halloween at kings island

its the unfortunate downside, CP is the "family park" so there's not as much gore (though thats a fine line because theres a point where some blood helps, but too much and then you cheapen it and its a joke) and there are lots of things you can't say or do that you might get away with at another park. It's tough to train 400 people. you stress do these type of things so they A. don't get in trouble doing dumb stuff. B. so they have a better understanding of techniques that work and are effective. C. Aren't just going out there clueless.

At the same time you try to stress, try new things, don't stick rigidly to these things, experiment, create a character and commit to it. Some people get it, some people don't. KI has some good folk, wish I had more time that I could visit each year.

Ffej said:It was as if CP's Screamsters were much more trained, robotic, and given strict boundaries of what they could do as a whole...

You nailed it.

^I agree to a point, like Josh said, there are many who work that way, there are also many who do more.

Personally I was a robot for the first two weeks I worked, then I figured out something unique that worked for me and ever since then I have been improving on that "character".

As for the costumes, if the Screamster hides in the fog and lights that are set up for him/her you shouldn't be able to see them costume or not.

Cedar point scares are more based on suspense than blood and gore. Which can really get your blood flowing. You got to remember that Cedar Point won the frightmaster award which is a award that is giving out to the best haunted attraction in Ohio.

Is tht just for amusement parks? Haunted Hoochie near Cbus should definately win something. That was amazing.

Has anyone ever been to Kennywood's Halloween event? How is it? Are all the rides open with the haunt attractions?

^^ hauntedhousetour.com

From their review:

The greatest thing about this haunt [Erie Estates] and a lot of the haunts we toured here was that they don't rely on all of the overdone blood, gore, and screaming to get a scare. You really have a lot of stuff that is just down right creepy and not so much just jumping out and yelling "boo." They went back to the basics of what is scary and put on a really great experience.

pointperson said:
Has anyone ever been to Kennywood's Halloween event? How is it? Are all the rides open with the haunt attractions?

Kennywood's event is actually really good - almost all of the rides are open (the big ones anyway) and they have lots of haunted attractions which are really well done.

Your mom is to fat to ride TTD. said:
Is tht just for amusement parks? Haunted Hoochie near Cbus should definately win something. That was amazing.

Last year they did Cedar Point as well as Kings Island and I believe those were the only amusement parks they included the rest of the places they visited and rated were regular haunts in the area, OH, KY, and IN.
Doesn't look like they've ever gone there to rate it.

I do agree that Happy Jacks and Eerie Estates were amazing additions to Halloweekends for their detailed sets last year. However, while they could have been incredible, they both failed to scare me for 3 reasons (I went through each about 3 times last season):

1. Horrible stacking. There were many points (in both HJ & EE) where it was a line of slow-herding sheep, which ruined the whole experience. I tried to correct the issue by stopping at several points...but it was causing upset people behind us trying to push through, and it was causing even more stacking behind us.

2. Areas were too open. Because of the large volume of guests moving through, amusement park haunted houses need many closed up areas to work imo. These 2 haunted houses had clear, open paths. This is great from a fire safety stand point (which is probably why they're like this), but the worst enemy for haunted houses with stacking people. You could see everything coming. Urgent Scare @ KI managed to avoid this problem with many closed up curtains to walk through.

3. Too much consistent light. Again, this may have been a trade off for fire safety. The scariest haunts seem to have inconsistent lighting. You can appreciate the detailed sets in some well lit rooms....then move into near blackness with a startling blast of light or strobes, etc. If I remember correctly, Eeries Estates and Happy Jacks just had a dim to medium light the whole way through.

I think #2 & #3 could be non-issue if #1 was eliminated though.

I totally agree with you. As working in Happy Jacks last year I totally agree that they let to many people in thr house at a time. The reason why they were so crowded in Happy Jacks was because of the mirror room. People would get lost in that room for 5 mins by the time that the group find the end the next group is already in the house. There would be so many people in the room after scaring them they would usually just stand there looking at you.

Even with them letting way to many people in the lines were still over an hour. I'd hate to see the line when they let groups of 5 go through every 6 minutes.

Your mom is to fat to ride TTD. said:
Even with them letting way to many people in the lines were still over an hour. I'd hate to see the line when they let groups of 5 go through every 6 minutes.

Exactly...also, totally agree with the mirror room being a big cause of the stacking, as cool as it was (though I always wanted something scary to pop out from behind a mirror, and it didn't deliver).

The only viable solution is to add a bunch of black curtains or rearrange the paths to avoid the many long, open, halls and rooms. King's Island did a ton of blocking with curtains from what I remember, and every curtain had the suspense of what would be behind it. It was kind of a cheap way to add scares, but it worked (especially judging by the number of deafening screams).

The really ironic part about that is that the mirrors had arrows pointing people in the right direction.

When I ran a haunted house, we had actors posted in bottleneck areas to move groups thru quicker. This seemed to work really well.

No matter if you wait 2 min, or 5 min between groups, there is still going to be a stacking problem. The problem is that some groups move faster than others do.

And you can't realy wait too long between groups, if you have a long line.

KI is much better than CP. and its dark enough to ride the beast in pitch darkness.

I'm pretty sure we just did that last week. Haunt is not the only time you can ride beast in the dark.

true, but it is darker at an eaarlier time, and the park is open later, so you have the oppurtunity for more rides...

Wrong! Kings Island has more hours on a Saturday in July (14 hours of operation), compared to a Saturday in October (13 hours of operation).

I think he means hours when it is dark. When they are open till 1AM thats when there are the most hours when its dark.