[0:22] Greetings everyone, Jonathan here. Thank you everyone for turning up for episode 402.
This past weekend was my birthday week and I turned the whopping age of 43.
[0:35] And between a little bit of birthday debauchery and also both Crystal and I not feeling good due to various other reasons, we did not get the usual recording done. Now we could do one tonight and get this up late and whatnot but and we thought about that but honestly uh we are kind of in a fortunate position because after episode 400 we did a Q&A and even though we did not plan it this way we just had like an open-ended thing it ended up being almost exactly an hour and so crystal and i just talked about and said you know what it was a good Q&A let's clean it up trim it up and send it out there. So that's what we're doing for episode 402. So yeah, so sit back and enjoy as we answer some of your questions as we go through and talk about all the things you wanted us to discuss in episode after episode 400. I think it was a really good Q&A. You guys asked some real difficult questions and please keep those questions coming. You can find us at at hauntweekly.com, hauntweekly on Twitter, hauntweekly on Facebook, youtube.com slash hauntweekly.
Please drop us any additional questions you have, and we will see you all next week for your regularly scheduled Haunt Weekly recording. Thank you, everyone.
We're just going to get started because this is going to be a drop-in, drop-out thing, hopefully. Exactly.
[1:54] That's for us. Bye. Bye. We're dropping out, no.
Hello, we must be going. Oh, man. But no, seriously, thank you all for joining us.
400 released earlier today, regular news episode. But as Facebook just reminded us.
[2:08] We are uncreative bastards. And for episode 300, we did a Q&A, and now we're doing again for 400.
[2:15] Because we were completely unimaginative people. And actually, in our defense, 300 was because of COVID. 400 is because we're uncreative assholes. Oh, we were like, hmm, we still haven't scheduled anybody. Maybe we should just do this. Yeah, we hadn't, we've been quite busy with day jobs and things so the scheduling, the overhead of doing a actual live stream, we got lots of people, I'm just wasn't in the cards and plus it's... Okay, thanks Shannon, I'll take a look.
Yeah, I think honestly it's the resolution of the way it's cropping us. I don't know I don't know what to do about that because I didn't change anything.
And Shauna Hoffman just dropped in to wish us a happy 400th episode. Thank you. Thank you. It's awesome I understand you can't stick around. Don't worry the recording will be there So, yeah, if you have anything you're dying to know drop it in and come back to it, Because we do have a lot of questions.
[3:13] But yeah, I guess you want to just get started jump in yeah, I think so What's first who asked it and what's going on? Okay, so, So five days ago, we asked what you wanted to ask us for the question of the week.
Topics that Fell Short: Needing Guests or Smushing Mini Topics
[3:29] And Jamie Lee said, have you ever decided on a topic that sounded like a great idea only to find out that it was impossible to talk about for an hour?
If so, what was it? Also how did you decide on your even, odd and multiple structure for episodes?
So the topic idea, we'll do that one first.
Topics that we couldn't get an hour out of. Yeah, and Shannon actually, Robles actually asked a similar question. No, hers is different. We'll get hers separately. I want to get hers separately because she has a really good one that's different.
[4:03] Couldn't get an hour out of it? Honestly, a lot of times when we find that, we find it's because we need a guest? Yeah, it's either that or ...
Or, what we'll do is we'll take a lot of those little mini topics and smush them together into one big episode.
I mean, like, topics that we have not been able to get an hour out of, trying to think of any. Like, we've had a couple of more business-oriented ones that we thought were really good ones at the time.
Like, we did one on price differentiation and different-tier pricing, but I think the, the original topic there, for example, this is another thing that happens to those topics is we kind of, if we realize we can't get an hour out of it, we pull up, zoom out of it a little bit.
Exactly. And like ticket pricing, and we started writing notes and there wasn't enough there, so we did price differentiation broadly.
And that let us talk about a whole host of ideas in there, and that one became fun.
But I mean, honestly, we've managed to get a full hour out of parking of all things.
I know. I still can't believe we actually pulled that fucker off, I mean, it was crazy.
So what we're saying is we're really good at bullshitting.
We were the kids that were not intimidated by essay assignments is what you learned.
[5:18] No. That was our jam. It was. In fact, in college I missed a test due to a medical emergency and for the makeup they offered to either let me take the multiple choice ahead of time or take the essay as the makeup.
And I chose the essay. Of course you did. It was the wrong choice.
Because it was biology.
Was the second level biology. Yeah, okay, that was a bad idea when you put it like that. Yeah, okay, what was the next one? All right, next is what five, this is from Chris Gay, what five.
[5:54] Yes, sorry, I want to get through everything, man, we got time. All right, I ain't rushing anybody.
How did you decide on your even, odd, and multiple structure for episode?
The Evolution of Even, Odd, and Multiple Episode Structure
[6:07] Um, like episodes that is a little by four, we do news, even episodes, we do comments reminders, usually.
I think that's what he's referring to. That just sort of evolved.
She.
She, sorry, I couldn't remember who asked. Jamie. But they asked.
Yes, thank you. Because I honestly didn't hear the name at all. Yeah.
But no, as far as that, I remember when we began, the original plan, you go back to like episodes one, two, three, and four.
3 and 4. The original stupid idea was to do haunt news at the beginning of every episode and then just kind of go into the topic, but the problem was we quickly realized that was a lot of haunt, a lot of time being taken on each episode. And so the idea was just to kind of smush it together, do it in the news format. And that worked for, I think that's largely worked pretty well. And as far as the even odds, we just got tired of doing conference reminders every episode.
