Haunt Weekly - Episode 447 - Why You Should Hire Haunters

 [0:23] Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the haunted attraction entertainment community. Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you. And we return to you this week, well, in my case, in a decent amount of pain, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah, if I sound a little bit off, a little bit grimaced, a little bit campy-arse, or if the episode ends up being a little bit shorter, order. It's because even though I did not completely throw out my back, I managed to hurt it fairly significantly earlier today. And I managed to do it through the very strenuous task of, checks notes, yawning.

[1:06] Yeah, I mean, and that's like how back injuries are, though.

[1:09] It is. I mean, literally, I was here in my chair doing my work this morning. As I was finishing up one thing, I yawned and I stretched, and then the place where I had hurt my back a few halloweens ago um just literally like someone stabbed me in it luckily i was able to stop doing it uh had a muscle relaxer had some pain medicine was able to get it under control but i'm still not a hundred percent by any stretch so trying to be kind to it trying to be good and trying not to have it blow up into a much bigger problem hopefully um i'll be better Better tomorrow is the hope right now.

[1:49] But yes, indeed, we are coming to you this week with an episode about why we think HR directors at various companies should take the experience of haunters more seriously. Yeah, and we as an industry should take our experience in haunting more industry, too. Yeah. I don't have my haunting experience on my resume, but you better believe it comes up in the interview. Yeah, I don't have it either because, once again, I mean, it's not job or I guess it is volunteer experience, which does count. But obviously, you know, we probably should put it on our resumes because operating a haunted house every year is a pretty big thing for us.

[2:31] And it is something that I think does warrant some weight in the application and hiring process. So, on one hand, we'll talk about it more in a minute, but on one hand, yes, we want hiring people to take haunters more seriously, and maybe we can get haunters to take their experience more seriously, If that doesn't sound like what you want to talk about this week, that's fine. There's plenty of Haunt Weekly to go around, 446 other episodes. To be specific, check us out at hauntweekly.com or hauntweekly on Twitter, hauntweekly on Facebook, and youtube.com slash hauntweekly, as well as pretty much everywhere you get your podcasts from.

[3:06] Follow us there. There are lots of great episodes to go through. All right, so first thing this week, work we did on the Haunt, none. New Orleans has been under heat advisory every day for the past week. Yeah, now we did talk to a new crew member who is going to start making the gears. As you all know, we're doing steampunk this year, so I need a lot of gears. Yeah, we got a new crew member, and actually it was this new crew member that partially inspired this week's topic. So we'll get into them in just a minute. We'll be talking about them in a minute. So that'll be interesting. But yeah, we do have that going on. We do have some other planning happening, but largely we couldn't do much physical work this week. Because even though it's late June, it's hotter than even normal for late June. Right. And also, I kind of broke my toe Friday and then was out of commission Saturday. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. I did too.

[4:05] Yeah, so we both have our little injuries this week. We do have a quick housekeeping topic. We may be changing the timings of some of our social media postings. I don't want to get into it. This isn't a call out moment or anything like that. But we've had an issue where a couple of places. Go ahead. People have reached out to us, and to avoid future confusion, we may be changing timings on some of the posts. Yeah.

[4:34] Basically, what I want to say is we are happy to have our ideas used in the community. Yeah. We enjoy it. We do like seeing it. And we don't necessarily, especially if it's just the idea, don't even really want attribution. We're putting this crap out there. Please use it. But we've had a couple of times where our question of the week has been published by someone other than us before we posted on social media. And that has created confusion. Yes. And so we're trying to avoid confusion. We're going to adjust our social media post timings. We may actually be doing the next question a week. Because typically what we do now is we post on weekly on Wednesday. I mean Monday, rather. Right. And then the question a week on Wednesday. Yeah, that's so that if you're listening to us within those first two days, you can send us your responses directly. You can get us the responses directly. You can get in on early, basically. Yeah. And that's the whole goal of it. So we may be moving that back to Tuesday, or we may be doing something else with it altogether. I don't know. I don't think we're going to change when we publish the podcast itself. I think Monday works overall well. Well, we've talked about bumping it back to Tuesday to give us that extra weekend day, quote-unquote, to take care of it if it's on a long weekend, for example. Well, and Mondays are really difficult for our work schedule. Yeah, and it's the busiest day for damn near everyone in this house. Yeah.

