How to Create a Haunted House
So....you got stuck doing the haunted house by the committee... we're going to help you tackle this seemingly impossible task and emerge as a hero...that's the plan anyway....
Hire a haunted House
This is the obvious choice but it's a little cost prohibitive for many parties. To have a crew bring everything you need, set it up in a day or two, and have wonderful props, monsters, lighting, sound, and someone to run it takes a large team of performers, a couple of moving trucks full of plywood walls, a tent and lots of expensive Halloween props. Costs can range from $15-30K for a turn-key haunt. If you're planning an event for a large company or a big HOA, this might be your best and less stressful option.
haunted hay ride
This option eliminates to need for a tent or dedicated structure for your haunt. Everyone loves a hayride and adding a few monsters makes it full of surprises. If you know someone responsible with a trailer and a truck, they can put some lights on it and load it with hay bales for your guests to sit on. If you'd like to us to take care of it, you can book it here. Our professionals have a lot of experience and are fully insured.
We can also set up your hayride with a character storyteller dressed for the part who will tell your group ghost stories that set up the upcoming scare. We provide a PA with background music and effects and a microphone for your host.
For monsters, you can use volunteers from your community or we can provide realistic zombies, ghouls, witches or family friendly monsters (for younger audiences). Doing it yourself? Hire a makeup artist or body painter to get your monsters ready before showtime.
haunted building
We have a client hire us for years that uses a few of their spare office rooms for a haunt. The setup is minimal since we already have walls and doors in place so only a few dividers and props are needed. There's no need to worry about bad weather destroying the event either. Have a rental house that's not rented or a warehouse with unused spaces? We've even set up a haunted house in a parking garage. Parking garages have "creepy" naturally built in.
We can provide monsters or get you a makeup artist to "scary up" your volunteers.
Alien laser maze/ Haunted Inflatable
If you have a small party and all your rooms are being used, we have the perfect solution. You can rent an alien maze and put some aliens or other space creatures in it and everyone has laser guns. How fun is that? The unit looks like a giant UFO crashed in your backyard. Set up and break down takes very little time. There's also a bouncy moonwalk maze with a Halloween theme.
tent or pavilion
If you're going to create your own weather-proof haunted house, you'll either need an empty building, a pavilion, or a tent. Not having a roof increases the risk of rain destroying your electronics and not having your haunt be dark enough. Your tent will need walls, but will probably have windows. You can cover these with black plastic (available at Lowe's or Home Depot or use them for a cool Halloween effect with a video projector outside the tent and a white sheet. At least a 40 x 40 is recommended, but you can make a small haunt with a 20 x 40 or 20 x 30. You'll need to create walls to separate rooms. The best way is to build them with plywood and paint them black, but this require a crew, a large expense and storage for the rest of the year. A low-tech option is to use black plastic walls hung from the an overhead line and weighted at the bottom to keep the walls from moving. You can also create your own walls using PVC pipe and plastic walls.You can find lots of plans online for creating your own haunt.
haunted forest
If you're confident that there won't be inclement weather, a haunted forest is a fairly easy solution to a haunt. You can set up a graveyard and use the trees as supports and places for monsters to hide behind. If there's enough room, you can park "abandoned cars" or military looking stuff with zombies in or around them for an apocalyptic look.