Yeah, that's basically it, because once again, at one point before the pandemic, there were so many that it took up a lot of the front end of the episodes.
Yeah, and that's one of the things that I think is true.
Yeah, I think we could legit do Conf Driners every episode now.
[7:16] Because there's a reason there's not to say that there were too many before the pandemic it was good that there were that many conferences but it was too many to do every episode it was just way too much time and so we moved it to every other then like i said the pandemic we stopped doing conference reminders all together for like two year and a half two years there yeah because it was like well this one's canceled all of them are canceled reminders got the most depressing part of the show for a while there yeah all right and what else was there in that list Uh, I think that was it for that one.
Okay. Um, and I'm the oddball just because we started off listing and you would usually throw me out first.
Well, I mean, and okay, like some of that is I try to be cognizant.
I have the more gregarious outspoken personality.
I'm the one that does a lot of public speaking for their day job.
No. And I know I can just steamroll the ever loving fuck out of almost anyone if I need to.
That is true. You don't want me to get up on a stage and bullshit about something for 45 minutes, just point me to the stage and hand me a topic.
I can probably make it work.
[8:23] But I realize that you're quieter, and so I try to be cognizant of that and make sure you get your time in. Yes, and I appreciate that.
I don't always succeed, but there is effort. We have nonverbal cues of when I want to say something.
It's like below the table, a hand wave and like that or something like that.
Or sometimes I'm just straight up elbow me and don't think I usually it's a look.
Yeah. It's a...
[8:53] You done yet? Yeah. You done yet? As you look at me in the same way the cats look at their treats.
Pretty much, yeah. All right. Next up from the questions, this one is Chris Gay.
Future Ambitions for Bernie Baxter's Traveling Sideshow
[9:08] Okay, now we got Chris Gay. What five or 10 year ambitions do you have for Bernie Baxter's traveling sideshow?
Oh man, I saw that question coming. And I immediately wanted to hit him.
I'm sorry. Sorry, Chris. No, no. In all seriousness, though, it was a question I had not thought about in like four or five years now. And the reason is we were closed in 2019 to derogatory instruction. In 2021, due to COVID-19, the ongoing global bastard, and we were able to get open in 2022. So for like the past four years or so, our entire focus has been getting, open at all. Yeah. Getting back on our feet at all. We've done like legit like last year when we opened we almost didn't care if anyone showed up. Yeah. We were just so desperate to get this haunt working and open and scaring somebody. And be able to do something new this year. Yeah. And now we're dealing with this is our first haunt build in three years. Over three and a half years. Yeah.
Yeah, because the last Haunt build we did was before HauntCon 2020, so it would be like February, January, February 2020.
Mm-hmm.
[10:20] You know, as far as five to ten years, my honest thought is I don't think Bernie Baxter will be working the same way in five to ten years. In ten years, I plan on being retired from it.
Well, and for me, I don't know if I'm looking to a retirement from it.
[10:39] But as much as I'm thinking I would like to, you know, spread the load of this around some more, get people to help more with the build, help more with that type of work, because other than acting, like 95% of that haunt is us. Yeah. And that's a lot. And we're not getting younger, it's not getting easier, and it turns out the climate's not getting colder. So it's really difficult stuff. So getting, and one of the things we've been working on this year, and I think we've been making progress in is trying to meet and integrate with new groups and engage with new people.
[11:17] And get them involved both in like the yarn store that we are currently in now actually, but also the haunt. And part of that is to have people to help share some of that load, have people who are as invested as we are in this can come help build, can bring their ideas, bring their expertise, their knowledge. I'd really like to get some new people in who are able to be there every step of the way. We have a great haunt family, but most of them just don't have that kind of availability. And that's not a knock on them or a slight on them at all. It's just, it's already asking a lot for them to give up weekends in October and then help on the nights the haunts open.
Nicole Mastrogianni Well, and half of them are talking about moving in a year or two. So building up our haunt group would be really good for the next five years. This is going to mean something for us, too, because...
We've been doing this since 2005. We have no idea how to give up control of this.
The challenge of sharing control and ownership of the haunt
[12:19] No idea. So I've learned some. Okay, that's true. You have worked with others. I have worked really hard to not nitpick and try to control every aspect of it. Yeah, but it is rough to see other people you know putting their DNA in your baby and that just sounded so fucking wrong.
It did. Oh Jesus Christ. Yes we probably shouldn't watch Big Mouth before coming over here. No we should not be watching Big Mouth before we go on this. Yes. That's a bad idea. It's even when you're not thinking but yeah but it's difficult to see someone else putting their fingerprints on your haunt. It's difficult and that's something we want to get better at. So I think that's my big ambition right now is for the future and the survivability of the haunt, have more people involved.
Because that year I threw up my back was an awakening in a third.
Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, because I threw my back out Halloween 2021.
[13:18] We were just doing trick-or-treating. We were just doing trick-or-treating. It wasn't the haunt opening because of COVID.
I threw my back out later that afternoon and I threw it out like everyone else, doing the stupidest, least important, least dangerous thing you can think of.
I was picking up an empty Rubbermaid tub. Yeah. It was empty and I threw my back out to the point that I couldn't participate in it and A. it killed me and B. it was like, oh shit, if something happens to either of us at the haunt, we're screwed. Yeah. And we're at the age where the wheels are coming off. Yeah, there's not a backup Bernie. I mean, we could put you in a wheelchair.
But I actually thought of that that night, but I don't know how many of you have thrown your back up. When you first throw it out, you cannot move.
Like basically you're in a bedpan situation. Basically yeah.
