actually does have a specific meaning that I was unaware of. But the Haunted features four attractions as well as other special events. But the owner, Trey Cottle, said he is now retiring after doing this since 2008.

[50:19] You know, that's a long run. yes yes it is alright well our last story for this episode because we'll probably end it here since this is about a full episode and we'll do more links next time.

[50:34] Is that a homeowner received complaints because they set up their Halloween display two weeks earlier in August they usually do start setting it up mid-August but they started setting it up early August and this article is by Alexis Martin and Jordan Gardner at WITN. It's actually a video. I do recommend watching it. But Nightmare on Bybury Street is a yard display and set up by Marianne Peters. She started building it earlier because her husband was unfortunately diagnosed with cancer, so she was having to do it herself. Yeah, and then she needed more time. Exactly. Just imagine if you or I was completely out of commission, how fucked we'd be. Yeah, pretty fucked. The display takes more than 100 hours to complete and take down, and it took her by surprise because so many neighbors had offered to come and help with the display when they saw her out there by herself and learned what was going on. She expected 300 visitors this year. Yeah, I mean, you know, people deal with personal issues and personal tragedies in a variety of ways.

[51:48] And one of those more common ways is turning to familiar, fun touchstones in your life. And I think that's what she was doing. She enjoyed the art display, but she also needed significantly more time. Because what I have found is that having a second person more than doubles the efficiency. Because you know what I mean? Yeah. It's always interesting to me that you can do so much more with two people than you can with one. Are we going to cover that one story real fast? Yeah, so that we can leave on a little bit happier note. Yeah, ultimately, though, to finish that story, they did not require her to take the display down. No. They did ask her not to put it up so early next year, though. Right. So that's kind of the end of that story. It's a happy-ish ending, I guess. Yeah. All right. But the final one that we want to talk about this week, just so we can leave you with something kind of positive and fun, is that Sinister Vision offering free font downloads for your haunt marketing, basically. Yeah. This is actually just on the site, SinisterFonts.com.

[52:56] So go there and check it out. But basically, they offer a slew of free fonts that you can use for websites, print materials, and so forth. Be sure to check terms on them. but pretty much yeah it's just free fonts for haunters yeah that's really all it is and i mean the news is every year they add one or two new fonts and they added some new fonts this year but really the entire library is pretty good so just go check out the library i mean we haven't talked about it before so it's completely new to you and everything in there is new to me so go have fun.

[53:30] Well, I think that's everything for this week. We do have more links, but we're going to do them at the end of next week. I don't know what we're going to talk about next week, but we will do these at the end. That way we can get completely caught up with the news and hopefully return to our regular cycle. Right. And if you noticed, most of the news episodes or news articles we talked about did not mention, you know, this is doing this theme this year, or this is doing this theme this year, or this one has this new attraction. Because it's too late for for that and there's just so many articles that we really wanted to touch on um yeah i mean we had it has been a very weird season i think from more like the 10 000 foot perspective because just the fact that we've seen so many safety issues around uh hay rides yeah is befuddling to me because i don't think we'd actually talked about incident safety incidents at Hay Rides ever before this episode. No.

[54:31] So we've done 4 in 63 other disease. I don't think we've done it. No. I can't recall it if we had. But yeah, this has just been a rough season for Hay Rides. And hopefully, you know, this is an isolated, bad luck kind of year is what we're all hoping for. On that note, everyone, thank you very much for joining us for the past hour. I hope you're doing well. Hope you learned something. please do check us out all the places we exist we're at hauntweekly.com hauntweekly on x slash twitter or whatever hauntweekly on facebook and youtube.com slash hauntweekly until next time I'm Jonathan and I'm Crystal and we'll see you all next week.