[0:01] Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a not-quite-so-weekly podcast for the haunted attraction and haunted entertainment community. Whether you're an actor-owner or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you. And we are returning to this channel, if you will, after an unplanned hiatus that went on longer than we planned the unplanned hiatus to go on yeah that make sense yeah that's about right it does and and.

[0:35] We didn't mean to just disappear on everybody yeah that was not our intention um and so here's the deal this episode is going to obey a few different rules than we have normally uh first rule is we're not numbering this one this is going to be special episode special edition, something like that it will not be in the number order of haunt weekly yeah it will exist outside that camp. Two, we're not going to time this episode. Yeah, so we may run long. Yeah, normally we shoot for that 45 minute to an hour range, but here we're just going to let it go. It'll take as long as it takes. Yeah, we've got a lot to catch up on. And so what we're going to talk about, what the plan is, as we've discussed, is we're going to first talk about why we went on hiatus. Yes um and then why we stayed on hiatus uh longer than we intended and basically then we're going to talk about our haunt season both the haunts we went to and how our haunt went yeah so basically we're cramming the entirety of the 2025 haunt season into this episode uh we're going to try to at least um we may have to come back and catch things that we missed totally possible.

[1:50] But, yeah, so give you the mood spoilers, it's going to start off rather down. Yes. But once we get to the haunted season stuff, it actually went pretty well. I'm actually pretty happy with how things went. Yeah, we're going to end on a high note, but we've got to get through some rough stuff first. Mainly our apology. Yeah, and an explanation, if you will, because there's a lot to go through here. So I don't even remember when our last episode was. I meant to look that up before we sat down, but we just, you know, sat down spontaneously. Yeah. Like, spontaneously is, like, we had planned on recording today. Yeah, sometime, but we didn't say when. True. So, yeah, the last episode went live July 31st, so we missed all of August, September, and October. Yeah. Basically, we missed three months. Yeah. All right, that's a quarter of the year. So we owe an explanation, and basically it begins in early August. Yeah, late July, early August. Yeah, I don't remember the exact date, but it was that around then.

[2:59] Just to get it out there, one of our oldest friends. Well, I wanted to go through the entire thing that was going on with me. Okay. Because I feel mostly responsible for this, and that is part of my personality. If there is a way that I can take responsibility for something, even if it's not my fault, I will do it. Well, yeah, and I do that, too, because it's how you take power. Sure. It's not an anxiety abnormal thing. Oh, no, nothing like that. No, it's not something that people normally go to counseling for. Years and years of therapy and substance abuse to try to deal with it. Yeah, I... Um anyway so i went to see my parents in july i think it was july and the trip did not go well my mom is in declining health um and then my grandmother who like if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know our politics. My grandmother was upset that she didn't understand why her.

[4:15] And I'm just going to spill family tea because I don't care. Her lesbian sister was not talking to her anymore after she was so proudly voted for the current person in charge of the country. So at that point, I decided that I would start sending her articles every day.

[4:39] Basically, you're going to be like her ground news. Exactly. And I was using ground news for it. not not sponsored i was i was gonna say that too we're not sponsored by ground news no they sponsor everyone else i know hey ground news no i'm teasing them we don't do sponsors i know we don't do sponsors we don't do this for money if we were doing this for money we would have had to get through all of this even though it wasn't wouldn't have been healthy yeah yeah so basically i was reading the news multiple times a day because she sends me unsolicited prayers every day um i've asked her to stop she doesn't do she doesn't stop so now i've started sending i had started sending her daily news articles which is way too much news in the current yeah situation and yeah you were using ground news and the blind spot thing specifically yeah and then i was working 50 to 60 hours a week at my day job and there was a yarn crawl that i was working another 10 to 12 hours a week on for like a month um yeah and in the yarn crawl we should cover went terribly too yeah there were no fault of our own no one in this house no no the organizer just fucking terrible does not know how to organize anything they so.

[6:03] Overworked yeah I was overwhelmed and overworked and then in August I.

[6:16] We got a message that one of our oldest friends in the city, someone who's helped both of us at various times and especially has helped you during difficult times in the past, passed away. And it was, it's weird to call it abrupt because he'd been having heart issues for a decade. Yeah. A total decade. But every time it was like this next treatment is going to be the last one and he'll be fine. this next hospital stay, this next plan. It was always the next thing was going to push him over into being healthy again. And we actually saw him like... A week before. I think it was close to... Yeah, I thought it was like two or three weeks. But it was very soon before. Yeah, he was a musician, local musician, and he was performing an open mic night. Yeah, which is where we met him actually was an open mic night. yeah so we we went and we saw him and we supported him and he looked to be in great health yeah he looked it to be relatively fine a little thin he'd lost some weight but I mean hospital stays yeah heart issues will do that I wasn't too he didn't look like he was no gaunt or ghostly or anything no he didn't.

[7:35] No. And then he just posts on his social media, goodbye, my friends. I love you all. And we're like, what? And sure enough, the next day he passed away. It was quite a shock.

[7:53] Yeah. And this is the first time I've talked about it since. Yeah. Well, other than us talking about it. Publicly. yeah publicly to anybody outside of this house yeah yeah and it really wrecked us and, it impacted us more than i think either of us realized in the moment yeah and one of the between between all of the stuff that was going on and then trying to come to the podcast weekly, um knowing that and the pressure of coming upon the 500th episode the pressure coming upon the 500th episode the 20th anniversary of katrina the 20th anniversary of our haunt looming and a lot of work to do at that point yeah um, and hearing and this is of no fault of jonathan he didn't know this was going on.

[8:56] Know me you know that i mask quite well um but i um hearing every week that we were late, yeah and that it was because of i had overextended myself.

[9:15] And i when when you told me this because i you're right usually i'm very good at reading you yes you're good at masking usually i'm the one that's legendary at reading you you are this was a cue i missed yeah and i i apologize for missing it well and i didn't understand why i was getting upset every week that that we would say that on the podcast and so the podcast for a little while became part of the problem yeah and for me so we needed to step away and we didn't do it in the best way not even a good way we apologize for just dropping it that was not cool no i i completely agree if you're upset with us over that we understand i understand i am sorry it was not right i know i've reached out to some of you we've one of us has reached out to a lot of you and several of you reached out to us and we thank you for that we greatly appreciate you doing that and checking on us yeah we did not intend to just drop it when we skipped the first week there we assumed we would just be back in a week or two well and that was the other thing is that we were supposed to have a guest on yeah we were supposed to get that scheduled and it fell through last minute and then the next episode was going to be me talking about um accessibility in.

[10:39] Marketing because that's part of my job now is that I have to do 508 compliance work there was going to be a free advertised as free.

[10:52] Workshop on it yes workshop seminar whatever they call these online things going to zoom call that i was going to go to and i signed up for it and then whenever i was signing up it's like please pay two thousand dollars for this supposedly free thing and i'm like you know i think i don't need to do that i think our haunt may be the only thing that's advertised as free and actually is fucking free. Yeah, I'm just... Sorry. I'm so salty for you about that because that fucked up a lot of shit. Yeah, there was that. And there was a lot of.

