[0:21] Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the haunted attraction and 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 this week, literally hotter than hell. Or I'm assuming. I've never actually been to hell, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually have a physical temperature. But regardless, it is really, really hot. And we're coming upon that time of year where haunt season is just on the horizon many of us are looking forward to it and trying to get things done but it may not be safe to go outside yeah so we're providing some great things you can do in the comfort of air conditioning to help improve your haunt and push it forward yes hell right now is 63 degrees we're definitely you were definitely way hotter than hell hell michigan it's raining in hell yes it is i bet it freezes over in hell a lot too.

[1:19] On that note though please do check out the places we exist we're at hauntweek.com hauntweek on facebook youtube.com slash hauntweekly and wherever you get your podcast from uh no real housekeeping notes this week still trying to get a routine and a rhythm going you've had an absolutely insane week though yeah i worked almost 60 hours last week and made myself sick doing it Yeah. So, you know, when we talk about why the dates haven't been consistent, that's primarily why. Yeah. It's been just too much going on. It's her busy time of year with her job. And it is showing. But things seem to be going well. That's the good news. And so that actually brings us to the work we did for The Haunt, which is, A, we survived that. Yeah. But B, we also decided to practice a little bit of what we preach, or rather I did. Yeah, like, when do we ever do that? Yeah, we usually do as we say, not as we do. This time around, we can tell you what to do. We wrote the backstory for both this year's haunt and, I guess, technically the haunt in general in its own way. Yeah, the main character and the backstory of all of the villains over the years. Yeah. Now, I don't want to get into the details yet. We're not finished. No. I got a few more passes I want to make through it. Got a few things I got to iron out. So it's not 100% ready for primetime, but it is written. It is a beast. It is over a thousand words long.

[2:49] Obviously, though, following our rules, we can condense it into shorter and shorter versions. But we like having the full version just in case, you know, we need something else to pull from.

[3:00] You never know when that extra little bit of background lore can become helpful. Geez, I wonder if this is going to come up later in the episode. Nah. Can't be. But yeah, that is the main thing we did. We did. Wow. That train had just collided at the station. There were no survivors.

[3:20] But, yes, we put in our time and effort and did that. And I'm actually really happy with the way the story is. The big arc of it, I think, is about perfect. Just getting the details, getting some wording, clearing up some confusing points. Maybe if there's time and if there's interest, we'll actually read it on the podcast. Yeah. Or do something with it on the podcast. Maybe introduce it here. But, yeah, it's not at that point just yet. I mean, you had some feedback, and I had some feedback for myself on subsequent rereads. So there's a little more to do. But all in all, good progress, actually. It took both longer and less time than I thought it would at the same time. Does that make any sense? Well, yeah, because it always takes that startup energy. That startup energy is a big hurdle to get over. Well, and I was worried I was going to have to do, like, way more research for it. Yeah. So I didn't have to do that. But you're right, getting to the point where I knew where to go was difficult. Like, I knew what I wanted the story to be, but it's not always easy to get the story started, as you said. Startup Energy Plus, you know, writing fiction is hard. Especially when you're writing fiction based on history in some way. Yeah. Because you want to get, you know, your facts as close to right as possible.

[4:39] Well on that note everyone every week we ask a question a week last week we asked you how is recruiting slash finding your haunt going and we actually heard from a lot of haunts some haunts so yeah uh craig watts said got nearly half the spots filled by returning actors we will see what the next two saturdays drag in uh deadwood said 95 full for the season 85 was filled with the returning staff from last season so we only have a couple more actors to find that is a great position to be in yeah uh portals of fear said 90 of all positions filled first rehearsal on july 19th was a huge success next rehearsal scheduled august 9th hopefully 100 staff by then so it looks like finding staff is going reasonably well for most people or at least the ones talking to us it's a A lot better than I anticipated, honestly. And feared, yeah. Because, yeah, the situation from the job market standpoint right now is kind of fucked. Yeah. And...

[5:41] Haunting, even paid haunting, is still a supplemental activity. You know, most actors are not going to pass on a real full-time job to go act in a haunt. No, unless the haunt is actually offering a real full-time job. Yeah, so, yeah, that's frustrating, but, yeah, it's interesting, and it's good to see that these haunts, at least, are not having any dire struggles. Well, on that note, this week's question of the week is quite simple. How is your haunt beating the heat this summer and boy howdy has there been some heat.