So it was that bad. And so I don't even know how I could have gotten to the wheelchair.
I guess I could have done like the crawl on my stomach. That could be. All right. But no, that's I think our general goals for the next five to ten years. And yeah.
[14:29] Chris Gay in the comments is like, it says that building haunt communities is an ongoing goal.
It is, but we need to go from building a haunt family to actually building people that can co-parent this. Yeah, yeah. Maybe have second string actors. We need some co-parents.
All right, next item. Micah Arnold said, how can I make my trail haunt more full, like low priced ways to create interesting things to look at between scenes also?
Creating low-cost attractions for a trail haunt
[15:02] When are you coming to Nebraska?
[15:04] Oh man, when we're coming to Nebraska, I don't know. I don't think that's ever crossed my mind as a haunt.
I've got to be honest, this is the first time I've actually thought of Nebraska in this context.
Things that's really difficult for us is we have to, when we go for these haunt trips, we have to basically pick a place with a very high density of haunts.
Because our goal is to get us, I mean like with Atlanta, we were able to hit I think nine haunts or ten haunts in three nights. Yeah. It was batshit insane, nearly fucking killed us, and if you count what we did in Birmingham on the way there. I think we hit 11 or 12. Yeah, I think we hit 12 on that trip. But 9, but 10, there was 10 in the Atlanta area alone. And we didn't have a Lost Souls tour to drive us around. We had to do all this, well, he did all the planning. Yeah, I did all the planning. And I'm actually quite good at it, as we've discussed before in another episode.
But yeah, Atlanta needs a Japes. Exactly. Atlanta, hire a Japes.
[16:10] Yeah, but no, I'm actually interested in, but see what is in Nebraska, so I'm going to have to actually look up and see what all's there and if there is stuff we can make a trip out of.
Because if it is, I think that would be a really interesting place to get a different vibe. Yeah, I think so too, and it's a place that I've never been to.
No, I don't think any of us even passed through Nebraska on our trips.
So I would really like to see it, and I'd like, because I mean, one of the things we want to do now that the COVID times have hopefully passed is we want to get back into traveling.
That's one of the reasons why we've got this trip Saturday planned to Mobile. Yeah, exactly. I mean yeah it's just Mobile, it's just two hours away, but still that's travel that we haven't been doing for a while. So we're taking baby steps. But as far as your trail haunt. Yeah, Pete Blocky. No, no, she didn't answer about a trail haunt. She wanted to know how to make a field. Oh yes, Oh, sorry, Pete. Yeah. Oh, that was the one. Pete answered. Pete answered. Go. Yeah. I was gonna go.
Was their answer since they have a trail haunt and have done this. Okay, sorry, Pete. I did not mean to step on your toes. Stop. Occasionally, I know what I'm doing.
Creating Visual Effects with Branches and Lighting
[17:25] I have worked a trail haunt for the last five years. First of all, lots of twists and turns.
So you can't see around the corners, so plant some trees or put some stuff up. To achieve this, instead of walls, cut branches from the trees and insert them in the ground.
And then they're dead branches and they look pretty cool. I'll say one thing that I remember very, very vividly from Free Saphir, which unfortunately is not there anymore in Atlanta, but it was a trail that could have had that issue quite severely because it was a very long trail and it didn't actually have a whole lot on it. The reason's unclear. So, well, I mean, we know why.
[18:06] They were definitely putting in a lot of work and had a lot of space to fill, basically.
But yeah, one thing they did that I thought was really, really smart was they put lighting high up in the trees that projected up toward the branches. And my first thought, when I say that out loud, it sounds like the dumbest thing on the planet. It really is. Why do you light the tops of the trees. It doesn't make any sense. You're lightening up the haunt, the trail, but it actually looks really freaking cool and casts some very wicked shadows. You can do a lot with just simply some spotlights in that case and then there's nothing if you've already got power run throughout the trail, then that's not adding a lot of expense or effort.
You know, that's just getting a few spotlights and probably some color changing bulbs so you can experiment.
[18:52] God bless color changing bulbs in the lawn industry. Yeah, but I mean people are going to look where the light is, so if they're looking up there, they're not looking at, you know, where they're going.
But they can still see where they're going, hopefully, but it gives them something else to look at, something to notice, and it also makes it feel like, it makes it feel oddly claustrophobic was one thing I liked about it.
I'm not saying you do it like the whole haunt, but have sections that way, real easy to set up and it creates a very bizarre, unsettling feeling.
Like I said, I've only seen that at one trail haunt, it was Freaks of Fear, but it was really cool there.
And it's one of the two things I very vividly remember from that haunt, well three things if you count.
Yeah, and I will say that some of the trail haunts we've been to that have had the problems with running don't have enough of those visual breaks that Pete talks about in his answer.
Pete's answer really is, I think, really, really good because like Fright Trail and Lafayette had this issue and they managed to address it from what I've seen, at least in part.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. I just wasn't calling anybody out.
Yeah, we're not calling them out. They actually fixed it though.
They did. They fixed it. How could I call out if we're actually complimenting them on taking that thing, what we noticed in fixing it. Because basically they would have these super wide alleyways, just a straight shot from scene to scene. So people would leave one scene and just.
Pacing issues when paired with strangers in a haunt
[20:18] Like the fucking light, you know, like the flash to the next one. And A, that cut the haunt walkthrough time down drastically. And B, it really killed this whole stay with your group thing when you're paired with a couple that's, you know, decided to imitate Usain Bolt the entire trip. Yeah, well and that's something that we talked about recently on one of the episodes was getting rid of that mentality. Because not everybody in a group that doesn't know each other is going to travel at the same pace through your home. Yeah, that's very true. And that's one of the big dangers when you pair people up with strangers.