[5:58] So we may be doing it Tuesday, but that's not something we're announcing here. We're talking purely about social media postings. Yeah. So, yeah, let us know your thoughts on this. I'd be eager to hear, would you be cool with doing the podcast on Tuesday, for example? How do you think the timing should work? What do you think would be best for everyone? Because, you know, obviously we've made Mondays work for a long, long time and largely haven't had to miss any.

[6:23] But it has been very difficult sometimes, like I said, because of the busyness of the work week and just the nature of the timings of things. So let us know your thoughts on that. Hauntweekly.com, Hauntweekly on Twitter, Hauntweekly on Facebook, and YouTube.com slash Hauntweekly. Leave a comment, send an email. We want to hear your thoughts. We really do genuinely love and cherish your feedback. So please let us know. All right. Well, speaking of the question of the week, every week we ask one. Last week we asked, what item do you always bring with you when you were haunting? I probably should have made the question items in hindsight. But anyways, we did get a lot of interesting answers. And first things first, before we get into the individual answers, a lot of people talked about what was in their bug out box. Yeah. Which I thought was interesting. It is. And we've talked about my bug out box before. You don't really have one because you're front of house. No. But some of the items that you may need are nearby. Yes. I don't necessarily keep them on my person. Right. They're tucked away somewhere nearby. And, in fact, one of the great things about our current layout of the Haunt is that your bug-out box is equally accessible by me and you. Yes. So if I need pliers to fix something really fast out front, I can grab them, just reach right in and grab them. Yeah. So, but, yeah.

[7:41] So, yeah, that was very interesting. I mean, so if you've talked about, you know, the zip ties, the cable ties, the multi-tools and all that, that's great stuff. But basically, yeah, a lot of people talk to the bug out box, and a lot of people have the same things in them. Yeah. So that's cool to know that we're not the only ones with bug out boxes, though. Yeah. Moving on, though.

[7:59] Right. Max Schick said, there's not just one. I have an arsenal, hearing aid batteries, because I'm legally deaf, a two-gallon-sized jug of spring water, coconut water, and protein powder with a shaker to make a protein shake at any given moment. You know, that is an impressive amount of liquid we're talking about there. Yes, it is. I am out of respect for that. Roberta McClellan said, just one? Ibuprofen. Which, I mean, someone once made the comment you can tell a lot about something by their painkiller. Yeah. Ibuprofen house versus Tylenol house versus Aleve house, whatever. So I don't know how much stock I put into that, but it is interesting to know that Roberta is an ibuprofen house.

[8:44] James Pallas said Gatorade and painkillers same thing Shalisa Muehlberger said all my characters are equipped with two things my staff so if I get dizzy I can look like.

[8:55] It looks like I'm just hanging out in a pouch full of candies and toys for scared kids. I love that latter idea. If you're in a haunt that routinely gets young customers, that is a brilliant idea to bring little things you can give to the kids. I make it toys, personally. Yeah, you know, and this may actually inspire us to put little toys along the route through the haunt at some of our actor stations, so that whenever we have kids that we have to do a no scare for, they can pick up the treats along the way. Yeah, and we have a lot of little toys and knickknacks and bloopity bloops, because we used to do, with a yard display, prizes and games. Yeah. But that became onerous from a staffing standpoint. Right. And, you know, the amount of kids we got trick or treating grew immensely. Yeah. So we they just couldn't do it all in one night. Yeah. We couldn't guarantee everyone would get to play the games. Yeah. Basically. And that just created situations and we didn't want to make people feel left out. But I think also maybe Bernie having, we'd have to find like marbles or whatever, little things he can pull out of, maybe like a vest pouch type thing is what I was thinking.