[11:30] A lot of friends who are going through it this year yeah and it just i internalize all of that stuff yeah and and basically we needed to step away and it ended up becoming longer than we intended well yeah because then you've got the problem of oh shit we've missed so many weeks how do we come back how do we come back are people going to be mad at us you know have we just broken this entirely and there's a lot of anxiety around that too which makes it hard to get the startup energy to do this which is why we're doing this as an unplanned untimed unnumbered special episode to get some of that pressure off of us there's still all the other anxieties like i'm sitting here and i'm still terrified that you know we've ruined relationships by doing this and it was not our intention i know that we screwed up by just dropping but that's just it we we often would drop off for a week or two and it wouldn't be a big deal yeah and that was kind of the intention and by the time we were in a position to come back we had just dropped for over a month and a half yeah and at that point it's oh fuck we really screwed up yeah and so yeah that that was going through our brains a lot and then we really really really needed to focus just on the haunt.

[12:58] I mean we did not do a haunt big haunt trip this year no we didn't go and we we kept it all within uh southeast louisiana we'll talk about that in a little bit um but we really needed focus on our haunt and what we were doing um and and honestly that's what pulled me out of the.

[13:23] Haunting and going to haunts in the community that's what pulled me out of it yeah because i agree i didn't i didn't do shit for anything like i stopped going to craft chat for about a month and a half i didn't even work on the haunt until mid-september yeah which is unusual yeah we, We really were in, both of us, but especially you, were in a rough place.

[13:57] And haunting became what we turned to. Yeah, because we had an incredible crew that at mid-September started saying, Hey, we're going to come over and we're going to work. And that forced us to work. Exactly. And we'll talk more about how it all came together in a little bit. But, yeah, so we're sorry. Yeah. We're very, very, very sorry. And, you know, I'm a big believer in the phrase that real life, quote-unquote real life comes first when you're dealing with Internet stuff. But here's the thing. You all are part of our real life. Yeah. And that's just flat truth. You are part of our very real, very in-person meat space life.

[14:55] We're sorry we neglected that yeah it was there there were reasons there were extenuating circumstances but no excuses right that's that's just what happened it was what was going on and, especially very sorry losing our friend like that really upended everything for a minute it just felt the world felt topsy-turvy yeah because this friend as i described him to one of our mutual friends with him, he was a force of nature. Yeah. He wasn't a human. He was a force of fucking nature. It was like saying the wind died or the water went away, you know? Yeah. He was a force of fucking nature. He was so charismatic, so gregarious, so out there, and so just giving and loving and an amazing presence in every life that interacted with him. Because that's the one thing. It's like, we interacted with him in this space. Yeah. And after his passing, we got to meet people he interacted with as a teacher and people he interacted with just as neighbors and everywhere. We found out that, you know, he did things like started a walking club whenever he needed to start walking for his health. It had been going for 10 years. So we got to meet all the walking people.

[16:14] And then that's just like every space he interacted with. He made people's lives richer. He was a force of fucking nature. And having that gone, even though we had not seen that much of him in the past few years, partly largely because of his health issues, it was still there. That presence and that force was still there. And losing him was really, really rough. And I don't know.

[16:41] It combined with everything else. Combined with everything else. And some of the people I'm talking about who are going through it listen here and we're ones that we, I'm, you know, I don't know.

[17:02] It's been a rough three months or so. And one of the problems, like you said, A, the podcast itself had become part of the problem. But also one of the things we try to do is sit here, be high energy. Yeah. And even when we're talking about serious subjects, we try to, you know, bring at the very least a neutral effect to it. Yeah. And that has been very, very hard to do.

[17:36] Yeah, I don't know if we had forced ourself, if we could have faked it. And that's just it, is that we don't fake it on here. That's part of the thing. It's like, we don't want to come on here and get everybody down right before hot season either. Well, that's one of the things. Like, sometimes we've been in bad moods, and we said, okay, we've got to record. So we sit down, we do the intro, and by the time we're done with the intro, we're genuinely in a better mood yeah and and then we just kind of run with it and for the next 45 minutes to an hour time drop um yeah we we are in a different headspace and it's helped us sometimes yeah which that's part of what made it rough when like you said the podcast became part of the problem for a minute so we're still going to figure out how we're going to do the podcast moving forward um we may not do an episode next week we've got to sort out with your new schedule, my workload when it all fits together yeah but one of the things that i think that i've realized from this is that we will probably especially as we're aging um take some time off September, October. Yeah. Just so that we can focus on our haunt. That might be something.

[19:02] Yeah, maybe we'll do the rehashed episodes we used to do, things like that. We'll think, I mean, we'll talk about it, but, yeah, the basic, what we're trying to say here, I think, is, A, we're very sorry. Yes. We did y'all dirty, and even though there was a lot going on, and hopefully the explanation has helped some, we know that's not an excuse. We are sorry. We screwed up. Yeah. We know that.

[19:32] We do want to return to the podcast because i do think overall the podcast has been a positive thing in our lives yeah it it has and you know we'll get into the haunt visits but talking to people at haunted houses and having the community and and having people talk to us like they don't talk to you know people who are outside of the industry really helped and and like, by end of september so a couple of weeks into haunt build i started missing the podcast yeah like i genuinely started missing it i just couldn't find time to make it consistent so that's the thing we've got to figure out now is because your new job is pulling you away for more hours yeah we need to find a dedicated time in which we can work on this every week and we're going to figured out that's an us problem y'all don't have to worry about that yeah and it may be that we wind up um doing a live.

[20:39] Um just because that kept us on schedule on schedule yeah and i actually enjoyed the live ones it was a lot of work but we seem to have a system for doing it now that's easier well and we're no longer i'm no longer as tired of looking at myself on all of the zoom meetings as i was when we were doing that. Yeah. Because I really don't like to look at myself. I don't like to listen to myself. Same. I've never gone back and listened to that episode. There's a reason I automated the fucking podcast editing. Yeah. It ain't just time. No, no. It's who the fuck is this dork? Yeah. So, yeah. We're going to figure that out. We do want to return with y'all's blessing. If y'all have us we will return well I mean the thing is is.

[21:40] We want to continue to be part of the community, so we'll do it no matter what. Yeah. We're going to do something. But, yeah. And, honestly, part of this is a ride we made for our own bat calling it all weekly. Yeah. Okay. So, whenever we started the podcast, people were like, are you crazy? Yeah. But then we did, like, 490 episodes, barely missing anything. Yes. I think we have five episodes left to get to 500. No, we're at 493. we're at 4.83 oh okay yeah seven so we have seven but yeah no i mean, over and then yeah so yeah that's basically why we went on the hiatus we went on and why we're coming back now after season basically and it's you can tell we're recording this on saturday the 8th yeah as soon as things calmed down enough and we got energy back after season we're recording yeah because we we couldn't do that November 1st fuck you no we we definitely couldn't uh there was haunt crud and in the house yeah and there's how the episode would have said it would basically would have sounded like you know.

[23:00] Yeah. Basically like a... We would have gotten notes about all of the noises we were making. Yeah. Because, yes, we remember when y'all said those. Yeah. Yeah, we would have basically been sniffling, snorting, and basically slurring every word. Yeah. Between exhaustion, haunt, grud, and everything else. We could not have done it. No. So, no, this is the first chance we've had after haunt season, really, to do this. So, let's talk about haunt season. Yeah. You want to shift gears and talk about some happy stuff? Let's talk about happy stuff. That sounds great. I say, okay, this is the great planning that went into the episode. I vote we talk about the haunts we went to first, and then we talk about our haunt season. Exactly. How's that? So the first one we went to was the mortuary. Oh, yeah. I'm like, what did we go to first? I don't remember. We went to the mortuary.