[20:55] And the thing is, we routinely, and I know we do it to ourselves, because we have the podcast, we have Garbage Horror, people see us, let's put them with the two scaredest people in line.
I know, it's happened, and the problem is, well, yeah, okay, that's fun, I'm not going to deny it.
It also creates problems, because they usually either want to go with the snailiest of the snail paces, because they're frozen with fear, or they are just going to Wile E. Coyote, they're just gone.
A trail of dust as we see them leave. So that's always interesting for me because people trust me to begin with.
Just because they don't know you. So we were put with these two girls in South Carolina on our trip there.
They had been through once.
They didn't make it through, but they had tried. So they're like, okay, you're safe.
I'm going to stick with you.
[21:54] It's like, okay, Jonathan takes off. He leaves us behind. I can't get around them.
And in my defense, I didn't mean to. I didn't realize I had.
Because it was during a very windy, narrow part.
So we were actually apart even when we were together. And I just realized you were not around the next turn.
So the girls are like, where'd he go? Where'd he go?
Are you in on it? Are you in on it? and then they get these wide eyes and then they're afraid of me so then they start running away from me and I'm just going through the haunt. Yeah, I'm just trying to see the fucking haunt. Exactly.
[22:32] But I think they wound up crashing into you. Well, no, what happened is I got to the end of that section it was like a really tight labyrinth.
And I got to because I could see the visual break there and I realized okay I'll just wait for them here. This seems like a natural place but it was a little bit out of the way I wasn't like intentionally hiding but I wasn't in the line of sight. But you weren't not hiding. I wasn't not not hiding but I wasn't deliberately hiding either and then they came around and then.
[22:58] They nearly crashed into me and I went like what are you doing moment and they got scared of that.
Then it kept going. Yeah. So anyways, that was fun. Even when we're not trying to scare people, we scare people. Look, it's the instinct, man. Once you get it, you can't actually turn it off.
Choosing between animatronics or scare actors in a haunt
[23:17] What else we got? All right, Sam Farrell said, for the same ticket price, would you rather go through a 15-minute professional hunt with top-tier animatronics but no scare actors, or a 10-minute home charity hunt, limited scenic resources, but all the scare actors?
I mean, the answer I think is obvious. Yeah. I mean, I would prefer to go through the 10 minute one with all the scare actors. Me too. But here's the thing I want to say that's going to be controversial. No. Because I do have a kind of hot take on this one. And it's unfortunately, I think an accurate one. And that is, I will wager when you go to the Google reviews of these haunts, the first one will have the higher star rating. Yeah. Maybe that's not as hot of a take as I I think, but I just genuinely believe that that one would review better.
Well, it's definitely going to get the list attentions.
[24:09] Because there aren't a lot of charity haunts that make those lists, and it's because they don't have the money to put into the animatronics and stuff that the big haunts do.
And they also don't have the money to put in the PR and the marketing and the other things that it takes to even get the attention of those lists.
I mean, those big nationwide lists, we've talked about it before, they're bull.
[24:29] I'm sorry, they just are, because nobody went to every haunt on that list and did a comparison.
Yeah, and we're not going to touch, and this goes back to the first question, this is a topic that we don't touch on a lot because there's a lot of controversy around the list and we have gotten mail about it.
Well, and the reason it's controversial is because haunts do get on those lists and they do feel a sense of pride about it, and the actors and lieutenants and owners and others there feel quite fine. I get that.
I understand that. It's a proud thing. It's very cool. But at the same time, I would rather our haunt be like number one or just well rated and regarded on like a local list. You know what I mean? Like a hyper local, maybe Southeast Louisiana type list. That would be awesome. But you know, these top 10 nationwide lists, I mean, they do great. They do amazing business for the haunts that are on there, and they do amazing business for the newspapers that publish them.
It's usually newspapers that are publishing those, but in the end of the day, they are a popularity contest. They are more a statement of PR than they are of quality.
But personally, I would go with the actors every time.
[25:44] A haunt with all animatronics, no actors, cannot compete with actors.
Actors can improv. Actors can engage with you. Actors can adapt.
Don't have to be like that bitch Debbie that you had to work with. The animatronic Debbie, by the way. Debbie was an animatronic. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify that.
[26:05] Yeah, because I work with two right now. But yeah, no, she was supposed to be in the scare in the room and it never works to put the animatronic as a scare. And yes, I did just accidentally punch the table. That hurt. Let's get a little backhand. But yeah, no, that prop was terrible.
[26:27] Should have been yeeted. So yeah, no, animatronics cannot compete with human actors in general, but I do think the best haunts have a good balance of both. And I do think most haunts, they get good reviews, get it on the basis of their scenery and how expensive they look and feel more than how scary they are. Yeah. Okay, now we have a whole slew of questions coming up.
How the hosts met: online in the year 2000
[26:51] I'm going to take these semi-rapid fire. Yeah, this is from Greg Rothberg. Yeah. All right, how did we meet? Internet. Exactly. Well, I mean, okay, but it is a little bit cooler than that, because we met in the year 2000. Yes. And we met in the year 2000 and then put that in some context like meeting people online now, that's just how you do it. You go on an app, you meet online. In 2000, that was how losers and desperate people met. Hey! Oh, you mean through the dating apps? Because we did not meet through a dating app. No, online dating in the year 2000 was for like the losers of the world. That's what the joke was anyway. Yeah, that's what the joke was.