[6:19] Yeah odd episodes and no conference reminders um but yeah it turns out and i was reading more about this there is like a serious heat dome over the united states and i said it when i wrote the notes it was the especially in the southeast but now it's expanded it's just getting bigger it's like a coast to coast it's california to like the carolinas with a little bit that goes up in the middle up through like the dakotas and like like the pacific northeast is okay and like a little bit uh like the like around ohio seems to be not terrible at least according to the maps but i would say at least 85 of the country is in a certified heat dome right now and that just fucking sucks and to tell you how crazy this is tampa and miami just had their first 100 plus degree day ever that's not heat index 100 plus degrees raw temperature and that is insane because those are both coastal cities they're supposed to be regulated by the ocean.

[7:21] They're supposed to have high heat indexes, but not high raw temperatures, because it takes so much energy to heat up that moist coastal air that it doesn't get to the same raw temperature as everyone else. And yeah, they both hit 100 for the first time ever. And that's just crazy. It is. I know that I've been getting the alerts on my phone every day about, beware, there's heat outside. It's like, yeah, there is. Okay. And, like, the few times I've stepped out, during the day, it's like, oh, that was a mistake. And it's like, New Orleans right now had a heat index of 114 just a few days ago. And that, of course, led to a couple of Blazing Saddles jokes, mostly by me. Yes. Can't be hotter than 114.

[8:12] But, yeah, this type of weather is not just uncomfortable. It is completely, totally fucking unsafe. Human beings are not meant to be in this temperature we evolved to be cold weather monkeys um not warm weather ones we humans uh literally it turns out we actually did evolve in a uh ice age basically or everything about us evolved to survive cold better than heat is what i learned which is nuts but it's also true and so yeah this is bad bad weather uh for us and And it may not be the best time to go work on your yard display, your garage, or your un-air-conditioned warehouse. And a lot of haunts I know either don't have air conditioning in their facilities. Or inadequate. Or it's inadequate. Or they don't turn it on except for the times customers are in because it's so expensive to run. So, you know. Yeah, there's not a lot of really well-insulated haunts that I know of. Yeah, because Haunt's typically open in three types of spaces. One is outdoors, which there's no insulation. Two, metal buildings and warehouses. Yeah. Almost no insulation. And three, it's historical buildings where insulation was never even considered a thing. So each of those are terrible for different reasons, basically.

[9:39] So, yeah, but basically it's terrible. It's probably not a good idea. Unless you have some degree of climate, or unless you're one of the lucky five people listening to this that are not in insufferable temperatures. If so, I love you. Thank you. I'm happy for you, but also fuck you.

[9:59] Yeah, if you're up in Michigan, by chance. Or Canada. I'm happy for you, but fuck you. I can say both at the same time with love. Ellie's mom was bragging about how it's in the low 70s in Kansas. I was like I would love that, How did Ellie not shoot her? I mean, I know it's a virtual chat, but I mean. Because she doesn't care about heat. Ellie doesn't care about heat. We care about heat. Yeah. The minute Zoom adds a slap button.

[10:34] Fucking video calls are going to get way better. That's what Wonka should have done instead of the smell-o-vision was the slap-o-vision. The slap-o-vision. Just reach out and touch someone. Make it real. I'm old enough to remember that being the slogan, okay? All right. But the good news is that doesn't mean you're hopeless and can't do things for your haunts. We have some suggestions for things you can do from the comfort of air conditioning to improve your haunt and set yourself up for success this season or next or whenever. And the first item is simple. It's what we did. Yeah. Write your backstory. If you run the haunt, write your haunt's backstory. If you're just an actor and you already know kind of what character you're playing, write a character backstory. And to be clear, while it's nice if the character backstory dovetails with the haunts in some way, this is realistically, if you're just a character, this is realistically just for you. Yeah, and it's basically having a character fleshed out in your mind makes it so much easier to stay in character and to come up with lines for the character. And those are things that you can practice right now inside. Yeah.