[23:52] And the mortuary was actually a pleasant surprise for me. The mortuary, the main problem we've had with them is their prices have gone up, up, up, up, up, up. Yeah. And their time and everything else has just stayed totally flat. Right. And they've gone up way faster than inflation, even under current inflation. Yeah. But here's the thing that was really incredible about the mortuary this year. The price went down significantly. We paid like half price for the tickets, and we didn't do anything super crazy. We picked an unusual time to go but we always pick an unusual time to go well yeah because we want to get the smallest line possible we always do that that's nothing new to us and they actually managed to squeeze another five minutes of walkthrough out of that yeah they added a lot of twists and turns it seemed to.

[24:48] And I actually got got for the first time there. Well, yeah. And now they did have a little controversy. Yeah. The reason I got got was because there was a very attractive actress in a bikini, basically a bikini, because it was an Egyptian theme, at the end of a hallway. And I was looking towards her, and someone popped out from the side. It's like, yeah. That's the ultimate distract and startle. Yeah. Emphasis on distract.

[25:25] Yeah, and that was the controversy there, was that some people were upset because of cultural appropriation and putting... Sexualizing it, yeah. Yeah, and as a quote of the person, or one of the comments I remember was.

[25:47] Hot goth girls in bikinis dressed as egyptians are your thing i guess go but yes um, yes um i'm not even gonna pretend i mean i'm not gonna sit here with my monocle and pipe No, but it was, the thing about it is this, is the ancient Egyptian culture that they were aping. A, I believe what they did, because I remember when they did Scout Island all those years ago. And they had a haunt that was Egyptian themed. And at the time, we commented the decorations were really good, but they didn't have a lot of people in there. Yeah. So it was fun to look at, but not a lot going on. Well, I think they took those decorations out of storage and put them in the mortuary this year. Yeah. And honestly, it looked good, but now they had people. But my attitude is this. If it's okay to do Greek gods and Roman gods, it's okay to do Egyptian gods. Because I'd like to remind the court that ancient Egypt covers so long that Cleopatra literally had archaeologists studying the Great Pyramids. Yeah. And in fact, this is also true. Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landing than the building of the Great Pyramid.

[27:13] Seriously. Which is just crazy. What? You know? Yeah. That's fucked up, man. How? But it's totally true. And it's like, so yeah, I don't necessarily think that's cultural appropriation because it's thousands of years old. Nobody. Yes, these are treasures from another kingdom. And, you know, I disagree with like the British Museum having the actual artifacts. Yeah. That's bullshit. but if we can have toga parties and it's not cultural appropriation yeah i think egyptian theme is in the same vein and you can argue that it's not kid friendly you can make other arguments but i mean i did not see anything in there totally inappropriate and once again as you said they were using it as a distract for a scare and you know what godspeed that is a distract that's It's hard to ignore. So all in all, I like the mortuary. I thought they did a great job this year. Yeah, I came out of it pretty happy with them. So I didn't.

[28:24] But we're just putting it out there because it was brought up. It did come up. People were mentioning it. Now, the next haunt we went to also had controversy. Yeah. Very, very controversial year for Southeast Louisiana haunts. And that was the 13th Gate. Yeah. Which is surprising because we never talk about controversy with them. They are usually, I mean, as far as like controversy goes, milk toast. As far as haunts go, amazing. But as far as controversy goes, they don't usually spark it. Now, it wasn't the haunt itself that struck it. They introduced a new immersive theater experience called Seance. We did not go to it. And we did not go to it because when I bought the tickets, I had no idea what the fuck it was and that we needed to go to it. Right. So we'd already bought the tickets. Yeah, and we were taking someone with us from our haunt. So we didn't, basically they needed to get to school the next day, they're in college, and we couldn't stay really late, and there was a line for it. Probably because of the controversy.

[29:35] But yeah, it was a seance-themed thing. And what happened, and I still cannot believe I'm about to say these words, because this just sounds too fucking crazy, right? But the local catholic church posted on their social media about how horrible this was and got lots of likes and views and support.

[30:00] Because it was actual witchcraft. Woo! And it was kind of funny because we were talking with the people at the ticket booth. And I'm like, yeah, New Orleans, we just called this Tuesday. Yeah. Baton Rouge, man. What the fuck? Yeah. And New Orleans Catholic Church would be like, eh, fuck it. Have a Bloody Mary. And the thing is, is like there have been witch themes at the 13th Gate before. Oh, yeah. They've done witch themes in the main haunt. Exactly. And, like, I would have expected that out of a place where Rise is and Tickfall because it's more rural and not in, you know, the capital city. And I wouldn't expect it from the Catholic Church. The Catholics in Louisiana tend to be pretty chill. Apparently not in Baton Rouge. I mean, your Pentecostals, maybe.

[30:48] Baptists. Various Baptist sects would probably go off on it. But the Catholics? No. They tend to be pretty chill in this state, at least in this area. But apparently not in Baton Rouge, as we learned. And they actually had to respond to it on their social media. But, I mean, apparently this was an example of no press is bad press. Yeah. Because it did drive. And honestly, let's once again be honest. Because one of the things I noticed in reading the comments and the feedback was a lot of the people commented, Well, I would never go there anyway because it's already of the devil and whatnot. Yeah. It's not glorifying Jesus. It's a haunted house. Glorify Jesus in your church. You're supposed to have fun in all. God damn it. You know?

[31:33] Every place is supposed to glorify Jesus. I'm sorry. No. Oh, my God. So it was really frustrating. We did not get to do it. I regret that we were not able to now. Because that would be the cool ending to the story, right? We went in and it was awesome. Or we went in and it was bullshit or whatever. Just some kind of ending, right? But no, we didn't get to go. So we don't know. But the haunt itself was great. And they added probably my favorite scene of the season. They added a Frankenstein's lab scene and I know what everyone's thinking that's been overdone to shit so just imagine how great of a scene it is that I'm thinking a Frankenstein's lab scene was one of the best things I saw in the season because it was incredible it was, jaw-droppingly beautiful and I wish he had done it two years later, because, and this is true it was clearly based on the Universal Frankenstein movie and in two years that movie's in the public domain technically there's, technically copyright infringement here but if you just waited two years to do it no problem.

[32:49] Scot free ugh you know but it was really flipping cool the lighting the build everything was just impeccable the acting yeah there were and that had height and there were so many things to look at like yeah i think we went on a really quiet night oh we did where they were down actors um because there was a lot of places that they they would have gotten me because i was just looking at the scenery that yeah what it reminded me of as far as like how i was responding to it was the tree sequence in netherworld where there's just so much going on or there's so much going on your eyes are everywhere but where it's coming from yeah and there's movement and the, It was a lot of movement. And they used light as movement. Yeah. Because they had these rope lights up in the ceiling.

[33:45] Simulating lightning going down, like current going down. Yeah, like down into the big spiky thing. Yeah, the big platform where Frank and the monster are supposed to be on and spikes coming out from it. Yeah. And there was so goddamn much going on. Yeah. I don't know where they got those lights, but I want those fucking lights. Oh, my God. Because they were beautiful. It was an incredible scene. And like I said, I have seen a bajillion Frankenstein's laughs in haunted houses. And I was blown away by this one. I have nothing but just all for it. It was wow. It was incredible. I'm still thinking about it now completely overblown, blown out by it. Yeah and it was fun because the person that we took with us to most of the haunts we visited had never been to a pro haunt no um.

