155 days till Halloweekends!

P.S. - Thanks for reading all of that.

If you are a Screamster and have any insight on why you disagree with my opinions, just let me know. Every haunt is different and has it's own rules and regs.

Happy Haunting!

Glad you enjoyed it Matt. You should come by my house on halloween for my neighborhood haunted house.;)

It's going to be awesome this year! :)

When do you do it Adam, just Halloween night or the whole weekend? We'll be heading to Sandusky on the Friday of closing weekend, just not sure what time. It isn't far out of the way, I'd love to stop by if it works out with our departure time.

Matt, thanks for the for the opinion. The haunted house problem with the lines is partly because there are just so many people in line they've got to keep cycling them through. the door folks do the best they can, but they've got to try to judge how fast the house is moving inside and balance that with the need to cram more people in. As far as the huge groups, the screamsters inside are trained to hit the middle of the group so that they get the front part, the middle, and the back. sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. and now I gotta start getting ready for another night.

I just got back from King's Island for my 2nd ever Halloween Haunt, and all my opinions from earlier in this thread stand...they just know how to do haunted houses better. I haven't been to Halloweekends yet this year, but I hate that I'm seeing the stacking complaints already.

For reference, King's Island let groups of 2 to 6 (greeter said max was 6) through the houses all night, and I never once ran into a stacking problem. Yes, the lines were 30 minutes to 1.5 hours, but it was better than waiting just to stack into a haunted house with all ruined scares. Again, 2 must-see houses are "Urgent Scare" and "Club Blood" at King's Island. They'll instantly make you understand how different King's Island's event is from Cedar Point's. Also, the King's Island opening frenzy once again just brought a huge smile on my face...the chaos and screams everywhere at once has such a lasting impression!

Vince, I only do it on Halloween. I'd do it more often but it wouldn't work out. I tried to have it open for 3 days once (even advertising it) but no one showed up so I gave up. You're more than welcome to stop by and and check it out.

Unfortunately I'll be in Sandusky on Halloween and won't be home until late. Best of luck though!

Just as a guess I would say opening Saturday the CP house lines got upwards of 2 hours+, but I could be wrong.

I feel like KI may not have matched CP's crowds last weekend but again I could be wrong!

On the plus side for Cedar Point, I like that there are great outdoor scare zones (Fright Zone & Terror Island) that you don't need to wait in line for. The thick fog and lights used often still allow great scares with the masses of people. All of King's Island's outdoor scare mazes required you to wait in line just as long as haunted houses.

Sure walking through a heavily fogged forest with no people is infinitely scarier than walking through a path crowded with people. But with Cedar Point's format, you feel like you're adding a fun attraction to the list of things to do while simply walking through the park.

Woot! Terror Island! Glad you had fun and enjoyed your trip! Thanks for the feedback and glad you liked our zone best :)

I think they need to put CarnEvil back where it was over by ocean motion. There is nothing on that side of the park anymore besides Jack's. I don't see the point of having 2 outdoor zones (Carnevil and Terror Island) right next to each other.

They could put FF over there...

Is this the first year that Fear Faire is one-way-only? Today we noticed the "exit only" sign on the Jack Aldrich Theatre end of the zone.

This is thew first Year Fear Fair is one way, Unfortunately the Tecs didn't know that when setting up the lights. The zone is filled with lights that are pretty much useless for hiding in. Just means we have to work harder to scare the guests, I personally feel like I'm doing better every night I'm in the zone. Its challenging and like the overlord says there's a lot of improvisation needed!

On a side note, I really wish I could visit the other Zones. I was able to go through the houses last Sunday and was sadly disappointed, Nothing against the screamsters they did a great job creating a persona and really working will with the area, I want's scared or startled at any time though. I will say to me Eeriee Estates was the creepiest and had some of the best characters I saw.

Fear Faire did receive some pretty decent changes between last year and this year, and in my opinion, the zone is much improved due to it. The one way thing is a result of those changes.