[11:46] Yeah, basically what you want is to sort of get to know your character. As weird as that sounds, because you created them, you should know everything about them. In fact, you literally do know everything about them that exists. Well, you may be in a situation where the haunt gave you the character also. So you may want to just brush up on what this character has been over the years. Like, for example, if I knew I was going to be in, you know, like a swamp scene, like they do a lot of those here in New Orleans, I would want to know the history of the area, what types of things people do for a living there, how do they survive, what common sayings do they have, what problems do they have. Any pronunciations of words that will pinpoint you to that place. Terminology you may not know. Yeah. And I had to go through this recently because part of that last week of health was recording a presentation for my job that is going to be read in a rural town in Georgia.

[12:52] Fun. Yeah. There were words that I had to look up pronunciations. Yeah. You grew up Southern. yeah but i i didn't but even in new orleans there's like several different dialects oh yeah no you can always pinpoint where somebody grew up yeah oh yeah no totally makes sense so yeah getting the dialect down getting the terminology understanding what might be important it might not seem like it would matter a lot for your character but if you were called to interact and even non-interacting characters often are kind of pushed and interacting by customers Yes. You at least know how that person is likely to respond. Mm-hmm.

[13:33] And that can be a big help. Because one of the things I always hear that actors dread is being put on the spot. Having to come up with something in the moment. Yeah. Don't do that to yourself. If you do this, if you write a thorough backstory and understand the character, you're never on the spot. Mm-hmm. You always know what that person would probably say in that situation. Mm-hmm.

[13:57] Basically you know and i get it people throw curve i accidentally throw curveballs all the time yeah i don't mean to do it i'm not trying to be a dick i mean sometimes i am but i'm not usually trying to be a dick no i was just thinking yeah sometimes i i do it on purpose um sorry no it's just i've been through so many haunts my responses aren't like normal like i remember one time we were going there i think it was no world's nightmare going through a scene where had a bunch of people caged up and the guy pops i'm gonna put you in a cage which i never make a you can't execute on um i know but he says that and i look and go that would be the second time this week yeah because i had just done enough well yeah yes the other thing is that um if you give me a direction i will follow it i'm very good at following directions so if you tell me to hold on to something until I get to a certain character, I'm not giving it to the people before that character. Didn't you walk out with your uniform once? No, but I went two rooms past where you were supposed to hand it over. Oh, you nearly walked out. Yeah, the nurse was supposed to take it and not the doctor, but they told me to give it to the doctor, so I gave it to the doctor.

[15:14] They also told me at a different haunt to one of the line actors said, say hi to mom, she's up in the attic so i relayed the message your son says hi he's downstairs having fun and she's like who see yeah this is the type of shit a backstory resolves exactly.

[15:34] Oh that's good for him i'm glad he's meeting new people yeah something like that yeah that would have worked but yeah no getting your backstory will make you much more comfortable as a character and if you're making a backstory for your haunt it will give you that much more direction and the design the layout and everything for the haunt it is a huge huge deal even if you never tell your customers this which with the haunt backstory you absolutely should but even if you never tell another person this it helps you and that is the important person to help right now yeah and you know i i'm actually thinking about this right now as we're talking about it and i'm thinking we should get all of our friends together and have them just try to be asshole customers that will throw us off our game yeah we got a few that'd be excellent at it.

[16:27] Anyway moving on moving on next item up for bid on the prices right.

[16:32] Which is not this but if you're looking for that i'm sure it's somewhere for you um a plan your advertising although the time to buy ad space was a few months ago it's now the second best time because if you haven't already done it now's the best time yeah basically whatever buys the typically the further in advance you buy them the better the deals you get and like six months out is typically like the range you want to really be looking at it because right then tv stations radio stations they got fuck all for as they probably have a few recurring sponsors but they got fuck all else so you get your pick of spots and you're going to get some pretty good rates too because they're just staring at that empty board you know what i mean an empty board there um now you're going to have more competition you'll probably pay more rates but you can still definitely plan that what you really really really really really don't want to do is wait until like september because then you are fucking hosed but anyways yeah that is definitely way too late um that's not that bad no um but yeah just plan your marketing strategy overall including your press releases press releases are important you want to get them out there with um so that papers have enough time to reach out come and interview you do a spot at the hunt yeah you know that kind of thing. And what I would do right now for the press release side, draft your press releases, get them ready to go.

