Mark’s Haunted Garage

Spooktacular took place at Harris Hill elementary school last night.  2010 was the fourth year that I was in charge of setting up and running the haunted house for Spooktacular.  I was able to get plenty of people to help with the acting during the event, but I had trouble getting people to help me set up, mostly because setup was taking place during the day while everyone was working.  As a result, I only had one other person, besides my wife and I, to help with setup.  Fortunately, because we were setting it up on the stage, which the school did not need to use during the day, I was able to start setting up whenever I was ready.  In years past, when we had used the boys’ locker room, we weren’t allowed to start setting up until 2:30, which just wouldn’t have worked, but as it was, I was able to start setting up before 10:30.  We were pretty much done with setup by 2:30.  This left time for me to take some pictures and video and still have time to get home, relax, have dinner, and get back over there to be ready to open up on time.

For the event itself, 7 people volunteered to be actors, in addition to myself, so the haunted house was well staffed.  Things went very well that night.  Except for the “monster in the box” (MITB) prop, all the props worked properly through the night.  The MITB had to be taken out of service somewhere around 8pm, at which point it was done for the night.

Pictures of the haunted house at Spooktacular are posted at http://markshauntedgarage.com/pictures/2010/spooktacular.php

We’re two days into setting up the garage for 2010, and things are going pretty well.  Most of the electronics are up and running.  No major setbacks there.  That went pretty smoothly.  I had one minor scare for about 15 minutes where I thought the MP3 board in my main prop wasn’t working, but it turned out to just be a lose connection.

We’ve started the detail work in one room.  I’ve got another 2 days off of work.  I think by the end of that, the garage should be looking pretty good.  There will still be a bunch of stuff in the middle of it that we’re going to have to move over to Harris Hill elementary school for Spooktacular in a couple weeks, but once Spooktacular is over, and I can get that stuff out of there, it shouldn’t take too long to finish up.  I’ll essentially have 2 weekends after Spooktacular to finish up the garage.  Barring a catastrophe, it shouldn’t be any problem.

I received an email today asking if I would run the haunted house at Spooktacular again this year. I replied back that I would do it. So, it looks like I will be running the haunted house again this year. It will be my fourth year doing it. It’s going to be held on Friday, October 22, 2010.

The WNY Haunters held their final gathering of 2009 on Saturday, December 12, 2009 at Karl’s house.  Unfortunately, there was a big accident on the NYS Thruway that blocked all the west-bound traffic between exits 48a and 49.  My family and I sat in traffic for 3 hours waiting to either get through or get turned around.  Eventually, the state troopers got the left lane moving and got us turned around at a U-turn.  This was at 3pm.  Since we would have needed to leave Karl’s house by 7pm at the latest, we had already decided that we would just head home.  Good thing.  Exit 48 was extremely backed up since all west-bound traffic was being directed off at that point.  It would have taken another hour or more to get off at that exit, I suspect.  I later found out that Katy, who was also held up in this traffic, did make it to Karl’s, but didn’t get there until 7pm.

It was a good, but not great, year at Mark’s Haunted Garage in 2009.  A total of 114 kids came through, plus an unknown number of adults.  This is a record for our Penfield, NY haunt, but not our best ever.  We had 162 kids in 2004 at our Henrietta, NY house.  I guess that gives me something to strive for.  On the other hand, I have heard of 3 fellow WNY haunters that had their haunts shut down in 2009, so there could be some drawbacks to becoming too large.

The second night I was open, Sunday, November 1, did not work out very well.  Only 2 groups came, both of which I knew.  Since there doesn’t seem to be a demand to be open a second night, I think I’ll go back to only being open on Halloween night in 2010.  This actually works out, as I’m not sure which night I would have done the second night.  If I am asked to do the Harris Hill Spooktacular spook house again in 2010, I suspect that will be on Friday, October 29.  Since I would really prefer to have at least 1 day in between Spooktacular and a day that I open my garage, Saturday, October 30 would not have worked well for me.  And, since Halloween will be on a Sunday, the night following Halloween would be a Monday, so that probably wouldn’t work out too well.  So, I’m probably just better off not doing a second night in 2010.

Pictures and a video walk-through of the 2009 garage are posted here.  At this point, the garage is completely cleaned out, and most of the yard decorations are in the basement as well.  Now, I just need to organize everything in the basement.  Then, I can start planning for next year.

Harris Hill’s Spooktacular 2009 has come and gone.  It was a good night in the spook house.  The new location on the stage worked out very well.  We were able to create a usable path through the stage, and the noise from the cafeteria was not as bad as I feared it would be.  Since Erin won’t be running Spooktacular next year, I don’t know for sure that I will be asked to run the spook house next year, but if I am, I will definitely push for using the stage again.

Pictures and (eventually) video of the spook house have been posted.  Now, it is time to get the Garage ready for Halloween night and the night after.

Back in June, I mentioned that I might have the Haunted Garage open on Friday, October 30.  I have now decided that the garage will NOT be open that night.  Instead, in addition to being open on Halloween night, it will also be open on Sunday, November 1 from 6pm to 8pm.  This will give a second opportunity to go through the garage in case the weather isn’t that great on Halloween or if you just aren’t able to make it out that night.

Setup of Mark’s Haunted Garage begins in one week.  I’ve got a couple of small things to finish up, but basically, I’ve done everything I can until I’ve got everything in the garage.  Unfortunately, I’ve got to reserve some space in the garage for all the stuff I need to take to Harris Hill’s Spooktacular, but that’s the price I pay for taking on two haunts in October.  So, there will be one scene I can’t set up  until after Spooktacular, but just about everything else will be all set.  Fortunately, Spooktacular is not on October 30th, or I’d have problems.

There are a little more than 4 weeks left until Spooktacular, and 5 weeks untill Halloween.  Prop construction is going well.  Most of the props are as finished as they can be until I’m ready to start setting up the garage.  That will probably begin in about 3 weeks.

I’m told that the boys’ locker room at Harris Hill elementary school has been transformed into some other kind of space and so is no longer available for the Spooktacular spook house.  Instead, after walking around the school looking for the ideal place for it, it looks like the spook house will be on the stage this year.  It is a bigger area with some built-in lighting, but it is no longer an enclosed area like we had before, so I’m not sure whether this will be an improvement or not.  I could see it going either way.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out this year.  Hopefully, it will work out, as I didn’t really find any other suitable areas in the school where I thought it would be an effective place to run the spook house.