[34:44] Yeah oh and we actually skipped a haunt I'm sorry decomposed yeah I knew I'd forgotten a haunt so we'll go back in a minute but no yeah he took him to this and it was his second or third pro haunt, um and he had an incredible time Yeah, and I like bringing new people with us to haunts when we go because we have, 20 plus years of history of going to haunts that we've got to store it away that we can compare to and think about fresh eyes are so helpful.

[35:18] Um so actually before 13th gate we did decomposed which is the haunt run by our friend and homa, i had a great time with that one yeah i don't really have much to say about it they, so they extended it more yes um there they had so many issues this year that's behind the scenes stuff that maybe we'll get him on to talk about yeah i want to get i want to get john on here to talk about all the bullshit because that'll be a very action-packed hour i can guarantee yeah that was like it the things he had to overcome this year like i'm surprised he didn't just throw in the test i i honestly if i'd been in his position i would have i'm and i'm just saying he was a tougher man than i was yeah i'm dealing with that i will say that with no no no hesitation because.

[36:10] I mean, it started with a scam. Yes, it starts with a scam. And it gets worse. And ends with, let's see, it starts with a scam and then has a trial with the government. Yeah, he has to convince both the city and the fucking Air Force to let him stay. Yeah. He has to win. No, I would have just fucking quit. I just packed my shit up, get out of Houma. Yeah, so that's your teaser for whenever we're able to sit him down, because he's a very busy person. He's a very busy person. I'm going to reach out to him this weekend and try to get him on, because Jesus Christ, that story needs to be put into some kind of determinants. Yeah, we've been wanting him on to tell his story for a while, but now that we're saying it out loud, we'll try to make that happen. We now kind of have to. Yeah. But yeah, the main thing he added was he actually got his hands on some containers, shipping containers.

[37:06] Because of all the other aforementioned bullshit. Did not really have time to do them properly. Yeah. So there's that issue. But, yeah, I'm amazed at how much he's continuing to extend it. And he's already got a fairly long haunt for the price. I mean, it was 13 minutes for us, but it was a quick, we were a quick walkthrough. I think we were a little fast. I think for most people it would be closer to 15. And it's priced in such a way that that's a hell of a deal. So, honestly, that was a great experience, but I just don't have a lot to add because we know what he went through. And that's his fucking story to tell, not ours. So, yeah, I'm going to have to write him. Yeah, they changed up quite a few scenes and quite a bit. There were only two scenes that I recognized from last year. And knowing that he had like half the time to build. Yeah, yeah. And the thing about John, and the thing I love about his haunt, is he's the master at hiding actors. You want to put a person in a room and have them be fucking invisible? Yeah. Boom. Talk to John. He will tell you how to use line of sight and everything. I swear to God, he's a fucking ninja at that. So, yeah.

[38:20] But then, we had probably our most interesting pair of experiences. Yeah. Because this whole time, we had assumed we were the only quote-unquote big home haunt in the New Orleans area. We learned this year we were not alone. And the thing is, is like, so during haunt season, we watch other home haunter videos and like a few pro haunts that do tutorials like Stiltbees. You know, we watch their videos for fun while drinking after working outside in the heat. Yeah, probably not healthy for our livers, but whatever. Fuck you. We're coping, goddammit. Yeah, exactly.

[39:08] Um okay we're coping yeah but no and so one of the youtubers in the area the misadventures of team aj yeah they're the ones that come by our house and we actually just used their video for our walkthrough video yeah because they got everything you know what fuck it it was fine yeah and we know them and they're they're fun i we we enjoy hanging out with them we need to actually just like hang out with them at some point but they're always traveling i know they're trying to get that their travel vlog thing going yeah yeah but anyways they alerted us to not one but two other home haunts in the area that we got to check out and they both started about four years ago yeah so i don't know how we missed these up until now i feel kind of bad that we did well Well, we've been looking and we've never seen them advertised. And it seems like both of these haunts really focus on their neighborhood. Yeah. Or we market more citywide. Yeah. I think that may be part of it.

[40:18] But anyway, the first one was the Nightmare on Bell Street. Yeah. Appropriately. On Bell Street. I know. Big shock. Yeah. This is a haunt done by a 16-year-old kid with some very patient fucking parents. Yeah. these parents get you know haunting parent of the year awards from me because they definitely are being very patient and very supportive yeah um and the facade on this was fucking amazing yeah he he built a facade for it that looks like a cathedral and it looks really good um.

[40:57] And then you go inside and you know it's it's not a very big space it's no it's more like a.

[41:05] An overgrown hallway yeah you can tell that he has like a garage a small garage in the backyard to work with and a back porch um still was a decent walkthrough length it was three minutes for a home haunt that's a long walkthrough that's longer than hours is typically um and, he had a lot of animatronics he went to trans world and purchased a lot of animatronics this is a very nice neighborhood yeah um so i'm not surprised to see that there was money invested into this but it was really really cool and honestly the kid has such energy for it yeah and it was just him and his friends um his friends and i think it may be his little sister yeah um they didn't have a lot of actors in it yeah it's like four or five yeah which is not i thought they only had a couple really but honestly there's not a lot of space for actors either because of the nature to walk through yeah but we went through twice yeah once because a different youtube person was filming inside and like here's my thing we and we'll talk about this when we get to our haunt, we dropped our no videoing rule this year. Yeah. And just changed it to a no lights rule.

[42:27] Because that, I think, is the fair. Because, A, it was an unenforceable rule. Yeah, there was only one person who brought a bright light in this year. And I told her to shut it off. Yeah. And I made sure that everyone knew no lights in the queue line, too. But that doesn't mean, as you see, that people aren't going to fucking listen.

[42:51] But anyways, yeah, he went through with a bright light. And that kind of ruined it for us. So we asked if we could go back through a second time without following this YouTuber. And that second trip was definitely better. Yeah. Yeah, because some of these animatronics apparently will just keep in their finished position until they're out of the area. Yeah. And since we were right up on them, it just didn't work. Yeah, so we got to actually see the haunt as intended the second time. And it was really cool. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. The facade, like I said, was the highlight. He built that entrance hallway was incredible. Yeah, the entrance hallway looks really good. It looked as good as any mid-tier home haunt or mid-tier haunt. Pro haunt, yeah. Yeah. And here's my thing. Everything that he built was amazing. Yeah. The parts that were weaker were the things that were, they were just putting animatronics in spaces. And that's just, you know, I say that about a lot of home haunts. We say this when we're watching those videos on YouTube. Yeah. What you built looks great. Why are you just simply throwing animatronics everywhere? You know, I get it. You have the money and I'm happy for you. But, man, imagine if you built everything. Yeah. Like, there's...

[44:19] It was hard to believe that a 16-year-old built it. I still have trouble believing that, but yeah. Yeah. There were some issues, but, you know, 16. Yeah. And four years is not a lot of time to learn a lot. I would, if I were going to pull them aside and advise them with our years of experience, it would be more about ADA and wheelchair access and things like that. Because it makes for a better experience that you don't have to worry about tripping and falling, yeah but there's that's not possible because yeah and i know that there are issues but there are ways to improve yeah make it um but i don't think you can i don't think he could go full ada or wheelchair but i definitely think he could make it so that it's less i have to watch my feet so the two things i i would focus on is a little bit more with tactics because they're they're ground there's a solid starting point there there's a good foundation yeah oh yeah there's a there's a lot to love yeah but i i think there's a little bit of room for improvement and then there's some sections where it's real walls and some more sections where it's visqueen walls yeah mainly in an outdoor area which i understand um but if you're trying to really really scare people, those visculean walls are not going.