[10:15] I think pulling out of your pants pocket might be a little creepy, even for Bernie. It might be the wrong kind of creepy. But a vest pouch or something like that could work. You know, so I like this idea. We may be adopting this in some way. I don't know what, but we may be adopting it. happen. All right, and finally for this week, Carter Carroll said, a good attitude and willingness to work is all we really need, no matter if we're a parking attendant or an owner. I'm going to say, though, a snack and a good water bottle can help a lot with that good attitude and willingness to work, though. Don't get hangry. Don't get hangry. Don't die of thirst. Don't overheat. Those types of things. Yes, but I do think that that answer shows part of the spirit of this episode of why to hire haunters. Yes, indeed. And that's one of the reasons I had to throw it in. If you couldn't tell. Yes. So anyways, real fast, since I know a lot of you are home haunters and seasonal haunters, this week's question of the week is, what haunting skill do you use in your quote-unquote day job? I know we've asked something similar before, but it's super relevant to this episode, so let us know. Hauntweekly.com, Hauntweekly on Twitter, Hauntweekly on Facebook, and YouTube.com slash Hauntweekly.

[11:30] Alright, basically this episode, you mentioned the potential, likely, probable new member of our crew. Yes. Well, they are a young person. Yeah. Very young person. In fact, technically, we probably wouldn't agree to work with them if we did not already know their parents, didn't know the family, they didn't already know us very well. They've been working with Ellie... At the yarn store. At the yarn store for the past year or so. Mm-hmm. and seems to be going well for them.

[12:03] So we're going to bring them on as a crew member. And also they do stage and theater, prop design, a lot of things that naturally overlap with Haunt Built and Haunt Acting. Right. And they don't actually want to act, as far as I know. Yeah. They just want to help with the build. Yeah. And that also helps a lot with us being willing to take them on, because the full crew won't be around. I do hope they agree to act. Even if they do front-of-house stuff, like the trick-or-treat area and so forth, I think they could be great at that. But we'll see. That'll be something to discuss as the season goes on. But they will be helping us with the build, which is great. We're happy for the help, especially from someone with set design experience and theater. Yes.

[12:46] But guys, get me thinking. This will be one of their first, quote-unquote, real jobs. Even though ours is not a paid gig, we're a home haunt. Um ellie does pay her pay them sorry pay them yeah and their um their math quiz job because they're a math tutor yeah um which i thought was interesting that i did not realize when i was their age that you could get money for just being good at math because i was really good at math that age now in my 40s fuck you yeah i am not good at math as duolingo keeps reminding me, I got a 5 on the Calculus AP exam, which meant I got the highest score possible, and I exempted all math in college except for statistics, which was required in my journalism degree. No. And statistics ain't math. I'm sorry. Anyone that thinks statistics is math needs to understand either statistics or math better. Because it's not the same thing. Basically, statistics is fucking voodoo, is what I've just concluded.

[13:51] Basically, you look at numbers and you present them in the way that you want the outcome, right? In all seriousness, I do get why statistics is a mathematical field, but let's, yeah, no, it's not. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I had stats too. Yeah, it's just wild. But anyways, the point remains, this haunting, working in a haunted attraction is a lot of people's first quote unquote real job. And we've actually had several people who've worked with us go and work a paid gig at an area haunt, and it was their first job too. And we've known people who started out in the haunted house industry and then moved into theater costuming and in between other jobs. And the thing is, working in a haunted attraction is a great job for someone who is young and is just sort of starting to get their feet wet and doing work at all. First off, it's a quote-unquote fun job. Yes. It's one of those. It's a job that does not typically require a lot of experience.

[14:55] Experience is helpful and is necessary if you're wanting to move into higher-up positions. But haunted attractions are not going to say, must have three years' experience to apply. No. No, they're going to take the warm and willing bodies that they can get. And there might be an audition phase of it, but auditioning is not the same as you are required to have X amount of experience or Y degree to even apply, even be considered. Right.

[15:25] It's not a career for most to do it. No. Even if it's a pay gig. Yeah, and there are very few, like even the big haunts, there are very few of those that are fully, that's their full-time job. Yeah. Yeah, basically, it's a seasonal job at most, even if it pays. Because the thing about it is this. When you look at the hours, your average haunt actor, for example, or makeup artist, or someone who's working the nights that you're open, if you look at the hours they're going to get, even if you pay $15 an hour, it's not a full-time salary. They can't live off of it. They're going to have to have other income. And that's just the way it is. And that's fine because it's an opportunity for young people to make some decent pocket money, make some new friends make some new business contacts nudge nudge nudge um and it all comes with limited commitment it's the season is six to eight weeks long typically although this year it's gone longer because of that friday the 13th in september yeah yeah my birthday's on friday the 13th i think okay hey man double check before i say that yeah it's it's one of those months everybody's open and early for it that's all I know except us because we're keeping our schedule.

