What should come and go for Halloweekends?

Also, Knotts manages to stay open 7 days a week in the fall due to their location. CP could never do that.

I just hope that CP follows KI's lead and stays open an extra hour every night (ie close at 1 am.)

There's a big enough problem with people not scaring or saying the wrong things or doing the wrong things in the zones as it is. Unleash those same people in the park, not good. It'd be fun, but I wouldn't go for it.

I think it might be time for somebody to grow up and act their age and not worry about the past!

Grow up? It's not the past, it's happened since I joined a few years ago. So that wouldn't be the past but a repeated thing with different people. Be there a few years and look around and see what's going on. You'll see there's a a lot of Screamsters not doing their part and you'll understand where I am coming from.

^Pretty much what Zeek said. Even now you have half of the Screamsters in a zone not doing what they are suppose to be doing or staying in their areas. Let the Screamsters roam the entire park and you are basically paying people to sit in a break area. Plus on a good night, Cedar Point will only have 130 Screamsters show up. That is not enough to let roam the entire park for the amount of guests that are in the park on a Halloweekends night in October.

This is just ONE of the MANY reason it wont ever happen. Not to mention that at places like Knotts and HHN, they too are confined to "zones". Its NOT free roam of the entire park!

If I am not mistaken knotts is also 1\3 the size of Cedar Point. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Knotts also has the benefit of a large pool of actors who cant find a steady acting job.

Although I still think it would be a lot of fun, I wonder how much worse the security problems would be. We have enough problems within the zones, and there are only a few police on some nights. Could you imagine the issues there would be if we had free range of the park, or even a large open section of it.

On the topic; I would love to see more sliders, maybe 2-3 in each zone. (not to mention, I want to slide soooo bad)

I agree with more sliders! Sliders seem to have a major impact with scaring guests. They slide and glide across the pavement and get the unexpected scares. The only down side about sliders is when there are large crowds, they cant slide as much as they would like because of all the traffic going around them. Other than that, I think they're a great addition to the Screamster team!!!

Screamster management does want more sliders. But the guy who heads them up is VERY selective (and should be) about who he picks. In time more will be on the staff I am sure. But as of right now, the only zone that can really handle them is the Fright Zone due to the pavement.

For anyone interested in how Knott's started the whole Haunt thing this DVD is a wonderful thing to watch.
Seasons of Scream (Scroll down to the Seasons of Screams DVD)

There is also a GREAT section on sliding and how Knott's handles it.

I'll go out there and say Halloweekends needs a stable theme or maybe an iconic character. Nothing to stray away from the family deal, but something that can still appeal to both demographics. They did GREAT last year and I've heard good things about this year. So I'm hoping to see some very nice changes.

Ever since I went to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal, I've been obsessed with themed haunts and always put themes in the haunts I design. While I LOVE what CP does, I think it'd be cool to see the scarezones coincide with the haunts and their locations. I'd like to see Pharaoh get the boot and get replaced with a clown themed haunt with Carnevil to coincide with it. And I'd like to see a redone Undertaker U.

I personally cant wait to get into the haunt business myself so I can bring my ideas to life. Only 131 days till Halloween.:)

While a theme is nice, its only good if you change it every year or two. To have all of your attractions center around one theme is a great idea, but unless you change it often it will get boring (while I understand CP hardly ever changes their haunts, they still have a variety of haunts). Universal gets away with it because...well, because its Universal.

I like the variety of themes in the attractions. A haunted house that centers around clowns is just an indoor CarnEvil (for the most part). What the park has for this upcoming Halloweekends will be most impressive for anyone who enjoys the event. I know I can't wait!!!

For the Screamsters on here who are making personal complaints about other Screamsters or the way we do things, you would be better served to post them to the Myspace goup rather than putting them on display in a public forum.

There are a number of reasons Knott's and Universal can do what they do so well. Many of those reasons don't apply to CP's Halloweekends, either due to geographical/metropolitan factors or simply the park's choice of how they want to run the event. I think the crowd sizes over the last few years are a pretty good indicator that CP is doing something right.

I agree with everything 99er said in the post before mine. The individual themes do go a long way in making sure each attraction can retain it's own uniqueness. However, I do think having an iconic character or two would be a cool thing. There are already a handful of characters that all the guests seem to know and remember every single year such as Mr. Giggles, Skeletor, Harley the Clown, Captain Wart... ;)

Not sure if remembering Capt. Wart is a good thing.. :)

.. and there will be more sliders this year.

So there's a White Castle going in at CP?

Mmmmm..... sliders.

^^ lmao that's such a stupid humour but I love it haha.

What do you think that Cedar Point do to inprove Halloweekends? What do u think will be new this year? In observation I think that we could use more screamsters in the zones. You can never have enough.

It would be really nice to have more Screamsters, but its when you hire people and thy see exactly what is demanded of them is when we lose people. I've ran track, cross country and all that, and being a Screamster is a ay more demanding job then those sports. You're putting your body through torture every night, and for th sliders, they go through way more pain and I give them as much credit as can be given for what they do. I know Terror Island sturggled with keeping Screamsters there and I would to see alot more. Something I would like to see, is aniatronics, not like Disney, but something air powered, wher a button would be hit and say a skeleton would pop out of a crate or something unexpected. At th place I worked before Cedar Point we had them and thy proiveded amazing scares and a grat way for a distraction to see something pop up on one side and a monster come from th other side. If we can get that or think of something close to it, it would be a big a plus.

I think animatronics can be good if used properly and sparingly. A good example of how terrible animatronics can be if used wrong is Ghostly Manor. Most of the time they are counting on the animatronic to get the scare, not the actor, and that is lame beyond belief. I think the cannon on the island is a decent first step with animatronics on the zones. At least on the nights where somebody wasn't activating it every 10 seconds.

More Screamsters are generally a good thing, although it's really the quality that counts. As Zeek said, it's very demanding work and some people find out quickly that they just can't keep up with it. Not to say that it has to be demanding in a physical way, but if somebody can't keep up physically they need to have one heck of a character or something to make themselves stand out. Either way you approach it, it's tough and demanding work, but oh so fun. :)