[18:00] Um pick the time you want to distribute them which like you said you've got to do it with ample time before you open or at least before you're super busy so that way the press can come interview you and something i'll do all those things yeah but do make sure you have at least a few rooms finished yeah if you don't already it's tough the timing has got to be sort of in that window between when oh shit we're still building and well now we're busy you know yeah it's a surprisingly narrow window for a lot of haunts yeah but that's the window you have to hit But go ahead and, like I said, draft them and then get your distribution list set up. Get all the local publications you want to send to. Get their email addresses. Get their submission process. And then if you can't automate it and just set it to go, so much the better. But if not, at least all you've got to do is hit submit on the day of. Yeah, and a lot of the papers now use the same form, so you can submit to multiple papers at the same time. One excellent tip there that I would give is if you have a password manager, like Bitwarden, LastPass, 1Password, something like that, which, A, if you listen to our episode on security, you fucking should. These tools also provide ways to auto-paste and auto-fill out forms. Ask me how I know.

[19:21] Basically, it makes it super easy to fill out these forms automatically. You create an identity for your haunt, and you can even put the text of the press release typically as an element that gets automatically added. So, yeah, that's a very powerful tool for expediting that process if you have to do forms. That's a complete side tip. Yeah. Design your flyers any signage that you need updated because now you can get the really slow shipping yeah i will say this every year we do flyers it's about 50 50 how much we pay for the flyers and pay for shipping yeah we usually buy about a thousand um but if you buy now or even into early to mid-August.

[20:08] You can get the slow boat to China shipping, which basically makes it so that it's about half the price of what you would pay for even regular, quote-unquote, shipping. Basically, they're just going to throw it on the back of whatever truck has a little extra room. You can get ground shipping. It's the slowest, cheapest. You can get it on carrier pigeon. It'll get there eventually. It's fine. But yeah, it's a great deal, and you will save yourself a lot of money and a lot of headache. And plus, the sooner you have your flyers, the faster you can give them out and have them ready when people ask about your haunt.

[20:43] Because I don't know, others have experienced this, but when we go places, people ask us about the haunt, even like in August and September, way before we're open. And so having a flyer handy to be able to give to them and say, hey, we're doing it again this year, here's the deeds, it's a good thing. Yeah. The other thing is that we do on that front is because whenever we get introduced to people, new people, new people year round, we have business cards on us for the haunted house. And we also have sometimes extra flyers, too, just because we usually have a few. Last year we had a lot left over. Yeah, we may have to cut down on how many we get this year. Yeah, so Spirit changed their policies, and we don't have as many distribution points. Oh, by the way, side note. Side quest. Yeah. I saw Spirit on my running around today. It's taken over the old party city, which is just beautiful. Oh, my God.

[21:42] I was just thinking. We were at Home Depot the other day. You usually go to the Home Depot a lot, and I didn't see any sign of it. I was kind of thinking about that, but no, that would put it a street or two back. Yeah, and I think that's actually a good move on their part. Oh, no, it's a brilliant move. Because they don't want to be across from Home Depot because Home Depot has upped their game so much. And they, uh... Yeah, they were getting slaughtered by Home Depot, especially on consumables and large props. Yeah. Um... Yeah. So that's much better because people also associate that with Halloween already. And it's also one of, if not the biggest intersection in that area. Yeah. That's the expressway in Manhattan Boulevard. Sorry. Sorry. Side quest. Sorry, not sorry. Yeah, exactly. Um... Where were we?

[22:30] Oh, yeah. Update your site. Yeah. Update your site. Other online presences. Yeah. Make sure. And include social media, newsletter, anything. Yeah. Make sure everything's consistent across all of your platforms. Consider forward posting here also because you can with lots of places. Facebook, Instagram. I know both allow you to do forward posting. You might need a third-party tool in some cases, like Buffer. But, yeah, you can forward post. And, honestly, just think about how magical it would be to not have to worry about a social media post all haunt season. Yeah. If you put in the time now while it's too hot to go out in the haunt, you can make that dream a reality.

