Haunted Halloween Trail 2022 – Prep and Build

Okay, this is getting absolutely ridiculous. It is now 9 months since our annual Haunted Halloween Trail event and I still haven’t published the traditional walk-thrus. I am constantly reminded of this every time I try to make a reference to it in a post and I’m unable to find a link to it. Well, that procrastination ends today. Being open and honest we just got back from a 4 day agility show in Michigan. Translated – 20 minutes of activity during the runs and then a whole lot of waiting around in between. A perfect time to plow through the heavy load of images and get the posts prepped for publish. All I need to do now is add some word decorations and we are good to go…without further delay, here is the first of a haunted three part series – the prep and build.

Hit the jump to read all about how this mess above all comes together for our epic haunt.

Several years ago, the Haunted Trail crested over the single day event timeframe. Up to that point we would haul everything out into the woods and set it up the day of the event. In fact, we would pull it all back off starting around 2am once all the guests had their fill of scares and headed home to a sleepless night. We usually had a couple of helpers for the setup along with Ron and Linda. Tear down went a lot faster as we didn’t have to be extra careful we didn’t break anything like we did during setup. Why the yeoman’s effort – simple….weather.

The prop controllers and all the batteries were not tolerant of a soaking – an all too common happening during the timeframe we held the event. That was then. Now our trail is nearly a mile long and loaded from end to end with a cornucopia of scares and thrills. More props, more help and more attention to detail has pushed prep out to multiple weeks and minimally a week just in the trail build. Our prop controllers are all weather hardened now, so the rain tolerant props can go out ahead of time leaving the day of the event to focus on the specialty props and troubleshooting.

The prop weeks get Linda a bit edgy as the basement is converted into the “lab”. Almost all the props require some kind of assembly and//or minimally battery load. Prime directive for our props is space efficiency. I have a finite amount of space every year set aside for storage. There is growth allowance, but we do our best to keep it as tight as we can. For two solid weeks we put all the pieces together, fix what broke last year, enhance what didn’t work as intended the year before and test the prop electronics and their proprietary proximity controllers.

This year the effort was a bit overwhelming. The new ’22 pieces took up a lot of space once put together and I had a lot of ideas I wanted to try out on some of the older ones – we try out best to keep it fresh from year to year. Slowly one by one the Posies are assembled and the rest of the props get their batteries installed. Huge credit to Linda on the battery front as she usually ends up helping on that phase. ONE stipulation – the basement MUST be cleared two days prior to the event so she can prep for the tables, chairs, food, drinks etc. Trust me, this is on my mind from sun up to the wee hours in the morning – look at this mess!

The Posies and large assembly projects are the first focus. Once prepped, they can be set aside to free up space. The large reaper on the left is a new prop for this year that Linda bought me – she gets me ha.

Wait a minute, I think something just moved in the corner…

Yes, I am sure it moved, in fact one of those Posies looks new…

Yes, THAT ONE! Umm, honey, we may have a problem… Linda did you leave the basement door open again!?!

The signature props from each year usually take the most time. The first year we are usually rushing to get them out on the trail in time and sometimes we have to compromise on the finishing. The entire year between events we work on enhancing the existing props and the lab is constantly cranking out new ones. The Coffin Opener needed a new support added to keep it upright (it was trimmed and painted black of course) and additional work trying to make it smoother – also changed the red connectors for white ones (something we let go in its debut year).

Ned needed some work as well as he was having some issues with its legs and the mechanism spinning the small girl would start slipping as the night went on. He is rock solid now and worked perfectly this year.

Now, I have heard of a “horse’s ass” but this is a new one ha!!

Hopefully a mob boss won’t try to use this horse in one of their “send a warning” messages. Eventually the battery work gets done and the assembly phase completes – ugh, who am I kidding, as hard as I try, Linda’s deadline always comes earlier than I need. Time to start moving what’s done out to the trail. This is the point we bring in my Friends in Haunt – this is the hardest part of the entire event. This year Dan (below) was a huge help as several of our regulars were out of town.