And then people started to realize, no, it actually could be a very compelling thing. And then, you know, and then it became, okay, Cupidmatch.com, all that stuff.
So, it ended up changing, but no, she, I ran a site.
[27:45] Poetry, short stories, various literature. And she emailed me, you know, unbeknownst to her, she emailed me two weeks after my previous relationship had ended. It had gone on for about a year, a year and a half, a little over a year, maybe a year and a half. Yeah. And she didn't, and Crystal didn't know that she was emailing me then. But one of the things that that girlfriend was, and she was not a good girlfriend, like in any sense, like in hindsight, she was just terrible in every way, but one thing she was very possessive about was me talking to people and engaging with people, even just online casually. And so when Crystal emailed me, I'm trying to break that chain a little bit and meet and talk to people and say, hey, I'd like to get to know you a little better. And so we started emailing back and forth and it's been downhill from there. Downhill, huh? Yep, downhill. All the way. To Satan's wands, oh no. And it's fun though because that's how we met. We actually do have the very first emails we ever sent each other from 23 years ago. In fact, we're actually, no we're not in the month.
[28:56] We met I think in May. I'd have to go back and check. May's a good month for us. May has been been a good month. And then I went out to see you. You were in Louisiana. I was in South Carolina. I flew up to meet you in August. And you moved to South Carolina to be with me at the end of December of that year. And so ever since December 28th, the year of our Lord 2000, we have been together. May God have mercy on our souls.
Meeting Online: Finding Love on a Dating App
[29:25] Yeah. Okay, next one. And we also met Ellie online, if anybody's curious.
We did meet online but that was actually through a dating app. Yeah. Because it wasn't for losers by the time. It was for normal people. Well Victor Ruel. And they let us on too. Yeah.
Victor Ruel has commented that he met his wife on MySpace way back in the day. Was she in your top eight spaces. And hi Tim, I guess we are party people now. Oh man. All right, um...
[29:53] Has it been hard to come up with a topic for all 400 episodes? Yes. Yeah.
Some weeks, yes. Oftentimes, no. Yeah.
It seems to come and go. It depends on how much is going on around us because this past month and a half has been really, really stressful for a lot of reasons.
Yeah, and unrelated to haunt stuff.
Yeah. And yeah, that's one of the things, like when things are humming along, we talk about how our topics are usually things we were discussing anyway.
And so we're like, we might as well just turn on a microphone and record it.
That's how, like literally about 90% of the topics. Yeah. I mean, for those of you who are wondering, the topics are usually picked Friday night or Saturday.
[30:44] We record Sunday. Sometimes they're picked Sunday night and we record Monday night.
A lot of that's been due to stress and outside factors and a lot of things like the store being opened has really changed the schedule some.
It's been hard to think of new topics, but one of the issues we've had is, hey, didn't we do this topic? I think that is more than anything been our difficulty as we get further in.
And so it's one of the reasons we've begun allowing ourselves to revisit old topics if we can come at it from a different way, if there's something new we can add.
Yeah, because I mean I know recently I spent like...
[31:28] Two or three hours on the history of trick-or-treating in the U.S., only to find we had already done that episode.
Yeah, it's difficult sometimes, but it's less about our love for haunting and more about how much brain-slash-CPU cycles we have to spare on the rest of the week.
Finding News for Episodes: Facebook, Alerts, and Search
[31:49] Okay, next one. Where do we find all of our news for the news episodes? Various places.
Various places we see them on Facebook groups. We we have Alerts set up. I have Google. I use Google alerts google.com slash alerts if anyone wants to play with them It automatically emails me anytime news articles with the word haunted attraction or haunted attractions.
[32:14] Appears and so that way it's directly in my inbox every day or as they appear basically.
[32:21] But yeah, Facebook groups aplenty we see them there and And sometimes just good old-fashioned search, but realistically, especially lately, like back when we first started doing the full news episodes, getting news stories, especially during the slower months, was difficult.
We were really, really struggling. I found as we've gone on, it's gotten easier.
This part of our job, finding the stories, has gotten easier.
Yeah. I think we're into a rhythm now with it. Well, on that end, there's just a lot more news, it seems, than 100 Attractions.
Alright. next. How do you always fit all of your episodes into just under an hour? He cuts us off.
Finding the Right Length for Show Notes
[33:03] Honest answer. You know, one of the things we've actually learned is about we do show notes, and they're bullet lists. We don't actually write a script or anything obviously, but we do bullet lists and we know about how many pages we can realistically get through. So a lot A lot of that's been trial and error.
Our very first episode was like 15 minutes.
It's a quick, terrible lesson if you want to go do it and torture yourself.
It was something like 15 minutes.
It was way too short. We spent some time in those early episodes figuring out roughly where the link was.
Even then, we still have to slow down and speed up as we go through the episodes.
Yeah. In the episode that went live today, the news episode, we were rushing through the beginning of it realized, oh, we only have a few more articles to talk about.
Even though two of them are ones we really knew we were going to spend time on.
Exactly. So we slowed down just a little bit to make sure that we stretched it out.
Yeah, we have a timer going whenever we're doing this specifically for that purpose.
Yeah. All right.
What is your favorite thing that each of you have that you see in a haunt and what is one thing that each of us hates? thing to see.
[34:17] Good acting. No, good acting is always great. I've got us.
I don't know. I always really do enjoy seeing good optical illusions, as far as like the haunted cell.
Yeah, and those are few and far between, honestly.
I love seeing things that make me think I'm somewhere or something else, and a good optical illusion can be really good for that.
