Welcome, welcome, Welcome to the third hour of the show. And that spooky music means it's spooky time, it's Halloween time, and that means the return of something. Anthony, my producer, loves me not so much. I don't like being scared the bejeebers out of me, and that's what they do at the thirteenth Floor. Joining me now the general manager Brian Kopp, to talk about what you can expect if you're among the maniacs who love to be scared to death for fun. Brian, first of all, welcome to the show.
Hi, thanks for having me.
So thirteenth Floor has been around for I don't even I feel like they've been around for a long time now how many how many years? Excz eighteenth season? Why the thirteenth floor? Do you know why that got started? In that? Why was it? Why was that the theme or the name?
There's if you go to like an old building and you look at the elevator, a lot of times you won't see a thirteenth floor goes from twelve to fourteen because of like unlucky thirteen and then like bad things would happen on that floor. So I always thought that was like a fun bit of lore to kind of develop.
So the idea is all of those terrible scary things that happened on the thirteenth floor of all these different buildings, well they're all here under one roof, at the thirteenth floor Haunted House.
So, Brian, how does one decide when you're, you know, getting into your career, you know what I want to do. I want to work at haunted houses, because that's what you show us at some point, like what led you there?
I was a seasonal scare actor. I've always you know, had a love of Halloween and horror, and I love acting and special effects makeup, and that was always something that I would pursue. So it was like a fun seasonal job where I get to turn one of my favorite holidays from you know, a day or a weekend a celebration too. I get to do it every weekend
for like a month. And as I was in the right place at the right time, and thirteenth Floor kind of spawned this incredible Haunted house empire and we grew and have haunted houses all over the country, and eventually I was offered an opportunity to run my own thirteenth Floor show in Chicago. I ran thirteen for Chicago and the old Joliet Haunted Prison. Oh nice, and I'm here at where it all started.
Well, so let's talk about what the attraction features this year. What do you have a theme every year that you sort of adhere to that informs the storytelling because honestly, like a hunted house is kind of.
A story right, Yeah, it's improvisational theater, it's immersive theater. So yeah, every attraction always has a unique theme. Every year. It will have, you know, kind of a focal point character, and that theme, as you said, you know, kind of informs the creative processes. We're designing new scares and new rooms in that particular attraction, as we're designing the characters, the costumes, the makeup design, the sound design and music
that we play in those attractions. So this we have the Legend of the Thirteenth Floor, which features one of our original classic characters, mister Hollows.
Oh little Ichabod crane situation going on here.
Yeah, and then the second attraction is Twilight of the Damned, featuring this scary witch named Orla who has cursed everyone with eternal insomnia driving the mat.
I think I know her. As a matter of fact, I think I met her a long time ago, and I'd like to have a word right now. But you guys actually have a third part of the attraction this year. Tell me about that.
So for the first time ever, we have three attractions, so we've drastically increased the size of the Haunted House. Your ticket gets you into all three. So the new one is outside in our midway, and it's bigger than the other attractions, and it is called the Bloodshed.
Oh of course, of course. Let me guess it looks like a shed on the outside. Not scary at all, Yeah, not scary at all. Like just put these people in the horror movie. Let's hide from the maniac by going in the shed full of chainsaws. That's kind of what we're going after. Is that the theme here exactly right? All right, don't go here. It's like you've been here all you know, you what it is. Here's the thing.
I'm gonna be perfectly frank here, Brian. I'm fifty six years old, and when I was younger, I allowed myself to be talked into going to things like haunted houses. And as soon as I left the Haunted House, I said the exact same thing. I blanking hated that. I never want to do that again, and yet peer pressure being what it was for many years. So I've been to haunted houses. I know what they're about. I'm one
of those people. I don't like to be scared. I don't like to be startled, so haunted houses are not for me. Now a Rod, my compatriot here, the exact opposite. He loves it all. He loves to scare people, he loves to be scared, and he has a question. What's your question?
Yes, so, Brian, obviously I know first and experience that this is one of the best haunted houses in the entire country, if not the world.
I know.
USA Today named it the top five in the top five for most terrifying haunted houses this year, and it always is. And I've seen that firsthand, just with the investment and the care and the actors in the sets, in the stories you guys tell this year. Specifically, what would you point to what makes it a top five this year?
Specifically when I moved here from Chicago and met the team that's been in place here. A lot of these people are like veterans that have done many many seasons here over the years. There's so much like thoughtfulness and care and passion from the staff that go into every aspect of this, Like not just like the makeup and the acting, Like, yeah, there's lots of great actors, and we train all summer long to get the actors ready
to go. You know, it's makeup workshops. But I mean even just like the staff guiding people into line, the scenic design, the carpentry, Like, there's just so much passion that goes into creating it. I feel like you every aspect, everything that you look at when you're here, you can see a little bit of that, and I think that goes such a long way to making it such like a fun, exciting and special experience.
Well, you're the only person that's gonna all to see this, but I'm holding out a picture to you now. If you want someone else that cares about what they do in scaring people, you know who to call right here, My friend.
Really do need to leave? You got to get you back here, And I'm gonna okay, can we just stop calling them scare actors and just shorten it to scacters? I mean, I feel like that's tight. You know, It's like we got our skecters here. There are scare actors. I think that there should be a cameo role for Anthony in this, and I see you as being part of the Ichabod Crane vibe a little bit, maybe with a frilly caller and puffy sleeves, something along those lines.
You know, he loves the clown thing and the clown thing just it just freaks me out. I'm not happy about that at all.
That's the place for him. We just opened a new upsell attraction outside as well, like a little extra ticketed thing called clown Chaos.
Ah. Yeah, I remember that last year. Yes, that was sparticular.
This is totally rebuilt from the ground up, so it was like the same concept of clowns and fun, but it's a totally redesigned experience.