[16:40] Yeah, hang on. I'm trying to pull it up. It will be, no, it's August 13th is a Tuesday this year. It must be the one in September that is. In fact, September, yep, September the 13th is Friday the 13th. But yeah, no, yeah, the season is a little bit longer than normal this year. Like we noted that HHN is opening like August 30th or August 29th or something like that. Yeah, they're basically adding a whole half of a month. Yeah, a whole two weeks to it. But, I mean, and that shit is wild to me. Yeah. Because, I mean, I'm used to, you know, haunted attraction stuff being like the month of October. That's it. And now it's just creeping back. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just something that's interesting. But, yeah, it's still a limited commitment. It's only a couple of months at the longest. And haunted attraction hours typically fit very neatly around school hours. It might not fit very neatly around a day job hours, especially if you're getting off at 5 and needing to get to the haunt before 6 to start getting into makeup. But schools that let out at 3 or 4, it works much more neatly with.

[17:52] So yeah, a lot of young people end up having their first paying jobs being at a haunted attraction. However, hiring managers and also the kids themselves don't take it particularly seriously. Because they might not know what goes into haunting. So here's the thing. Here's the pitch. If you are an HR person or someone who has some kind of oversight over hiring decisions, we're going to make the pitch right now why you should hire haunters, both former and current ones, and basically why these people, why haunters can make great employees. And specifically, I'm focusing on people who have done haunting for a few years. They've made it last. They made it through at least a full season, probably a couple of years at this point. And you see that line on their resume where they're talking about, you know, hey, I've worked at Blubble Ball Haunted House for X number of seasons.

[18:52] This is why you should not dismiss that. Item number one. All right. Haunting is basically an improv art. Now there are some haunts that are very strict with their lines and things. Only say this and that and don't go off script and da-da-da. Yeah, but even then, customers are unpredictable and guests are going to act in unpredictable ways and you need to know how to respond to that. It requires a lot of thinking on your feet and being able to adapt quickly in any given situation.

[19:27] So, I mean, like a good example of this is a haunt may tell a character, all right, when customers come into this room, say this line. But what happens next is fucking chaos theory at that point. Yeah. It could literally be anything. It could be everything from a series of a situation as the customer starts having a panic attack or a medical issue and you don't know how to respond to that. It could be they come back with a witty quip that you didn't expect and that wasn't in the fucking manual yes or it could be that they just freeze and you need to get them to move right all of these are very real possibilities in that moment i have seen all of those and so you as the haunt actor yes you've been given the line you know what you're supposed to say but what happens after that line is complete fucking chaos it's a bit like playing peggle if you've ever If you've ever played the game Peggle, you know what I'm talking about. You can aim the ball and know what you're hitting with your first shot. But after that, fuck all is the guess. Is that even a thing anymore? I don't know. Look, Peggle is like $5 on Steam. If you have not played Peggle, I will buy you a copy of Peggle so you can understand this reference. Only for the first five people. Only for the first five to ten people applying. We ain't got money to buy all of you Peggle. But I got money to buy some of y'all Peggle. Exactly.

[20:54] We ain't got crazy Peggle money around here. No. But seriously, it's a plus. I guess you're not offering Arkanoid. Arkanoid's not chaos theory. No, there's much more in the angles and where the ball hits the corner. But like Cro-Canola Shuffleboard or other games like that where you're playing around physics. Anyway. It's chaos theory. And so, as an actor that has made it any amount of time, they have learned how to handle with that, deal with that, and move on from that. And basically, and you know, it's one of those things where you as an actor have to know.