[45:47] And that's, I guess, the next thing I would say is build to reuse. Yeah. Because I can tell a lot of this, it's taken down and trashed because it has to. Yeah. This was a lesson we had to learn, too. Yeah. We had to learn it the hard way ourselves. We ain't holier than thou here. No. We've done it, too. We finally got rid of the last piece of OSDS year. Yeah, there was a little celebration when that went away. There was one that we found that we thought we had gotten rid of all of it last year. But no, we found one more. Yeah.

[46:22] So that was fun. It was a great haunt. I actually really enjoyed it. I'm glad we went out. And the second home haunt was Ravenclaw. And it was a garage slash backyard haunt in a different neighborhood. Like a little basin. So in New Orleans, we have raised garages. Yeah.

[46:42] So it's the part underneath the house that you walk through. Yeah. They call it the basement. It's not actually a basement. It's a garage, but it's a garage. It's a ground level thing. It's hard to describe if you don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, because basically imagine a shotgun that looks like it has two stories, but the bottom floor is just garage space. Yeah. That's what it was. And the reason you do that is because of flooding. Yeah. That's why the shit space you live in doesn't get flooded if water comes in. Yeah, because the actual house is like 15 feet off the ground. Yeah, exactly, 10, 15 feet. So you've got all that space underneath that you just use for storage. And yeah. They built a home. And they built a home in that space. And it was really cool, though I broke one of the actors. You did. But I will say that the actors were...

[47:35] Great timing oh yeah the timing was that was the amazing thing with the entire was the timing yeah oh yeah they had that great design and great tactics but the timing of the actors the humans really understood the assignment of when to move when yeah yeah they had a couple of smaller animatronics um that were used as distracts yeah which is how you're supposed to use them yep good job um and like the main character in it was just a beautiful costume that they had made they had made like this and it was like eight feet tall or i mean i'm probably exaggerating still walker still walker but it looked like it had the backward goat legs yeah and it's like what you know yeah and it was a clown but it was like a paper mache mask yeah it's really hard to describe what it was it was a little bit a goat legs and a clown face and like a harlequin slash mime slash clown it was very weird but it was very very cool and it was very disconcerting to look at like in the way it should be um yeah then then the actor i messed with they like they they the actor put like a doll in my face yeah because she wanted to tell you a secret and then held up a doll and then I leaned in for the secret because I'm deaf in my right ear I'm large I'm almost deaf in it so I leaned in with my left ear so I could hear and then they put a doll in my face.

[49:04] And once my eyes, like, focused on it, because, like, that really causes my eyes to have that depth of field thing. I'm like, oh, it's a doll. What are we doing with it? And it was like an inch from my face. I'm like, smooched it. You kissed it! And mind you, the actor, even though I completely broke their brain, they stayed in character and kept it going perfectly. Yes. Points for that. Yes. She responded with, you confused her. Yeah. you confused her and i'm like confused myself too honestly yeah i mean you don't like clowns and you just kissed a clown doll so so here we are and you don't like dolls so yeah well i don't like like the semi-realistic dolls yeah like obviously children's dolls aren't problematic for me but and actually i i misspoke you don't have a problem with clowns no um but you but yeah the the weird realistic goals yeah the uncanny i have a problem with the uncanny valley in general i gotta say i'm not liking this thing where they're now making house robots that look like people that's not those are creepy those are creepy as fuck man i don't know why the fuck you would pay twenty thousand dollars for one of those goddamn things unless i could put it in the.

[50:25] You know okay wait a minute hang on we might have something we program these these robots to be actors i just realized you know you can like you can like lease them for 500 a month can i just do the like the one month and have it in the haunt holy we might have an idea here folks.

[50:44] But yeah but yeah oh i mean so those were two great home haunts and they were very different from one another and they were very different from what we do so it was just very cool to see home haunts in our area doing different things yeah i loved it yeah made me very very happy and we uh donated to both both had little donation tables we donated to both so thank you both for uh existing existing and exactly um and giving us a good time so the next haunt we went to was new orleans nightmare yeah we went same night as the uh second home haunt yeah um and i don't really have a lot to say about new orleans nightmare no we i i find it didn't opt for the fast pass no we probably should have well and the reason we didn't opt for the fast pass was because they still are supposedly doing time ticketing but we got there because we didn't know how long ravenclaw was going to take or even like really where it was yeah in relation to where we had to get to, so yeah. We allotted a lot of time for Ravenclaw, and in hindsight, we allotted too much, so we got there really early, and like there's no way they're going to land- To 13th Gate. To New Orleans Night. I mean, to New Orleans Night.

[52:06] And so we're like yeah that's never gonna gonna work and uh we got there early and they just let us in even though we were there probably about an hour ahead of our ticket time and i'm like well that's rough but then the person in front of us in the line was there an hour and a half early yeah and so apparently time ticketing just get whatever cheap time there's because that's what i said they're selling the times at different prices just get the cheapest fucking ticket and show up whenever they're not checking is what i learned yeah i hate the date to say that but apparently it's true but it does mean that even though they're doing time ticketing we spent over an hour in line well and part of the frustration is that there were multiple people who left the line to go and hang out at the little bar and then they had a spot holder. Yeah. So their friends would get to the front and then call them and then they would have to go and rush through the line to get back to their friends. Yeah. And it's like if people are already doing that, you don't need a cattle gate system. No. I really, really, really wish they would go to like what Camp Blood did in Georgia.

[53:22] Because it was actually a popular thing in Georgia overall where you would just get people into the area and then page them or text them and have them come up because, yeah, I would have liked to hang out at the bar. Yeah.

[53:35] I don't like to hang out at the food stand. I don't like, you know, to get a snack and get a beer. You know, that sounds great. Exactly. But by the time we've stood in line... For an hour. We knew that we were in danger of standing in line. We were there on the Thursday before Halloween. Yeah. So we knew that that was a possibility going in.

[53:58] And that part is on us. I agree. But still, if you're doing time ticketing, there should not be an hour wait. That just feels silly. And the Haunted Self was fine. Yeah. I don't really have much to say about it. It was about like last year. Yeah. Actors had good timing. Yeah. The actors did seem more on point. I'll agree with that. No. And they didn't have more of them, too. I hate it when we're put with groups that make us go first. Yeah. Because we're not the people that you want in the front. No. Because we're not. You're going to lose some of the experience with us in the front. And I tried multiple times to get other people, but they were too scared. Yeah, that was frustrating. And that's not all New Orleans Nightmare. No. That's just the situation. Yeah. That's a situation. That happens. And like you said, it's like they see us and like, yeah, we're we're in our element, man. Well then go first.

