Recreation Guy

So with less than 2 weeks to go, most of my time is going to be spent on getting this event ready. The “haunted house” is actually going to be in a small community center. We have one room divided by a partition to work with. It’s taken some creative planning but we’ll have a pretty decent haunt when the time comes.

We decided that the first hour of our haunted house is going to be more of a trick or treat version. Most of the lights will be on and little kids and their parents can come through and get candy from the actors. Then we’ll take a 30 minute break so that we can all get ready for the scary version.

Outside we’ll have snacks available, glow necklaces and bracelets for sale, a magician to entertain people waiting in line, and a face painter and bounce house for the kids. We’ll also have one of the kids from my DJ class playing some Halloween music and sounds.

My To Do List
Much of the stuff that I need to do could have been done weeks ago had we firmed up our plans on what we were going to have happen in the haunted house. I still have a lot of things I need to get or order. A number of the things I need could be donated but we’re having a hard time finding people or business owners willing to do that. It looks as though we’ll need to purchase and make nearly everything. I figure this year we’ll spend much more than we’ll take in, but we’ll be able to use most of it next year.

• Make Walls – I still don’t know if I’m going to use wood or PVC pipes.
• Talk to fire department about safety issues – I do know that we’ll have to use a good amount of fire retardant spray.
• Purchase more lighting, props and costumes.
• Create some dummy scarecrows and victims.
• Find 15 more volunteers – This is a biggy. Adult volunteers are not easy to get in our area for some reason. At least not for something like this.
• Get the word out – A Halloween event is no good if only a handful of people show up.
• Hold a training/rehearsal for the actors.
• Put together and decorate the haunt – Because the center is constantly being used we’ll have to put everything together the day before the event.

I have found a lot of great resources (most of which I had to purchase). I also found a lot of garbage. Here are the sites that I either found free info at or bought from:

http://hauntedhousefundraiser.info/ – ebook
http://www.hauntedprops.com – I like their sound effects CDs (Poison)
http://halloweenmonsterlist.info/ – a free resource on how to make many different props
http://www.spirithalloween.com/ – I usually go to the local Spirit store, but there are more products available on the website.

Videos like what you see below from ExpertVillage.com. There are more videos on that website like this one.

There are a few more sites that I used including ebay. Over the next two weeks I’ll be writing about the progress we are making on the event, including what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.

If you have any suggestions please let me know by leaving a comment.