[21:30] They have to expect the unexpected and be prepared to respond to it. All right. So number two, moving on. All right. Number two, it's a customer service job. Yeah. We don't think of it that way. But if you are working in any capacity in-house or front of house, you are in a customer service position. Yeah, because here's what's going to happen. Customers are going to come to you. You were going to interact with those customers and hopefully give them the experience they paid for or at least came there to receive. Right. It's that simple. That is the very definition of a customer service job. Just because the service you're providing is to scare them or, you know, whatever or whatever, it is a customer service position. And that is not something that, you know, we think about a whole lot. And that includes customer service of the less than exceptional ones, whether they are the drunk customers who are being rude, whether they are, God help us, the ones that swing when they get scared. Or just plan to swing, as I've seen. Plan very poorly to swing. Well, yes.

[22:47] They completely failed in their attempt. Lucky for us. An attempt was made, and they did not succeed. No. So, yeah. But, yeah, it means taking care of the customers, even the ones that are less than pleasant. And even if you do just a few nights at any reasonably busy haunt, you're going to get customers where they leave and you think, what a fucking asshole. Yeah. We've all been there. if you are if you have never cussed out a haunt customer after they've left under your breath you are not a haunter my friend because we all have done what a fucking asshole what a dick that son of a bitch that ad whatever it's natural it it happens but learning to do that a under your breath and b after they leave is part of the customer service training it is, So, yeah, basically, it's a customer service job. It teaches you how to interact with customers and to build up a little bit of that tolerance thereof.

[23:52] So, yeah, it's customer service experience in a really rapid-fire environment.

[23:57] It's like speed dating customer service. You're getting all your customer interaction in like 30 seconds at a time, and you're getting it dozens of times per night. You know you're like like when you worked a customer service job at like michael's and so forth you would see way more people halloween night than you would like a week at michael's probably in terms of actual interactions well yeah i wasn't like on the store floor either so um the next would be a better example of that anyways moving on yeah why don't we see my next all right um punctuality really matters in haunting oh man yeah it really does if you are looking for to hire someone who knows how to show up and show up on time hire a haunter yeah basically because yeah if you're 15 minutes late to a haunt that means an empty room or a late opening or you just don't get to play in the haunt that night yeah you don't get to work at all because a lot of times they'll have given that spot away to someone else and you don't get to come back lots a lot of the big ones if you're not there on time ready to go you don't get to to come or if you if you do get to come back you're going to be demoted to a lot because that's one of the ways that people get quote-unquote promoted at haunt is hey so-and-so couldn't make it or didn't make it tonight yeah um they've been doing really good in this room we're going to move them up.

[25:25] Well, and, you know... Because we need that space filled.

[25:29] Right, exactly. You learn the importance of being there and being able to work with everybody in the space and on time. And, you know, there's also some haunts that give out prizes for, you know, um perfect attendance perfect attendance yeah if you're on time every yeah now my thoughts on that have changed since covet yeah but i do know two people who listen to this and who we've, mentioned recently in the comments who won a hearse from their haunt for perfect attendance.

[26:03] Yeah i mean perfect attendance is kind of a weird thing because hey if someone's genuinely sick yeah i don't want them in there anymore you really don't want them in the hall and you don't want to punish them for not showing up right um yeah i agree with you on that but at the same time if it's just i don't feel like going i'm not you know or you're just not very no not very good at being reliable but when you get places yeah haunts will make you pay for that yeah haunters have to be punctual people and one of the reasons is because like i said the amount of time a haunt is open in a night is not very long most haunted houses are open like between like three and five hours a night and so those 15 minutes that is a significant chunk of the night and you know if you're not there if you're not in makeup if you're not in costume if you're not doing all those things bang bang bang you're either a going to be late getting to your room getting to your spot or b and this is the worst thing of all you can throw off the timings of everyone getting ready and cause the haunt to be late getting open. Exactly.