[55:05] You know because that because hey oh you're going really fast no we're not actually uh you're just, getting scared backwards um it was it was frustrating the group was frustrating but, in the end i it was fine most of my issues with him have to do with the queue and also there was nothing to do in the queue no they had no actors entertaining they had nothing they took down the screen they had that was doing trivia and other things um there was literally nothing to do in the queue but talk with your group and play on your phone yeah yeah i saw multiple groups playing that game where you hold the phone up and it says the name of the character and you have to guess what you are and yeah and then mind you and if they're having to make their own fun because here's my attitude the minute you take my ticket you're responsible for entertaining me, That's not my job to find entertainment at this point. I've paid to be entertained. Yeah. Like, the way that...

[56:12] Yeah rise does it yeah is they have multiple attractions you can go to yeah and multiple things on the property you can go to as well not just attractions they have the mini escape rooms they have the bar now which we'll get to yeah but new orleans nightmare has those things but you can't get out of line for the big house no and they don't take long enough to justify getting out of law no it's it's it's they really do need to revamp their front of house experience and it's so bad because like we were talking with the people we were standing in line with because what else are you going to do and we're like yeah when this was house of shock i remember then they were like young kid i'm not like young young but they were still talking about trying to find all the people they had just graduated with from high school yeah and getting in touch with them so they had been out of high school for a year or two is what it sounded yeah they were either late teens early 20s um but yeah and like like yeah the stage show was really cool but it completely nuked the uh standing in line you had to stand in line forever and then i say that going well we're standing in line forever here so and there's nothing here and that's the thing is like Like, this had been a full queue, like the entire area had been there, slammed with humanity.

[57:39] No, this was a half-empty queue line. Yeah. It still took an hour. Yeah. Well, and the... With nothing to do.

[57:47] Well, and the reason that we harped on the stage show so much is that they would stop letting people into the haunt to watch it. Yeah. Not realizing they've probably seen the show multiple times by this point, by the time they get to the front of the line. You know, so that's, that's what that's about.

[58:08] So anyway, we're coming on. Paul was fine. The queuing experience sucked. But then we went to Rise, and we went to Rise on their blackout night. Now, okay, this is where we have to kind of cross swords, because we've got to talk about our own a little bit. Yeah. Because we had deliberately gone to Rise on the blackout night, because our plan was to bring our actors to Rise, and one of our actors is very photosensitive. Yeah. She cannot do strobes at all. No strobes, no blinking lights. Like, the flame lights have to be a certain type of flame light in order for her to be able to do them. Yeah, it has to be the motion-y, not the blink-y. Yeah. If that makes any sense. Yeah. I'm sure if you've seen both, you know what I'm talking about. The motion-y one's okay. The blink-y one's not okay. So, we were planning on going to Rise with them. Because they had not been. And this was the best night to ensure that she could go and enjoy it as much as possible. And see much of... As much as we could. Yeah. And then a member of their triad had emergency surgery on Halloween. And we'll get into that on the other side of the coin. But basically, we ended up going to Rise, just the two of us, on Blackout Night. And honestly, that kind of rocked. Yeah.

[59:36] Blackout Night means something very different at Rise than in a lot of spaces.

[59:41] It means different things to different people. Yeah. Well, and part of it is they let the actors take over. And if I were to remarket it, I would say Actor Takeover instead of Blackout

[59:55] Night. Because that's what it was. That's what it really was. And the actors get to determine what they're going to do for their characters, with their scenes. What the music is in the haunt. It is a totally different vibe than going in the regular season. Yeah. It was a totally different show. And this was true to varying degrees across all three attractions. Because we did the asylum first because we got there and the line for the big house was long was really long and we knew that the asylum takes about 15 minutes or so to get through yeah um so we did the asylum first and we went with a very fun group for that yeah that was a good group i liked them they were fun they were they were entertaining they were more entertaining than the cast almost i would love to just go to different haunted houses with that group yeah For like ever. Yeah, like this is my thing. I want to do like a Misadventures of Team AJ type thing, but with them. Yeah. I just want to follow them, or I don't even want to be on camera, I just want to follow them. They were wonderful to go with. And they truly made that even more special than usual. But yeah, you could tell that they were doing an improv-y or improv-y show.

[1:01:06] And we had a great time with them. Honestly, the asylum had not changed significantly. Yeah, and that's...

[1:01:13] Well, no, let's not give away what we learned. We learned things that are related to that. But basically, we had a good time with it. And the group we were with, the actors did a great job, but I could tell that they were not having their usual timings. Things weren't clicking quite as well. And that's okay, I mean, because they were doing different things. And they ran more nights this year than previous years, which is part of the reason they were given the reins for the night. Yeah, and it was fun, and the asylum was great. I don't really know too much to say about it. Then we did the hayride, and the hayride, as usual, is the longest attraction. It was like 25 minutes. Yeah. And that went well, too. I mean, once again, I don't have a lot to expand upon. I think that was the one where the actors cut loose the least.

[1:02:07] And I think that's probably because they couldn't. yeah there was the limitations of the hayride there was one actor who kept um with us most of the way through yeah and that was unusual yeah but i had fun with him yeah because everyone's like what are you doing here it's like i don't know what you're talking about i've been here the whole time it's like well and i'm like yeah i don't know what you're talking about he was here that we was here when we got on i just i'm just playing with him and we're having fun just talking about how he no no i'm the one that's not yeah i'm sorry i jumped on no you didn't he didn't just messing with people just just gaslighting the rest of the gaslight the entire fucking thing and he and i are just having a great time gaslighting the shit and i and as a haunt actor i appreciate it when someone does that yeah lets me play off of them and so that way you know that we're working together just to fuck with everybody it's great so i i got to be that role for that guy. And that was a lot of fun. And then we went to the big house.

[1:03:13] And the big house was, well, first we went by the bar. Yeah. They had a new bar that was not there last year. And the bar was expensive, but these were very high-end mixed drinks. Yeah. So, I mean, not crazy. But I looked at the drinks, and it's like, I guess I have to get the possession. Yeah. Which is the strongest drink there. And it's the most expensive and the craziest it is. It's like basically a tropical long island iced tea yeah and it was actually quite good um but with it you get to hold the annabelle doll yes so there's a photo of me with the annabelle doll and i thought they were just giving me the annabelle doll because they had heard about my thing with dolls and they were fucking with me now luckily annabelle dolls aren't the kind of dolls that do it yeah so i was fine but but it's like so there's a photo of me cradling the Annabelle dog and get a photo with me. And it was, it was fun.

[1:04:11] And you got a Gravedigger. Yeah. Which that was really fucking good. That was the better drink, honestly, because it was a chocolatey. Chocolate espresso. Because I'm like, well, if I'm going to have a drink before I go through the haunted house and then drive home. Yeah. We had to be responsible. I, it was very, I was very responsible and we spent another hour and a half there. And got other food and things too. So, you know, we were very good. But, yeah, so that was fun. I did enjoy holding the Annabelle doll. That was a fun photo, even because of the light. The one thing I would encourage them to change is the lighting around that area. Have a way to take the photo with the Annabelle doll and good lighting. Because the photo is fine. The lighting is just terrible because of the way everything is lit. So I would think of the, I would set up a photo op for that and encourage people to use that. But then the big house, which, I mean, like I said, this was where the actors really fucking went off the rails.