As far as things we hate? Chainsaws.
Blacklights. Or strobe lights and black walls. Sorry, those two things crossed in my head, and they became out of those black lights.
Black lights are fine. Strobe lights, they're adequate, yeah.
But strobe lights are terrible. I mean, I'm not, none of us have photosensitive epilepsy, but I just find them annoying.
Yeah, but some of our actors do. Yeah, so we can't use them in our home, and we wouldn't anyway. Yeah.
But yeah, and black undecorated walls is never good.
No, I don't like it. it. Is there any different or extra house insurance that comes with running a home haunt?
Insurance and Safety Concerns for Home Haunts
[35:20] Not for us. We checked. We looked into it. We're covered for visitor entry on our property.
Honestly though, we've never had to test that. But I mean, we've looked up the city codes.
We've looked up the homeowners insurance policies. We actually reached out to them whenever we first started.
And we're basically in the clear as long as we don't charge.
[35:45] All right, last two from Greg. What would you say to someone who says that they are too scared to walk through a haunted house?
Go first. Yeah. I mean, that's the honest answer. That's not even me trying to, you know, toughen up and get out there, kid.
No, it's the legit answer. If the haunt is scaring correctly, and admittedly, that's kind of a big if, then the place you want to be if you're scared is first because you get to set the pace and, basically you know nothing can come behind you that's where your friends are yeah or at least where they shouldn't be able to come up but also the scares are going to come toward the middle slash back of the group yeah but other thing I would say is a haunt is probably if it's a well-known haunt it's a professional It's probably the safest place you're going to be in that year.
[36:45] Yeah. Without a joke. Without a joke. What I would say is ask them if they have any work that you can do.
Try to be an actor.
Hell yeah. Seriously. No, that's legit good.
[36:59] Yeah. Some of our best actors have been people too afraid to go through, but then you switch the power dynamic to where they're the one scaring and they're all in on it.
A duct of water and they come at it. I mean, I don't know, you're absolutely right. Maybe going through a haunt isn't for you. Maybe you should be acting in one. Literally, I know it's not bad advice at all. And last one? Why are chainsaws rated? Overrated? It just says rated, but probably overrated. The joke was chainsaws are overrated. It's because every haunt seems to think it's the the ultimate scare. It has to be the final scare. I admit it's good for making people run. And if you're in line and you see people running out of the haunt, it does add a little juice to it. Mm-hmm.
The Chainsaw Effect and Its Overuse
[37:44] And then this may just be the fact that we go to so many fucking haunted houses every year that you notice, The things that repeat over and over and over again, you know Um, I I also have a shirt design for clowns are overrated. So, you know, well anything answer I really like like what Japes did, With a chainsaw where he used a teeny tiny little one and make makes people jump with that and then laughs at him in character obviously. I mean, I think you can play on the trope. And I think Evil Intentions in Chicago did an excellent job. They put the chainsaws in the middle and fucked with our expectations.
[38:24] You know? So you can mess with it, but yeah, it's just so, so overdone. And honestly.
[38:33] I love that the first rule of every haunt is no running. And then they stick a chainsaw guy in Like they make it obvious that they want you to run yeah, no running wink wink. Yeah, nudge nudge anyway All right Now we're to Shannon's question. Yes, and then we've got a few in the little app comments. Yeah, So and you can put them there and we will see them and ask them an answer All right, we're all fast. Les Holt says he had a friend get burned by a chainsaw back in there But yeah, we actually have someone that got burned too.
She was wearing sandals, which, A, ill-advised and a haunt, I know, but we weren't in charge of her footwear.
And yeah, hot chainsaw, touch the top of foot, mild burn. That's the thing a lot of people don't realize is, yeah, the blade is off, it's not going to lick, you know, hack, lick limbs.
Hack limbs off, Jesus Murphy, Jonathan, oh my God. It has been a day.
It has been a day. It's not going to take limbs off, but yes, it can burn. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
All right, so Shannon Robles said, Have you ever felt strongly one way about a topic, but upon researching it for an episode, your stance drastically changed?
[39:52] She gave an example that she knows about, but I don't know if everybody else knows about.
The video game situation comes to mind.
Cancelled Episode: Video Game Controversy
[40:02] Yeah, that one, we didn't finish the episode. We didn't actually do that episode we wanted to do.
We had to cancel that episode.
Right, but the basic story there was we were going to review a video game. We bought it, we played it, we researched the developer, found out they were not people we wanted to promote.
Yeah, and we found this out like literally, going back to when we do this, this was one of the weeks we were on the fucking ball, man. We had the idea like on Wednesday, we bought the game then, we played it Thursday and Friday, we talked about it during the day, Saturday, and Sunday we went to our bar to finish, we'd already written like 90% of the notes, and we were just researching the little extra tidbits and fun stuff we like to throw in.
And that's when we learned information that we realized, oh, unless we can get them to clarify this.
[40:51] We can't promote this and we couldn't get in touch with them.
We did try. We did try. The only way we could find to get in touch with them was on public Twitter, and this is not a conversation for public Twitter.
No. I'm not going to do that. So we still have those notes in the can.
There may still be an episode if there's somehow a way that they're not as connected as they appear. Yeah. Or things are not as they seem. But yeah. But yes.
Yeah, so we're not naming the game. But we'll just say Nazis were involved and we'll leave it there.
But yeah, moving on. It changed our opinion.
Like did you look into strobe lights, other examples, look into strobe lights or cheap out black mazes and change your mind on them?
I'm trying to think of anything we've had a hardcore opinion change on, um, like a, go ahead.