[23:18] Yeah, and if you have rooms finished, take photos for the new promo shots at night. And that will help with all of this marketing stuff. we've been talking about yeah and it goes with the press releases it goes on the website it might go on the flyers it might go in the ads it's great stuff to be able to pass around and have people enjoy and basically yeah you want to get those photos you want to let people know what you're what you're doing yeah basically is what you're trying to get across here so yeah get your photos in now and if in bonus points if you can get one of your actors in costume for some of the shots some of your actors in costume for these shots because that will help a great deal even if the costumes are pretty basic and simple like i don't know you could put someone in a robe and that could be intimidating in a lot of settings yeah and then they shouldn't have to show up two hours early for the call looking at you halloween heart i'm still pissed about that i'm pissed for what even happened to me yeah but yeah basically get some photos of your actors if you can now is a great time because this doesn't require a lot of time or attention you're not going to spend forever out there, um yeah honestly just a good start all right next item hold team building events.

[24:36] Indoor probably yeah or at night or at a pool or at a pool or somewhere where people can cool off easily yeah this is a great time to do team building we're close enough to haunt season that people can actually reasonably make commitments because that's one of the things like oh i want people to make their commitments in february or whatever it's like their life Life could be completely different six months from now. Yeah. I've had moments in my life where things where I was six months ago had zero the fuck to do with where I was that day, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, that's way too far out. But now people can start making some plans. People can start thinking about things. And so now it's a great time to hold those team building events. And it's important that part of this has to be social events where the newcomers can meet the old guard. They can interact with one another. They can know names. They can meet people. And most importantly, put faces and names to the people who will be in charge, especially of their safety. Yeah. This is incredible because I hear all these stories about the, oh, I didn't meet my manager until my first night working.

[25:47] That should not happen. You should be able to meet them at an event like this where you can go, you can shake their hand, you can put a face to the name. And know who it is that is responsible for assisting you if something goes wrong. And this is a great time to do that. And plus, it's just fun. And if you want to, you can even spend some of the time doing training and playing some acting games. A good improv or two doesn't go awry here. Yeah. Yeah. So make it a little bit of socialization and fun. Make it a little bit of training and work. And also it's a great time and a great opportunity to get people to sign waivers and sign the other documents that you need to yeah because if you're especially if you're hiring them you have a lot of documentation you need from them this is a great way to get those documents signed yeah and if you are a manager be sure to take the people that you're in charge of managing and show them the places that they can find you when the hall is open.

[26:48] Here's where i will be hiding or here is my spot for acting if you're doing double yeah and if you're not at the haunt at the time just orally explain where make sure people know where you are yeah and i think it's really important because like i said newbies in particular need to feel comfortable they need to feel like this is a safe space for them because that's one of the reasons people like haunting is that it is supposed to be a safe space but if you need help and don't know where it is it is not a safe space right it's very much the opposite and so getting eyes on getting face time with the management team helps both the managers and the actors everyone benefits from this and it's something that now is a great time to do indoors or at a pool or at night but yeah oh i just thought of something else you could do as a team building exercise um you could actually do like a bake sale or something for a charity that you want to donate to and then you're also connecting with your local community yeah in a not scary setting yeah there are a lot of things you can do here as team building um just because it's too.

[27:58] Hot to do eight hours of construction work a day does not mean you're completely helpless yeah all right next up safety stuff we really should have put this one first safety dance because but now's a great time to check your fire extinguishers make sure that they're all up to code and you know in good shape replace any batteries that need replacing check your power cords and other electronics make sure there are no frayed cords or you know because sometimes crudos will get in empty spaces that aren't open for months yeah um examine your railings and ramps i do not know why mice seem to find some types of electrical cords so fucking yummy i don't know either but they do yeah luckily we have not had that problem no but i know other haunts in the area have yeah i i think it's because there's so much other stuff outside that they can eat that's not electrical cords but um but yeah Yeah, go through and look for nails, loose boards, details you might have missed. Make sure that your actor area is just as safe as your customer area for the, you know, as far as the nails and screws poking out. Hey, if a rat bites an electrical cord, is it charged with vandalism or is it just grounded until it conducts itself better?

[29:23] Anyway, it's difficult to check these things while working, so do some right now. It's a great time to examine your completed spaces.