[27:10] Punctuality is super important in this, because for everything to happen in that very small amount of time, everyone has to do their part, hit their marks, and make it work, boing, boing, boing, boing. There's no room for error with that. Trust me. I know. Okay, number four in this list is that creativity and creative thinking. Thinking, even low-level positions, like I said, require some degree of improv, require some degree of creativity. But basically, one of the reasons people get into haunted haunting is because this is their creative outlet. This is how they do creative things. Everything from costuming to makeup to character to the lines you say to how you respond. Set design. Set design, how you work a room. Everything is creative. And so if you want someone who's used to working, being creative in a variety of ways, you're, Haunted attractions, baby. Exactly. Hire you a haunter. I don't know how to make it more clear. Creativity comes from every angle in this industry. It's not just one thing. It is writing. It is images and design. It is appeal. It's everything.

[28:28] It's a creative industry in every respect. Yes. Not to mention, also, shout out to the house photographers. Oh, yes. or you know who you are, and you can use those photos for your resumes. Yeah, portfolios and whatnot, please do. Because, A, if someone told me that they were a haunted house photographer, I would immediately know, A, they're very good at getting profile shots and getting creative action shots, but also they're really good at low lighting. Yeah, and low lighting photography. It's tough. Yes, it is. Sorry, go ahead. Nope, it's okay. Well, it's tough.

[29:11] I know. I just completely photography explained photography to the photographer. Yes, because you had heard me complain about low light so many times. Yeah, honestly, it kind of got broken record when you were doing concert photography. Yes. Actually, it wasn't just low lighting, though. It was also colored lighting. Specifically red. Yeah, red. Roxanne, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but no, red light is hardest to work with because something in the camera. And it bugs up the skin tones, too. Yeah, but the sensors in the camera have a hard time with it. And there are ways you can manually go around that. But that's not what this podcast is about. Yeah, I think cameras, the reason green screens are used is because cameras are sensitive to green and not red. I think that's what I learned. I'm sorry. It's okay. All right. I'm not going to get murdered later. It's okay.

[30:05] Number five. We're able to tough it out. So if you want someone with fucking stamina, hire a haunter. Yeah, no kidding. Haunting's hard work, physically and mentally. It takes a giant toll on us every year. Yeah. Haunters understand this, and we plow through anyway, and we look forward to coming the next time. No one does we're masochists yeah well we we're back to the no one should work while sick we know this now we learned that if you didn't learn that in the two years that covid was going on.

[30:44] Anyway um so yeah hunters don't stop just because they're tired or sore they don't feel up to it they finish the shift and they show up you know there's the old joke of amongst hunters about how The haunt industry is sustained entirely off energy drinks. Yeah.

[31:03] And yes, energy drinks and painkillers I think is the joke. And yes, it is. But there's something to be said for that about people who get the job done when they're not comfortable. No. When it's difficult. And that's definitely haunters.

[31:20] All right. Number six, a willingness to start at the bottom. If you go work for Haunt, even like Crystal and I, even if we went to a new Haunt and worked, we would be almost certainly starting out at the bottom. Yeah. We'd be getting that crappy drop panel role. Yeah, we've done that. Whenever we first started in Haunting, I was a guide at the first Haunt. Yeah, you weren't even a scare actor at first. I was just a guide. And then everybody was scared of me as a guide and wouldn't go the way I told them to. So then they're like oh well we gotta make her scary because she's scaring people anyway it's like oh just stand there being all sweet and innocent and stuff yeah yeah no the the instinct is too strong i understand but no yeah but yeah we but if you have spent any time in haunting you know that when you show up at a new haunt your first acting gig is going to be something that's or your first role is probably something very basic it's gonna be a guide and that haunt was unusual in that it wasn't a free roam it had guys right and scenes back the groups had two guides if I remember yeah one in the front one in the back so you couldn't run out.

[32:41] Are you serious? Yeah. Was that the reason they put one in their room? Oh, my God. I did not know that. Yeah, so you were trapped in the room with the guides. Yeah, wait. That does make the guides the scariest thing in the fucking room. No. And I was a ghoul. No. You were a chair banger, right? No, I started out as a ghoul in the blackout room. Oh, okay. And then I got put on the St. Joseph's and Andrew's Cross in the pinhead room. That was background ornamentation. So definitely bottom there. Yeah. In every sense of the word.