[41:59] You sound like you had something, I was very grateful for it.
No, sorry, not that time, though I was trying to figure out anything, but I mean, the thing, is that we talk so much about haunted houses and the haunt industry that we kind of know our opinion about it before we go in.
And we'll get surprises.
[42:25] This may be not drastic changes, but researching, like when we did the ticketing thing, I used to really not be a fan of VIP ticketing, and I'm still not as a normally a regular customer.
But after doing more of a look into price differentiation, I understand why haunts do it better, and I'm more sympathetic. And I guess it's softened my stance on why haunts do it.
I've also, even though it's frustrating, I'm also soft in my stance on why hot admin emission prices have gone up faster than inflation a little bit, because some have explained that to me about what's going on there.
So, yeah, there have been some things where opinions have shifted and changed, definitely.
But as far as a radical 180, I can't think of anything right off the top of my head that was dead set against. Now, what was the other part of her question? She had another part of her thought.
Exploring the Idea of Creating a Long-Lasting Haunt
[43:30] Forgive me if I'm wrong. No, I think that was it. I'll say one topic that I've been fairly passionate about but have just decided not to do, and I'll explain why, was I've been wanting to do the topic, and I've mentioned it on the show before, about how to create a haunt the last 25 or more years.
So if you're in your 20s and you want to make a haunt the last into your 40s or 50s, this is what you do type thing.
I'm still kind of toying with that idea. It's a heavy, heavy research And I just simply haven't had.
You know, the bandwidth to really tackle it. But one topic that I was going to do with that, was try to find out the longest-running haunt in the United States and find out who that was, maybe do a top 10 of what we could find. And A, that's proved incredibly difficult.
There's a lot of haunts that lay claim to it, all with varying degrees of legitimacy. But.
[44:29] But as I realized that trans world, we step into a landmine very quickly with COVID.
Yeah.
Because a lot of haunts were closed for COVID.
And in most cases, I think, in fact, nearly all cases, I think that's exactly what haunts should have done.
Yeah. Because I don't think a haunted attraction is worth people dying over basically.
That unfortunately is the consequence holding a public event during COVID is most likely someone somewhere is dead because you're haunted.
Maybe not the person went through, but they gave it to someone who gave it to someone who would have gotten it otherwise, but died. And like I said, 1.1 million people died of COVID. So.
Haunts that stayed open during COVID vs. those that closed
[45:15] It's almost a guarantee that at least some of those people are from the haunts that were open.
And one thing I ran into, though, when just talking with people about this idea, idea was that haunts that stayed open for COVID were adamant that the haunts that closed for COVID shouldn't be counted.
In fact, the mere idea that they would not have their streak interrupted because they didn't want to kill people or because local ordinances forced them to close.
And so then, but if I, but you know, and as one person pointed out, you grant a pass on that, what happens with like other reclosures that weren't their fault?
Yeah, like us closing for the street. Yeah, exactly.
You run into that issue. So I don't know.
And honestly, I've abandoned that idea because it's a meaningless metric anyway.
I mean, yeah, it's really cool that your aunt's been there for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, whatever years, but you're only as good as your last aunt.
Yeah.
So, what'd you do last year?
[46:20] All right. Yeah, and I had to get my phone to pull up the chat because I'm having trouble with it on my computer.
Yeah. So, give me just a second to get it. A rubber clamp bagpipe chainsaw, that does sound fucking terrifying.
Yeah. someone brings out a bagpipe chainsaw, I will definitely be scared.
Yeah, well and Amanda Hughes has piped in with a very loud organ or some other like a accordion or something that's unexpected.
Well and that's so much better. That's such a better idea.
[46:54] Honestly, you could do an electric guitar at that point. You know, because yeah, that's really what it is. You're just going for the loud sound. Yeah. And yeah, I think maybe, I think it's possible this is just the way the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies ruined or had a negative impact on haunts because yeah Leatherface kicks ass and all he's an awesome villain but guys you know there are other things that are scary mm-hmm but yeah and of course um Chris Gay points out that farm equipment in general is scary yeah I actually highly agree with that, me too one of the reasons why I like going when we can go to farm based used to track. It's like Eckert's Fun Farm in Illinois was great. I actually had a really good time there. And part of it was because, yeah, tractors are scary. I mean, she may think your tractor's sexy, but they're also pretty scary too. It's kind of like they're scare rousing. No.
The fear factor of farm equipment in haunts
[47:53] Okay. So, I know that Charlene Ramey, who's in the chat, my mom, had asked a question about what's the thing that we like most about doing The Haunt together?
The highs and lows of building something together
[48:09] Wow. Let's just drop that on us. A relationship-defining question.
As far as what I like personally best, I really do enjoy building something with you.
And it's one of the reasons why going back to what we were doing in five to ten years. Why it's so hard to let other people in is because it's very much a part of our relationship. Yeah, we work out a lot of shit in October. Yeah, and we didn't get to work out that shit during COVID. Yeah. We're a little constipated. A little bit. Oh, no. But as A is that but it's always but here's like I'm like here is the um like the graph. Like I'm gonna try to draw backwards here. But like every haunt season when we really start working, which unfortunately this year looks like it's gonna be toward August. I know. We start out high energy, high hopes, really excited, and then it goes down a little bit as we get tired of it over the weeks. And then, but then early mid-September, then it comes down. We get.
[49:23] To go to haunts. We get to go to haunts and it's the first cool night here. Yeah, Yeah, and then we get some cool nights and then it goes right back up and then it comes back down again and it goes down, down, down, down, down, down as we get more and more frustrated, more and more exhausted, right up until opening night.