[29:36] Check your sprinklers. I don't know why I should not be making jokes and making me laugh during the safety talk. But yeah, basically, this is something you can do very casually walking around the haunt. Should not take too long to do a room or a section. And is important to do and it's something that often gets overlooked in the craziness of the build and if now if you've got wall you've got skins off walls and things like that and the wiring's exposed perfect time to take a look i cannot count the number of times we have taken a skin off a wall and then did not look closely at what was behind it before putting the other one back on just because we were in a rush to get things done yeah yeah exactly um the other thing as far as safety stuff goes is it may be a little late at this point but if you have any paperwork with the city like the fire marshal that you have to get in and done be sure to to reach out just make sure all that's up yeah especially i mean like pre-opening documents yeah go ahead and start working on those if you can it really depends upon what your local code is requiring you to do at the end of the day but yeah basically do all your safety stuff now because that is let Even though it is outdoor, it is hot, it is less physically taxing, and it's something that's easy to overlook during a rush. And you could do it at night when it's cooler, hopefully. True, yeah. And without having to worry about putting up eight bajillion delights. It then again will make you hot again, you see. Mm-hmm.

[31:02] Alright, next item is costume and prop work. I like this one a lot because I have a lot of very fond memories of you sitting in our living room, stuffing those hazmat painter suits with this random bullshit to make bodies, and then literally letting the bodies hit the floor and piling them up, in the living room, and then having Ellie come in and go, what the hell?

[31:29] So great, good times, good times, good times. But yeah, basically, now is a great time to do that type of work. You can either build your props that you need for the haunt, or you can create costumes that you need. This can take a lot of variations. Thrift shops are air-conditioned, usually. So you can go search those for the pieces, and you can also search online. If you're more of a do-it-yourself type, now is a great time to bust out the sewing machine and the scissors and start making your costumes. You can also do that with the foam kits and make your props, especially if you want something for a specific character or a scene. I wouldn't recommend going around putting up skeletons in your yard display. It's a little early for that and a little hot for that. But you can build the skeletons if you're going to dress them, for example. Yeah, or distress them in any way. Yeah, if you start putting them out now, I know that we will talk about you on the news episode. It's coming up. In a few weeks. In a few weeks. But yeah, no, the main thing here is there's tons of stuff that you can build inside that will help make your haunt better. Yes, it's not slinging panels. It's not, you know, painting walls or moving things around. But it is very, very useful, and it is something both you and your visitors slash customers will appreciate when they come through. It's hard and important work.

[32:57] All right. that brings us to design work design work um for some haunts not the big ones because they're going to be opening earlier than like home haunts and stuff now's a great time to get designs for the haunt done especially using cad software or similar um can maximize the time you can work in the haunt for whenever it is cool enough to get out there yeah for like i said professional haunts it's too late, home haunts, display haunts, and other smaller affairs, even if you don't think you need it as a home haunt, it will help you so much just to plan this out. I'll tell it to you like this, we've done it both ways. Yeah. For the first few years, first, let's say five or six years, we were open. We didn't use CAD for anything. We just went out there and winged it. Well, we used graph paper like in the second or third year. Yeah, and that really didn't work. The first year we winged it. We lost more time to, no, no, this wall goes there. This wall, I mean. Yeah, we don't have the space that we thought we would have after we put this wall up. And then just generally, since we didn't know, we didn't have that final vision. We weren't on the same pages that this is what the layout and the design will look like. Yeah.

[34:20] We were not on that same page. And so it led to constant, I wouldn't say fights.

[34:25] But it led to constant disagreements and conversation. No we've got to take this over there we got to take this no we don't have enough room there because that's only a three and a half foot span oh i thought i measured it at four and on and on and on this type of stuff we lost so much time that we were barely able to paint or decorate and the years we started using cat and we don't do anything complicated you know i use um an interior decorating program for my cat it's free um and but fuck me it works yeah it allows me to place panels and have a mock-up of my garage and it has saved us so much time whenever we especially when we do the full builds because we know where every fucking piece of lumber goes and yes it can still be frustrating when the cat is off by like a half an inch or something like that but it is so much better to be off by an inch or two than it is to be off by a fucking foot and a half which happened a few times when we were just eyeballing it and winging it yeah because you know a few inches you can wiggle you can force you can do things you can finagle you know oh and for your pro haunts you can do this stuff for next year now yeah that's true if you don't have it done already yeah i can't imagine a pro haunt wouldn't have this especially needing fire and needing these designs for fire coat compliance.