I was actually going to ask that question specifically, and you mentioned that you have a team of people that are working on concepts and things like that. How much attention or care is paid to making sure that it's not exactly the same while still maintaining maybe the super popular parts of the Haunted House. I mean, I'm you know,
Universal Studios in Orlando. I lived there for ten years I because of my radio gig, had to go to Halloween Horror Nights and one of their big attractions that they have is the lady who lays in the coffin with all the roaches crawling over her. And I'm just like hard Pass, I've lived in Florida my whole life. I've had roaches. I don't want them. But are there sort of those cornerstone pieces of your haunted house that appear year after year?
There are, Yeah, there are certain things that people they get. You got to give them what they want, and I think it's important to make sure that there's there's something fresh every year. We tell different stories, we have different characters, but those characters can still exist in environments that people like, really love. Like we have a tilt rem that is an absolute fan favorite that really like disorients people and it's super fun and like that's not going anywhere anytime soon.
We might retheme it, we might change what you're going to experience, but it's still going to be the same. Like core fun gag of you walking through this tilt Rem. You know, chainsaws are all You got to find a place for the chainsaw. You're gonna get people like where's the chainsaw?
There was no chain saw? That was so disappointed with no change is yeah, there you go. H Okay, So what age group is this appropriate for? Because that's the question I always get from people, is like, can't I take my seven year old? So what are you guys looking at? Age? You know, age wise?
The recommendation is treat it like a PG. Thirteen movie. Thirteen and up is what we would recommend. That being said, kids younger and younger every single year seem to really love this stuff more and more. If you want to bring your seven year old and you think that it's not too intense for them, that's up to you. You know, there is disturbing imagery. There's there's blood's gore. So it's
definitely not for every seven year old, but there. I mean we we had a birthday party for like nine year olds not that long ago, and they were obsessed with it.
I mean, these kids today, That's all I can say about that. Somebody from our text line, our Common Spirit Health text line at five six six nine, Oh Mandy, please ask your guest if there's an element of a haunted house that most people find terrifying, is there is there one thing that just cuts across everybody and and scares the bejievas out of everybody.
I mean, yeah, it's it's that's why you always have to have a chainsaw in there, because that's one where it it gets somebody just about every single time, creating a situation where you go from someplace kind of light to all of a sudden you can't really see what's in front of you, you know, playing with that, like, you know, innate psychological fear of the dark and the unknown is part of the design of a lot of aspects of the Haunted House that gets people just about
every single time. Clowns is another really popular one which I've never really understood. Like I've never found clowns particularly scary, but like I'm definitely in the minority.
You just haven't come across the right to have somebody come and test that theory.
This is why I have to put up with Brian. Yeah, that's what I somebody else suggested. Instead of scacters, we can go scharacters, which I kind of like. Characters is good. I'm just trying to make things easy and less promost I've got a link on the blog for the thirteenth floor. You can go ahead, buy your Tay's they're going just beyond Halloween. But I will say this last year, I think we interviewed someone more in the middle of October, and like the dates towards Halloween were sold out by
the time we had somebody on. So if you do want to go right around Halloween, you're gonna want to buy your tickets, Like now, is that fair to say?
Yeah? And know that if you go in one of those days, like I mean, there's gonna be there's so many people. It is such a popular event. So if you would prefer to have you know, a little bit uh, you know, more of a private, unique experience than get those time slots on those weekdays that are starting to get added to the calendar, and you know that might be more your comp of tea. Some people love going when you know there's tons of people there though, makes them feel more safe.
Yeah, well, I mean what I again, I'm not sure demographic. Somebody just asked, what's the craziest response that you guys have had? Have you had people pass out? Have you had people have a more dramatic response? I mean, what, what kind of stuff do you do you sort of prepare.
For every year we have we have people that you know, sometimes we need to we need to, uh, you know, get the emt over there to take a look at them. Yeah, panic attacks, people passing out.
I can't imagine why I don't want to go to this. I I would be in that panic attack like passing out category. So it's just it's just not my thing.
You got me thinking, Mandy Brand, Have you guys consider because I've seen other haunts across the country, do this new offering where people can wear this really bright glow up necklace that let alerts the actors to not scare them. Those people are just there to see the visuals, but not necessarily for the scares. That's something you guys have ever considered offering to your paper light?
Is that what you're calling it? Tried like the it was like a necklace and it was like, you know, basically like scare light. We've also tried like behind the screens tours where like maybe the haunted house is too much for you, but you do appreciate the artistry of that. I would do so that we bring you out during the day. You'll get a guided tour. You know, somebody like myself. That's renowledgeable, you know in why we made this and what's the lord and the concept behind this?
You know, what's the backstory? And those were pretty popular. I don't think we're not doing it this year, but we might bring that back at some point. That was pretty popular.
I would totally do that. I mean, but I'm the person on a cruise ship who does the behind the scenes ship tour too, you know, so I like to see how everything works. I just don't want to be startled. Guys, get your tickets. What's the final date, Brian for this? What's your last date?
Eight weekend of November.
Okay, second weekend of November, So but go ahead. I would say, if you want to go around Halloween, I think we were like October fifteenth ish last year when we interviewed you guys, and all of this stuff around Halloween was sold out. So if you want to go around Halloween and you want to make it part of your Halloween night, you're gonna want to buy those tickets like now, And I put a link on the blog today.
Brian.
I appreciate so much what you do, and I cannot tell you how much my producer loves what you guys, do and uh, and I'm sure you're going to scare the crap out of tons of people this season. And when you bring back those behind the scenes tours, sign your girl up right here because I will absolutely do that. And as long as nobody jumps out at me, because I might punch someone at My reflexes are slow, but they're not that slow. So I appreciate you making time for us today, Brian.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy Halloween.