And then by like the weekend, like the last weekend we have a full work, we're usually, that's usually the, when we're breaking down and having the, we can't do this again.
We have to, we have to stop. This has to be our last year of conversations.
Every year that happens.
Just basically break down. Yeah. And so we hit this really low point, but then we see people smiling and having fun and laughing and taking photos and being scared and getting all this great security camera footage. Mm-hmm. We do all that and then it just goes right back up and next thing I know November first comes around, and we're drawing out plans for the next HUD.
Yeah.
[50:22] Yeah, I think it's a really good team-building exercise to just be able to solve problems on a daily basis.
Not even daily, like minute-to-minute basis, oftentimes. Yeah, but like that regularly, it builds communication.
I really think it does.
My favorite time is at the end of the night when the crew have gone home and you and I are sitting there and we're just talking about what happened and what the highlights were, for us. And what's weird is like when we're having that conversation, we talk about the highlights and we get some good laughs because you got to remember I work front of house, she works inside house. Yeah. Therefore, I don't get to see a lot of it. I don't get to see what he sees and he doesn't get to see what I see. So we get to share, I get to share the story of the people that ran out of the haunt so fast. I'm pretty sure they ended up in Araby or somewhere. And she used to tell me what the fuck went on before that.
Yeah, exactly. It's great. And that's usually how the storytelling goes.
[51:29] By the way, what happened with that three guys, there's three guys that came doing great shirts and pants, and they just, they ran out and they were gone. And then I took out the donation box. What happened with them? Oh, those were the three. And then, that's how the conversation actually goes. But yeah, that's what I think I like best is the combination of working together and building something with Crystal, but also just seeing, people happy and enjoying our work. Yeah. Because there's no goddamn way the amount of money and the amount of time we spend on it makes sense for the hours we're open. No. It makes no logical sense.
So there's like no.
Passion for Haunting: The Obsession Behind the Scenes
[52:18] And then working hundreds of hours per year to only be open basically nine to ten hours. Yeah, it's not, No smart person does this no, Intelligent people don't do this. You have to be a little obsessed and there's like I'm trying to think of anything, about the haunt that I don't like like about the process and I can't think of anything like I, Love doing the stories. I love coming up with them with you I'm working on them. That's one thing we got to do like soon on this one. Yeah, Getting the ideas for the different rooms and designs Working out the scares coming up with a new scare because we try to do a new scare every year.
Frustration and Heartbreak in the Creative Process
[53:03] Then doing the builds and the designs I even like the demo work You know taking this the stuff apart because that means it's something new is coming. It's gonna be exciting There are moments of frustration and heartbreak because there's nothing more heartbreaking than something not working, that you've put a lot of time.
Yeah, that is true. And I'll be honest, we're two people who don't always deal with that kind of disappointment well.
[53:32] You know, we get angry. And you know, we've gotten better about, I know I've tried to get better about not taking you and you've definitely, I think, done better taking it out on me, but that's been a process.
Yeah, that's been many, many years working together. But I think one of the things we've learned in doing that...
Is the realization that sometimes what you have to do is just put the tools down, go inside, and come at it later.
Because if you're too angry, you're too upset, you're too tunnel-visioned, you're going to make things worse.
So yeah, there are low points, but those two things right there, we're building with you and seeing people really enjoying the work we do.
That's what I like about Hauling Best. Yeah.
Any other questions? I haven't seen any come through. Yeah, if there's any more any last minute ones, please feel free to drop them in.
Honestly, this is not a terrible time to start wrapping up, though.
[54:35] Yeah, we wanted to get about an hour and hang out with you guys.
And thank you all in the chat for the laughs. I thank you. I've been really enjoying the conversation in the chat.
I've been keeping an eye on it.
[54:45] Yeah. Yeah. And I'm very curious about the bagpipe chainsaw.
I'm terrified of that. Abject terrified.
I mean, that is like the most horrifying sound and the most horrifying thing, right? That's how it works.
Oh, yeah. And Chris's gay scrap is opposite, excited and ready July through October and then dead November 1st.
Yeah, and I think a lot of that speaks to when the bill takes place.
And we might be there with you this year because we were not smart people.
Now, in our defense, we could not have known it would get this hot. For this long.
This long in the summer. Usually we get like a week of this kind of heat.
We've had well over a month.
New Orleans gets hot, don't get it wrong, we're used to it getting hot, but having feels like temps above 115, like damn near every day, and it only getting down to what feels like of 100 at night.
That is new. as this year.
That didn't happen last year that I can recall. So yeah, we have been beset by a heat wave and it's really ruining our ability because we can't be out there longer than like 15 or 20 minutes at a stretch.
Cause we're both very heat sensitive. Yeah.
[56:08] Yeah. So yeah. Thank you for all the well wishes. Thank you all. It's been a while.
And as far as a decent lead on bagpipes, check Marketplace.
Yeah, Facebook. I will bet if you check Facebook Marketplace, you will find bagpipes.
Probably. I will bet that. If not that, Craigslist. It'll probably be the person's partner trying to get rid of them, but still, you'll find bagpipes.
Yeah. Well, no, no, no. Thanks. Thank you, everyone, for joining us for the past hour.
It's been wonderful.
Some great queries, some great conversation, and a great celebration.
Episode 400. Looking forward to the next 100 episodes.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, episode 500, we should have planned something for that.
I think that's what we said at 300.
In our defense, it's been a little crazy in the personal life.
It has. But thank you all and we will see you very soon. Bye.