[35:53] But Jesus, I mean.

[35:56] I know a lot of home owners are like, oh, we don't need it. It's only a small garage. Just trust me. An hour. Give yourself just an hour. Two hours if you've never done it before. An hour to learn, an hour to build. Yep, and I'm going to tack on to this with the design work. Also, go ahead and set out your milestones if you're not finished with your build for what has to happen next and just make a list that way if you can't work on it somebody else can i am shocked miss gantt chart didn't mention a gantt chart no is gantt chart too complicated.

[36:33] And actually, game charts are amazing and wonderful. Yeah, they are. And if you have a complicated enough project, you should use them. Yeah, but some people just need a list. Yeah, and a list is fine for a lot of projects. So it's kind of like how you don't always need a database. Excel will actually work. Even though database people will shun you for it. Yeah. They're wrong. Use the tool that works for your needs. Don't listen to anyone else. But yeah, basically, you will say, But this type of preparation will save you so much waste of time and energy. And believe me, it looks like it's going to be a compressed haunt build season for a lot of home haunters because of this heat. That can mean a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I am not looking forward to it. At least we don't have any giant builds this year. No giant builds, no rearranging this year. Right. It's pretty much purely decorative. Yeah, I know. Which is still going to take a lot of time. Oh, it's still going to take a lot of time. It's good. Yeah. But we're not doing the super intense physical labor part of it where we're literally trying to rearrange the bones of the haunt. Right. So that's good. It is. Well, and here's the final thing. If you can't avoid working in the heat, here's some genuine advice, both from government sources and stuff that we copied a lot of this from. And just experience. And just experience. Cold, hard experience. Well, cold, hard experience. Hot, hard experience.

[38:02] On the topic. First thing, it tends to work if you can't avoid it. The second one is avoid the hottest parts of the day. Yeah. That is typically between, like, noon and 3 p.m., though it may be slightly different in your area. And the reason I say that is because time zones fuck this up pretty bad. It does. And, you know, I've been known to get up early and go out and do a couple of hours before it starts getting really hot. And then I've also been known to stay up all night. Well, yeah. I mean, so in some, like for us, especially in New Orleans, the heat of the day can literally be from 10 a.m. To 7 p.m. or something like that. It can be that crazy. And that's just the way it is. The difference between a climate like ours and other areas is the temperature doesn't drop significantly at night. That heat stays in the atmosphere. And so we're running these heat indexes of 90, 100, 110, literally 24 hours a day. There's no respite. And so going out in the not-heated day or even the dead of night, you're still going out in basically the equivalent of 85-degree heat a lot of times. Especially, like I said, it goes down a little bit toward fall.

[39:20] But, yeah. So, avoid whatever the hottest part of the day is for you. For reference, we'll say, like, maybe 11 to 3, 11 to 4. Give ourselves a little leeway there. Drink a fuck ton of water. Yeah. Definitely stay hydrated out there. The firewood rule, I think, applies to water you should drink when working in the heat or working outside in this. The firewood rule is you cut the amount of firewood you think you need for the winter, and then you double it. And then you double it again yeah do that with water yeah drink drink the amount you think you need then double it then double it again yeah and if you ever get to the point where you're not thirsty at all and you're avoiding drinking drink water more yeah because you that means you're dehydrated.

[40:09] Um, one tip that we have found helps us a lot. Yeah. And we've only implemented this the past couple of years. But it has been a lifesaver is the use of timers. Yeah. When you go out, start on your watch or your phone or whatever's handing, start a 30 minute timer is what we usually do.

[40:26] Yeah. It depends on how hot it is. Sometimes it's an hour. Yeah. But it's never longer than an hour during the hottest part of the year. Yeah. During the hottest part or the hottest part of the day even during it. Because basically we're the type of people who and we both do this i mean i can't say shit and you can't say shit so no i think i know where this is going i completely where we will go out there and we will start making progress things will start going good and we'll just get into the rhythm and then we look up it's like five to fuck hours later yeah exactly and we're wondering why we feel like we're gonna puke oh yeah well the other the other tip for for me at least i think both of us really is that whenever we start getting extra yelly at each other like our communication is just not there it's time for a break yeah when we're super snappy basically it's time for a cool down time to get some more water time to get some ac time to cool off and you know time to do some inside work for a bit time to do something else from this list yeah you know uh but yeah we we've learned that because of our fucked up perception of time.