[1:05:14] A it was all lesbian music there's just no other way to describe it yeah it was meredith brooks bitch uh pink pony club by chapel row and songs like that it's like yeah this is definitely the little affair um yeah little affair experience and i had not expected that and then one scene i remember very well was supposed to be like a lab sequence they just turned into a disco yeah random random 70s disco put a disco ball in that was the pink pony club there was a person in a pony head um that you were invited to dance with the actors which i did a little bit yes while going through or and the uh the doctor character had the doctor out the the lab coat on but a uh 70s style afro um and you know yeah it was it was really fun the only part that wasn't fun and this does not rise this part was i got hit in the balls real hard right by the customer in front of us yeah and i don't know if it was her elbow or fist or something in her back pocket but jesus that took me down maybe she was uh holding the glow stick maybe it i i because it was blackout i couldn't see shit i i saw her come in and she like backed into me, and then it's like she made contact with me physically and then i just felt wham um.

[1:06:38] And, oh, I was walking funny for a bit, but I recovered. Yeah, walking funny long enough that security followed us through the next couple of scenes just to make sure you were okay. And I ended up getting my wind back, but the hardest, yeah.

[1:06:57] I'm sure that there's video of that because I know that they cover that. Yeah, I know. I mean, here's the thing. I've been hit like that many times as a haunt actor. I have taken my hits there acting both in our haunt and other haunts. I have never been hit like that as a customer. Yeah. And, I mean, it ended up being fine, and it's not something I blame anyone for. I don't blame the customer. It just happened. And it's the type of risk you take on a flashlight night. Yeah. And, yeah, we just basically gave them a wider berth after that. Yeah, I did not, I kept that out of the fucking way after that. So, yeah. Oh, no, those were the haunt visits. Great. I don't have, other than, like, the crankiness of the queue line at New Orleans Nightmare, I don't really have any bad experiences here. No. No, I would suggest that Rise also get rid of its queue line and do something else, too, Because on the really busy nights where everything has a line, it's not going to work for the... But I also think it would be more complicated for them because they have three attractions. Yeah. I don't know.

[1:08:17] I still think queuing is something this industry needs to figure out. Yeah. Because, yeah, it does put a damper on the experience.

[1:08:30] Alright. So, and I will remind the court, we told you we're not timing this episode. I know we're like over, well over an hour. But now we're going to quickly talk about our season and we'll do more about it, I'm sure, in the coming weeks. This was our 20th year, so we wanted to tell the story of Bernie Baxter, and I was really, really worried on the run-up to this, because we did all the stuff that we normally do to promote it. We did press, we did media, we did Facebook ads, and we heard nothing back from any of it. No. There was no media coverage this year. And it was wild because there was some media coverage of the Skeleton House locally, especially when Paul Simon.

[1:09:22] McCartney. Paul McCartney went. One of the Pauls. Paul McCartney went to it, and that was pretty cool. But there was no mainstream media coverage of haunted attractions in the area at all. Yeah. Like, nothing was getting coverage, and even our 20th anniversary didn't break through. And we reached out directly to two reporters that had covered us in the past. Yeah. In addition to sending out a press release. We sent out the first round of press releases, didn't hear anything back. We sent out a second round, didn't hear anything back. And then we, like you said, contacted some reporters directly, didn't hear anything back. So nothing. We went above and beyond what we normally do. And to make matters even worse, the Facebook ad, we set aside like $50, $100, something like that. They only spent like 10. Yeah. And we know that that's nothing. If you've got a pro haunt, you're probably chuckling at us. But we don't normally spend on ads. Not much anyways. And usually... But we heard from other people in the industry that they had to double and triple the amount they spent on Facebook ads just to get some of that money going.

[1:10:40] Now, we heard that too late for us, but... Yeah. By the point we got that information, it was too late. Yeah. But we still were well attended. Mm-hmm. So, it ended up working out. It ended up all being good. The biggest issue we have, we were open three nights this year, the 24th, 25th, and 31st. Mm-hmm. I guess very quickly to describe the Haunt, A, we'll link to the team, the Misadventures a team aj video that actually showcases the inside of the haunt so you can see it but describe the haunt the first room was a series of display cabinets yeah and this was where you were so take it away okay um yeah so we we actually restructured our outside l we extended it so there's a hiding space for the person to come in behind instead of getting between the bookshelf off in the outside wall. And I think that worked pretty well. There were a few people that saw our actor in there, but not many. Yeah, and...

[1:11:49] That was a last-minute decision to do that. And when we built it, we didn't have a lot of wind. Yeah. And so we realized we had an issue with wind kind of late in the game. Yeah. So we've already got plans to redo it again for next year. Yeah. And it's going to be, I'm pretty sure it's going to have a solid door. Yeah. It's going to be totally different next year. We got big plans for the facade next year, the outside. Yeah. So, we'll talk more about that in a future episode. Next year's stuff will be later. Once you get into the haunt, I wound up building two six-foot cabinets that, because whenever Ellie was furnishing the store, we got a lot of these extra plexiglass, acrylic-y, frosted display things.

[1:12:40] And I'm like, that would make a really cool front for just a display cabinet. But for like people inside of it so that's what i did yeah and it was kind of perfect because these were like veil blocky yeah and you couldn't see what was in it yeah you could not see what was in it but you could see that something was in it yeah vaguely human shaped and so they yeah so we had two of those and one you were behind and there was a one of the higher end skeletons that we have Yeah, that's that's inside of it. It's like a pre-corpsed skeleton type thing. Yeah, the posable one from Home Depot Yeah, that's got some flesh still on it So I posed it inside of there and all I would do and we put purple lights on the other side of.

[1:13:31] On the wall and the reason for that was so that because you can't see through the glass or the acrylic whenever people would block the light i would move the little skeleton, it sounds cheesy as and it is but it got so many people yeah and basically my character was miriam, The crazy craft lady. So I had. Now you were the seamstress and the person in charge of the costuming. Exactly. I was costuming for the sideshow. Yes.

[1:14:08] And some of that means creating actors for the sideshow, which is how we worked in to the story. Why people were in danger when they were in there is because, you know, We may need more actors more and more exhibits you you look you look like you could you're too normal. Yeah.

[1:14:30] Yeah that was the original uh direction we were going to go with the character was to, but anyway um so then i would step out and be the distract because what i would do is i had safety scissors and i would say that they were not safe well because they were spring loaded i could look like i was cutting into my hand and i'd put a big gash on my hand um And then I was distracting them while the person from the entrance came in behind and scared forward. Yeah. And flushed out. Yeah. Into the aerialist room. The aerialist room is amazing. This was our masterpiece. Our pièce de résistance. Yeah. Our magnum opus. Our optimus prime. Wait a minute. That's not that. That's not that. But anyways. Yeah. You come into the room on the right-hand side, and on the left-hand side, there are boxes, like blocks. Yeah. Yeah, we built with our crew giant boxes that are set. About four feet. Four feet? Yeah. It comes up to my chest, so about four feet. Yeah, I thought that...

[1:15:45] Well, it is with the piece over it, though. Yeah. But the actual box itself was four feet tall. Yeah. And basically, we had an actor on top of it leaning over like a ledge. And they wore like a pterodactyl aerialist costume.