Matt- Thank you for your review. I'm glad you liked our entrance into the zone and my queue line gig. I've been kicking around a few ideas on how further improve both of those things, but I'm not sure when I'm going to implement them.

As for the clumping in the houses, the biggest problem I've noticed is simply guests not moving quick enough. I seem to usually run into the group ahead of me after about 3 or 4 rooms, and they've usually run into the group ahead of them at that point. It's like when you have that one guy who's 10 cars in front of you who's doing 10 under the speed limit creating a line behind him. Short of putting even larger gaps between groups (making for even longer lines) I'm not sure what the proper solution is, and I suspect it's something that most haunted houses struggle with. The only one I've seen personally that didn't seem to have that problem was one where every group had a "guide" to lead them room to room.

Kevin, you also need to realize that not every light is put up just for Screamsters to hide in. Scenes must be lit for themeing, as well as just for the fact that they need to be lit for safety reasons. But it is good to hear that you adapt rather then complain, who needs lights when you have a good rubber chicken right?

I guarentee that FF has some of the best Techs in the business who know what they are doing.

TTD 120mph said:
Glad you enjoyed it Matt. You should come by my house on halloween for my neighborhood haunted house.;)

It's going to be awesome this year! :)

I would if you were in the Indianapolis, IN area. The group of guys that build and run the old Necropolis are doing a Mid-West tour this year of haunts. This past weekend was in Toledo, Ponticac, MI and Sandusky to Ghostly Manor.

josh88 said:
Matt, thanks for the for the opinion. The haunted house problem with the lines is partly because there are just so many people in line they've got to keep cycling them through. the door folks do the best they can, but they've got to try to judge how fast the house is moving inside and balance that with the need to cram more people in. As far as the huge groups, the screamsters inside are trained to hit the middle of the group so that they get the front part, the middle, and the back. sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. and now I gotta start getting ready for another night.

I totally understand that concept. The only way around it is making people wait in line for a couple hours to eliminate that mess. At my old haunt, we had security guards/guys that ran each individual house where we could speed up or slow down to accomodate the crowds. We were always in contact with our "gatekeepers" and their speed.

Ralph Wiggum said:
Fear Faire did receive some pretty decent changes between last year and this year, and in my opinion, the zone is much improved due to it. The one way thing is a result of those changes.

Matt- Thank you for your review. I'm glad you liked our entrance into the zone and my queue line gig. I've been kicking around a few ideas on how further improve both of those things, but I'm not sure when I'm going to implement them.

As for the clumping in the houses, the biggest problem I've noticed is simply guests not moving quick enough. I seem to usually run into the group ahead of me after about 3 or 4 rooms, and they've usually run into the group ahead of them at that point. It's like when you have that one guy who's 10 cars in front of you who's doing 10 under the speed limit creating a line behind him. Short of putting even larger gaps between groups (making for even longer lines) I'm not sure what the proper solution is, and I suspect it's something that most haunted houses struggle with. The only one I've seen personally that didn't seem to have that problem was one where every group had a "guide" to lead them room to room.

This is one thing that always drove me nuts as a security guard/show maintenance personnel, Ralph. I can relate 100%. There really is no fix to this problem. It has to happen everywhere. Even at our old haunt, which was about 30,000 sq ft, we encountered this later in October each year. We would end up sending groups of up to 6 people every 30 seconds. 30 seconds is a long time if you are walking in daylight. But take away the daylight, add scares, foggers, not being able to see in front of you that well, and 30 seconds becomes smaller and smaller. It sucks, but it is what it is. That's when the screamsters have to do their best to pop out, reset and then pop out again. Continue that process until the whole group has gone through.

Your mom is to fat to ride TTD. said:
I think they need to put CarnEvil back where it was over by ocean motion. There is nothing on that side of the park anymore besides Jack's. I don't see the point of having 2 outdoor zones (Carnevil and Terror Island) right next to each other.

I think part of the reasoning behind the move was to get the "adult" haunted area away from the brand new kids area. Yes, it puts 2 of the adult haunts next to each other, but it allows them to make the newest kid area more kid friendly.