[41:39] We need to set timers and usually like 30 minutes to an hour depending upon how hot it is and the truth is you should do this even if the temperature isn't necessarily dangerous right because you don't want to go too long at a stretch and then like decrease your you know productivity yeah because it will you you hit a point where if you tell if where if you take a break you can get back to that point super quick but if you don't you're going to taper off and you're not going to be able to never going to get up good never going to be able to get back to that level again without a proper sleep and a significant rest yeah so if you take your timers and take your 10 to 15 minute breaks you're helping yourself work longer and harder throughout the day it's just such a smarter way to work and i'm really glad we started doing it i really do wish we had started doing it when we were younger yeah me too because i think one of the reasons we're both heat vulnerable is because we didn't do that shit in our 20s and early 30s yeah there was definitely some heat damage in our early years yeah and that's one of the important things to remember is heat damage is cumulative yeah it doesn't go away if you get heat stroke or heat exhaustion, it is it doesn't mean you're more tolerant to heat the next time you go out no it weakens you yeah it's the opposite.

[42:59] So, yeah, the ideal thing here is if you're someone that's like a teenager listening to this, start doing this shit now so you can work in the heat when you're in your 40s and 50s. Just trust me.

[43:14] People might make fun of you. Your peers might make fun of you. But when you're working laps around them into your 40s, you'll know what's up. All right. Another piece of advice, though, if you have to work in heat is fans can make a huge difference. Only fans. No. No. But yeah, one of the best purchases we actually got was a giant shop fan to move air around the garage. That has been a big help. Yes. I wish it were quieter.

[43:41] Me too. But that is not something that's... You can't have both. You can't move a fuck ton of air and have it be quiet. Right. Right, and one of the other things we bought for this season are little lights that screw into a regular light socket and have fans that go around. And we have light sockets all over the Hawn. We have tons of Hawn lights strung up. Because the idea is if we want to put an LED bulb here or there or whatever, we'll just screw it in. Now we can just screw in fans the same way. Exactly.

[44:16] We're going to put some into the queue line, too, because I think it's going to really help with keeping our customers cool. Yeah, I mean, and I was actually surprised when we tested them out how powerful they were. Yeah, and they were quiet. And they're very quiet, yeah. So I was actually very pleasantly surprised by those. Yeah. I thought this was going to be like a joke. Yeah. We forgot something in the design work. Uh-oh, what? The sound design. Oh, yeah. because that is something else we should put on your list yeah do sound design yeah okay that's good but yeah fans yeah fans are great get all the fans you can and consider using personal cooling devices i had the ember wave for time yeah it didn't work for me no um all it did was make one spot on my wrist very cold like painfully cold like it was going to sleep and not actually cool the rest of me off i see like my mom uses one of the fans that goes around your neck and blows cold air up onto you. I've also seen vests that have ice packs that you can put into the little pouches on them. Which I love that idea. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're gonna be getting one of those soon.

[45:28] Yeah, I like the idea of the vest with the ice packs, but something to help keep you cool. Get that. And most important, though, is pay attention to how you're feeling. Pay attention to your mental clarity and how you know you're thinking. And if those things are off, get yourself to cooler temperatures immediately. Don't wait until you are physically or mentally incapable of work. At that point, it is too fucking late. Yeah, and what's going to happen is you're going to feel so fucking bad. That you're not going to be able to work the next day. You're going to have to take the entire day just to recover. Yeah, I guess if getting older has taught me anything is that this shit is a marathon, not a sprint. And dear God, the number of times we did ourselves dirty by trying to sprint. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So don't, don't, this is a don't do what we do thing. What we have done thing. Do what we are trying to do now thing. Yeah. Well, on that note, everyone, thank you very much for joining us for the past 45 minutes or so. Hope you learned something. Hope this was helpful. Please check out the places we exist. We're at HauntWeekly.com, HauntWeekly, and Facebook. YouTube.com slash HauntWeekly. And wherever you get your podcasts from. Until next time, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And we will see you all next week. Assuming Crystal doesn't have to re-record that presentation 8,000 more times. Yeah.