We sit atop a large wooded valley with a rather long steepish descent to get down there. We used to haul everything by hand to keep it from getting damaged, but our haul process has improved over the years as well. Once the year’s trail is planned, sections are numbered and assigned tubs are loaded with the corresponding props. Those are then trailered down and dropped off at the designated spots.

The larger props like the Posies are a bit more difficult as they are already fully assembled. These are mostly PVC so they are pretty durable – just need to make sure they stay on the trailer during the decent. The more delicate props need more care and get individually hauled.

Sometimes there is special handling needed like the Posies with animatronics in the shot below. Doesn’t make for the most comfortable trip down.

I mentioned that some of the props get a makeover to change them up a bit and improve the experience. The Grim Reaper was one in that category this year. It was probably 7 feet tall originally – decided to add several more feet to make it more intimidating this year. The pictures lose perspective on the trail, so we took some candids with the new improved model.

How scary is that! Note, referring to the creepy dude on the right in the following shot.

More props needing personal attention. I feel bad for Dan as he had to deal with most of these while I navigated down the path trying not to hit any trees.

Hmmm, what is this – did someone find a dino on the property, those are some large leg bones.

Ribcage as big as the UTV, now this is getting interesting. Seems like another Friend in Haunt (Brad) has brought over something special from his collection. We shall see what comes of this in the walk-thru posts.

Ron was once again a huge help with the haunting. In addition to all the constant calls about wiring and other technical things over the course of the year (he designed our proprietary controllers by the way), he also comes down multiple weekends ahead of time to help in the assembly process and there days before the event to help put it all together. I think he has the haunt bug as well.

 

Here he is hauling down this year’s signature prop.  Talk about pushing a deadline, it had a late hour fault and didn’t make it out the first night..these are actually shots from the morning of the second day – this is when we get to fix all the things that may not have gone “perfect” the night before – one year we had to debug the entire electrical runs thanks to a water fault from a downpour during the first night.

Here I am the second morning of the haunt after spending all night getting the kinks worked out of our little spiked zombie. You will get to see how the mechanics work on this prop once the other two parts of the series are released.

That just left the big featured prop for this year. It needs a lot of work to get set up and due to being the first time on the trail it was slotted to be tackled first thing the morning of.

Which brings us to the morning of! Tried to get some decent sleep the night before knowing there would be little of that for the next couple of days. As mentioned, the first job was to get the new Pumpkin Arch up. The arch frames were built sturdy enough to support the frame and pumpkins, but they still had to be level and anchored into the ground. You can see the mating pipe through the back that the arch frame sits in. That actually took way longer than originally planned.

Once the pillars were leveled and anchored into the ground the stone facade was attached – now that did go as smoothly as planned.

Now we were ready for the pumpkin and the large PVC frame that holds them up. Linda was quite pleased once they were all removed from the basement so she could finish that up for the day.

Just to show you how the pumpkins attached, the frame structure locked into the PVC pipes in the pillars and then the pumpkins were slid over the support pipes in the back and so on up and around the arch.

See how happy Linda is not that the basement is cleared!

…and here you go, the Great Pumpkin Arch of 2022. If you want to learn more about how we made this prop, you can find all the details in the tutorial posts (starting here).

The arch was a big hit this year and will be a staple for years to come. Hopefully, these two shots give you a feel for just how big it is. I needed to be able to get the UTV through it so that was the driving dimensions.

Going to spoil you and show you a shot from the upcoming Day Walker post. I’m pretty proud of this as it came out exactly ..if not better..than I originally had planned. That represents a solid 8-9 months of work.

True to my word, here are some shots of the cleared basement the night before the event..I technically missed the deadline by a day and it wasn’t completely cleared, but from where I started it is a miracle it was anywhere near this clean.

Just so you don’t think I just moved everything to the back of the camera, it’s clear that way too ha! Believe this was 2am.

With the prep done and almost all the props down in the valley, the real stress begins….finishing details, final check of the wiring, make sure all the mechanics are working, all the caution tape up so no one gets hurt and then final walk–thrus to turn everything on before the guest start arriving. I could probably use a nap about now.

Hope you enjoyed this first part of the Haunted Trail 2022 series. Stay tuned, the other two parts will be coming soon.