[1:16:03] So they made themselves bat wings. Yeah. Because they were saying that they were going to be a bat. But then they had this really cool bird mask with feathers. So it did kind of wind up like a pterodactyl yeah yeah and so but basically you would see them in that outfit not moving and we had a spinning motor this was so simple and the originally the spinning motor was supposed to spin an actual aerialist dummy but that ended up being too heavy yeah so we moved it to just streamers and things like you would see in limbs and various odds and that was lighter. Yeah. But basically, we had motion dead ahead. So as you rounded the corner into the room, you see this aerialist and you see this, you know, thing over to the left that's not moving. You see the thing that's moving in front of you. And people would focus on the movement. Yeah. Not organically. And then, Rory would come alive and spread the wings and use those wings to take up a ton of space very quickly. Yeah. Go from very small to very big. Yes. in a blink of an eye. It was beautiful. And then they would hold the attention as they went around the outside and turned left in the room. And then the sliding door would come up.

[1:17:19] And the sliding door like our our team member davison and i painted it um yeah about a night yeah it took about one night yeah because he helped me tape it off and then i put down the base coat and then he came back the the next day and we did texture on stripes so that it's a very.

[1:17:43] Disorienting disorienting pattern to hide the scare because that's one of the things if all the lines line up in a in a diagonal pattern then your brain just fills in oh that's completely normal yeah and i'm looking actually at an image from that room yeah on a big my big monitor as we're recording this and you can barely see the edges of the door and i have the advantage of looking at it from a security camera which ruins the effects um yeah and the angle of the security cameras in such a way that would ruin the effect even further but wow yeah it's hard to see even in that so it was really really well done and this way you had the distract and startle and then the startle became the distract for the next startle yeah bam bam bam yeah yeah it was it was beautiful um we are going to be doing scare uh videos this year yes on the the haunts instagram and yeah facebook page i would encourage you if you have not done so follow bernie baxter haunt on facebook and instagram we now have an instagram too if you're interested if you're interested we're going to be doing weekly scare videos every saturday um i've got the first two already done I'm going to do more probably later today, I guess, through the new year, hopefully. But yeah, this room was amazing, and it hummed so well the first two nights. Yeah. Issues on the third night, we'll get to.

[1:19:11] Uh then the third room was the one we got hosed on yeah because we were supposed to have a new actor we uh this is part of the reason that i was pulled out of my funk in september was because we had two new people reach out to us say hey we want to help out we want to be part of this and they one of them over committed themselves because they wound up their day job got really busy and and overwhelming and they ended up having another halloween role to do basically yeah and it was they could not do it and it was not their fault they were surprised and ambushed by this yeah but it was also a great opportunity to do something very fun and cool yeah with the local libraries with the local libraries so i do not fault them at all they are welcome back anytime both of them are welcome yeah anytime no it didn't work out this season with either of them but not Not for any reasons it's their fault. I'm not upset at all. But we really, really had a great idea for this room that involved our two actors there doing a knife throwing routine. Yeah.

[1:20:22] And when we lost the second actor, that idea went kaput. And we just never really figured out what to do with it. Yeah. So we still had knife throwing in there. Yeah. Because that is a sideshow attraction thing. Yeah. but we.

[1:20:43] It just, it did, we couldn't figure out how it was going to work. How, what the scare was going to be in there. Yeah, and the actor who was in there told me, don't worry about it, it's going to be great. And they actually did pretty good with it. And we had various other scare elements in there, like the slam board.

[1:21:03] Slam board, and we gave her a shovel to help chase people, because we knew that people were going to get stuck before the next room. Which was the closet sequence yeah bernie's closet basically yeah hung up a bunch of random clothes and this was a genius moment of haunt tactics because we pushed you did this you hung the clothes in such a way that it pushed people to the left of the room yeah right in front of the scare which a was right in front of the three bernie heads we had old bernie masks from years gone by mounted on heads and then all of that was in front of the breakaway wall yeah which you popped out of, and that flushed people out um into the exit and yeah it it was a weld other than the third room not having a central thesis yeah because i because by the time that we realized we weren't going to have two people. Our actress had already spent money and built their own costume.

[1:22:14] We we do reimburse or try to reimburse our actors hardly ever take it but we try to reimburse when they build their own costumes and stuff and it was a great costume it's great out yeah and she was excited about the role so it worked out well i mean she did well in that space but i still feel bad that there was not like a central design thesis to it yeah i mean i do love the uh the wagon wheel wall that you made. That's going to be really cool as a ceiling prop this year and next year, I think. Because basically, she, Crystal zip tied a bunch of wooden wagon wheels together like in a random chaotic order to make a very bizarre wall pattern. And this was the cover up a corner that was, has a counter. Yeah, countering cabinets. And it's always a space that's hard to disguise.

[1:23:08] So, despite the challenges we faced, we had great turnout. The first night, Friday night, was pretty gangbusters, actually. The second night, we were nerfed by bad weather. Yeah, bad weather, and we were up against the Halloween parade, because we have a crew of Boo Parade here every year. And the problem was, the weather didn't actually overlap with the one when we were open. Nope. it ended like an hour before opening but a it caused the parade to be delayed yep and b it caused people to cancel plans because there was the threat of rain the whole time never had a drop during any of the hours we were open but there was the threat and that was the problem no so people just weren't willing to come out and you know that night was slow and had some drag yeah But Halloween was gangbusters, ball to the wall, go, go, go, go. But the actor who played the bat ended up needing emergency surgery. Yeah, they went into the hospital Wednesday night. Yeah. Remember, this was a Friday, Saturday, and then six days until Friday, Halloween.

[1:24:29] So, we found out Wednesday night that they were going into the hospital. She is, they are fine. Yeah. They're actually doing great. Yeah. They're doing better than they have in a decade. So, let me put that out there first. But they did have, but they passed out from pain. And it's a pain that's been building for a decade that the doctors just have misdiagnosed or not looked into. Dismissed. Yeah. Largely dismissed. And then it came to a head on Wednesday, emergency surgery, Friday morning. Luckily, her partners were able to come and act because she was in a good enough, they were in a good enough place where they could be left alone. They were, as described by her partners, drugged high and loving it and sleeping. Yeah, and not having the constant pain that had been there forever. And living their best life. so they could be left alone for a few hours but it did mean a that we couldn't do the rise trip the next night like we talked about and that we were down a key actor now we did get someone from reddit to fill a role yeah but then the door broke halfway through the night and.

[1:25:48] This is going to be an issue we deal with with the actors but because we've been watching the security camera footage yeah the door was having issues on friday night yeah night one night one and they never let us know they never let us know that things were all for weird we probably could have prevented it breaking if we had known yeah instead we ended up having a break and there was just no way to get it back working so for the last hour of halloween night which luckily was the slowest hour.

[1:26:22] Um, all in all though, it was a great Halloween season. Yeah. I really, the numbers were solid. We were about as good as last year. Um. Yeah. Maybe a little down because of Saturday night. Mm-hmm. But Halloween was wonderful. Friday night was great. And even though Saturday was slow, the scares and the reactions and the feedback were all positive. Yeah. So, all in all, I feel like it was a successful Halloween season. Mm-hmm. Me too. So I think that brings us back up to speed. And this has been about an hour and a half. It's like a double-length episode. Yeah. Want to just leave it there? Yeah, I think so.

[1:27:01] Well, on that note, this has been a special edition of Haunt Weekly. Thank you all for your patience with us. Thank you for checking on us. Yes. And thank you for sticking with us through what has been a very rough time. Please do follow us at the places we exist. We're at hauntweekly.com. Haunt weekly on youtube and of course you can find us at hauntweekly.com subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts from we will let you know how we'll be handling things moving forward but until next time i'm jonathan i'm crystal and we'll see you all hopefully much more quickly than we did last time yeah see you then.