[33:19] Christ. There's a reason we have that tag on this podcast. Yes, there is. Because I cannot be arsed to edit that out. But the point remains, you start at the bottom, you prove yourself, you show up on time, you mark yourself as scary, you gain the experience. You can move up fast. Yeah. Including within one season. Yes as actors drop off as roles become available you can move up even when a season week to week you can move up in some cases prove yourself strongly enough i've seen cases where someone started out a haunt it's a very basic role but they nailed it so hard they were working queue line acting by the end of the second season or so you can move up very fast if you prove yourself but you've got to show up on time you've got to prove you're good you've got to put your heart into it and that means putting your heart into a shitty role that you may not like.

[34:13] I've been a drop panel goal i hated it the position that drop panel completely sucked and made no goddamn sense from a scare tech standpoint but i worked it as hard as i could got a few good scares and had it and made the best of it yeah you know yeah that was a um interesting drop panel it was you know the one i'm talking about oh yeah no i know it was a shitty placement it just basically guaranteed you couldn't get anyone ever yeah oh my god like the tactics of it was just terrible sorry yeah this is why this is why we build on well that you know better rolls for me yeah better for us too but anyways so yeah but a willingness to start the Bob and work their way up that is a honor at their core mm-hmm number seven all right natural project planners oh yes indeed this is mainly for the the build team the core group that like starts and helps design yeah you know more than just the pure actors who show up night after night but these are the people who get it to where those actors can step into their roles.

[35:28] You know, there are some actors who are natural planners, too, because they plan their entire character. There are some places that will let you do that. And there are some places also where the actors will coordinate room to room to room to create a good flow of scares between that zone. Exactly. So, no, this isn't, what I was thinking of when I wrote this out was, but you're right, actors can do this, too. But moving on, go ahead. All right. So, yeah, it takes a ton of planning to put on a haunt. and this is planning from the actual build to the set design to how you staff it to how you market it you got to let people know that you're there you know so you've got all of that in a homegrown feel basically yeah and you've also got to focus on compliance with various laws you've got to figure out safety issues too everything well i mean i know but you got to figure out like you You know, how you're going to handle, you know, your exit path, your lighting and all that and your fire suppression.

[36:31] And it all has to come together in an attraction that looks good, is scary, and is fun and can hopefully, if it's a paid attraction, can be profitable at the end of the year so you can do it again the next year. Yeah. So, yeah, that is a lot to put through. Anyone who has worked on a core hot crew is going to be a great project planner and project manager because there's so much that goes into it. Gantt chart galore is what they wanted to track. It's the home of the Gantt chart. Yeah. Gantt and Excel spreadsheets. Jape's just squeed a little bit somewhere. Might have weed himself a little bit. We mentioned Excel spreadsheets on Home Weekly. Well, spreadsheets in general. There are now other spreadsheets available. You know google docs and i got all the spreadsheets all printed out on my bed sheets exactly all right and our last bullet point for this right now is safety look yes we put safety last but it always is first you know this we love doing the irony uh but yes much of what goes into haunting is a safe is safety because literally if a haunt is well run and that unfortunately is a bigger if than it should be.

[37:52] Safety is literally the top priority in everything. And that includes how to keep yourself safe and how to keep customers safe. One of the things I've noticed that haunters have is that great sense of self-awareness good haunters have about where they are and when they are in danger of potentially getting injured or when they need to do something different for their safety. And that could be safety from customers. That could be safety as in and this activity is straining my back too hard, I've got to adapt. You get an awareness because if you make it in, if you make it a significant amount of time in haunting, and I would say, like I said, a couple of seasons, you have to have at least a good fundamental awareness of your safety. Because if you are truly a reckless idiot, haunting will not be a long-term proposition for you. You will injure yourself one way or another, given enough time. Yeah. And if not, you will see someone else injure themselves. And lots of haunts provide first aid training in case that happens. Yeah. And that is one of the really great perks is that, like I said, a lot of haunts do provide basic first aid training. And if they aren't, that is a great thing they should be adding to it. Yeah. Because as you noted, getting a first aid seminar is not that difficult. It's not. Because you had to do it for your work recently. Yeah, I did.

[39:18] It was about $15 or $20 a person. Now, you had to have a minimum amount of people, but even then, it was only like 12. Yeah, I don't think a haunt is going to struggle to meet the minimum amount of people. Even our crew probably could fill up the minimum number of people. Yeah, we could. So, yeah, I think that's a great idea, that all haunters, every person in their B, C, P, R, basic first aid train. Yeah. Actually, that's a really cool idea. And a lot of haunts do provide that for a lot of their actors, at least. Well, yeah, basically they say, here is the hair of the Band-Aids, and they're sporing. They're in the bug out box in this part of the haunt. Here's the first aid box we bought back in the 2010s. Yes, everything's aspired. Don't worry. It'll work just fine. Exactly. The alcohol wipes are drier than shit, but they'll still take the blood away.

[40:16] But understanding safety on that subconscious level almost is a lot of what keeps haunters safe. And good safety instincts are very important. Haunters have that. You have a job where safety is important. and that should be all jobs but you know basically you can trust the safety instincts of a haunter they've made it long enough in a haunted house without getting hurt they'll probably do fine on your job site as well no because like i said the the idiots who are just going to be totally reckless and do stupid things yeah they they they aren't going to make it two seasons and haunting probably not more than a few weekends and haunting maybe not even more than a night because they may They injure themselves the first night and not be able to do anything. We have actually seen that. Not in our haunt, luckily. No. But we have seen that elsewhere. Yeah. I'm trying to remember who it was that mashed their finger on the first night they were working at that haunt. I remember because it did not happen anywhere near my area, so I don't remember what happened. But they apparently were playing with one of the mallets or something, one of the weapons, and just mashed their finger like an idiot. It wasn't a real weapon, luckily for them, because then that mash could have become a chop-off. Yeah. But they did something fucking stupid and really hurt their finger, and then though it wasn't broken, they still never came back.

[41:42] So hopefully, if you were in HR and listening to this, you just tuned out that whole last section about how... That hog doesn't exist anymore. There's no one left to punish. No. Like I said, I wasn't in the area. I heard about it after the fact. No, I know. That guy that came by today, yeah, he had to leave because he hurt himself. But yes, if hunters have been at a place for more than a season, they're probably fine with all of the stuff we've mentioned. They're probably not dipshits that are going to do that. Because that's what happens to the dipshits. Yes. They have to drive home holding out their index fingers.

[42:23] Oh, God, yes. Please, please tune out this part, HR people. Don't sue this haunt that I have not named that is no longer in business.

[42:32] But anyways, on that note, everyone, yeah, I think that's basically the summary of it. If you get someone who has haunted, especially a young person, who maybe doesn't have a lot of experience elsewhere, but they have a few seasons at a haunted attraction on their resume, yeah, this is why you should take them seriously. It's not an easy job. Bob, this ain't slinging lemonade. Right. And we just touched on the working in a team. But that team can be anywhere from five people to a couple of hundred people of all different varieties of people. And you have to be able to work with everybody. Yeah, we didn't even talk about that part much. Yeah, you're right. The fact that they're a part of a team. Yeah. If you survive and thrive in a hot environment, you clearly understand the value of teamwork. Yeah. And you understand, like you said, how to get along and collaborate with people that maybe don't think or act like you. Maybe they're a dipshit who hit their finger with a weapon on the first night they work at a haunted house. Yeah. Or maybe they come from a different, you know, backgrounds and cultures and everything.

[43:41] And that's really nice to be able to know that someone's able to integrate into multiple types of teams. Yes, I agree. I agree. But on that note, everyone, thank you for listening to our two-person team talk about this issue. We greatly appreciate you spending the past 45 minutes or so with us. I'm going to go have a lie down now because I think my back has had about all it can take right now. But please do check out more Haunt Weekly. We're at hauntweekly.com, Haunt Weekly on Twitter. We're Haunt Weekly on Facebook and Twitter or X or whatever the hell the cool kids are calling it these days. And, of course, you can find us at youtube.com slash hauntweekly. Every episode we've ever done is readily available there. We hope you enjoy it. Until next time, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this was episode 447 of Haunt Weekly, why companies should hire haunters. Next week's 448. That means it's time to do The News. We will see you all then with all the haunted attraction news that's fit to talk about. Hope you all enjoy it.