August 15, 2024 • 68 mins
Episode 84-SCE 24 Planning Phase Released 15 August 2024 Hosts: Keoni Hutton & Leslie Reed
With less than 100 days to go until Halloween, Keoni and Leslie jump into the Planning Phase for Sanguine Creek Estates 2024. Follow along our brainstorming session and see how you can apply it to your own haunt!
Resources mentioned during this episode:
Domestic Violence Hotline: https://www.thehotline.org/
Sexual Assault Hotline: https://rainn.org/about-national-sexual-assault-telephone-hotline
Suicide Hotline: https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/988-factsheet.pdf
Russ Mckamey: https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/tn-haunted-house-owner-charged-with-attempted-murder-rape/
Reckless Ben Infiltrates Mckamey Manor: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwZ2x35GrBCSbwtopxIm6TV7NRlFthgX8
Terror Tap at Fear Expo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMPHtqiWg9s
Terror Tap: https://www.terrortap.com/
Southeastern PA Halloween Flea Market: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2602823629997696
Haunting U can be found at www.hauntingu.com.
Sanguine Creek Estates: www.scehaunt.com
Chamber of Haunters Website: https://chamberofhaunters.com/
Sound Effects:
Music: Dance of Death http://www.purple-planet.com/
Thunder: Recorded by Mark DiAngelo Uploaded: 07.29.11 http://soundbible.com/1913-Thunder-... License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Modifications: Inserted over Dance of Death Music
Evil Laughter: Recorded by Himan Uploaded: 03.13.13 License: Public Domain http://soundbible.com/2054-Evil-Lau...
We couldn't continue to bring you awesome content without the support of our sponsors, particularly our Premium sponsors, the Chamber of Haunters, Fear Expo and VFX. Learn more here:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:20):
I am your host, Leslie Reed. And I'm Keone Hutton. Welcome back to the Hudson
View Podcast, everyone.
I wish you could have heard Leslie trying to do the introduction just now.
It was like listening to someone trying to do tongue twisters.
It was wonderful. I enjoyed it a lot less. I can do tongue twisters better than
that, apparently. She sells seashells by the seashore.
(00:43):
Rubber baby buggy bumpers. Rubber baby buggy bumpers. Rubber baby buggy bumpers. Peter picker.
I can usually do that. Well, great. Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers. There we go.
If Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did
Peter Piper pick? Where are the pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked? Nobody knows.
(01:03):
I like that answer. What else are you going to do with a pack of pickled peppers?
With a bunch of pickled peppers.
Seriously. I mean, that's why I pickle peppers, so I can eat them later. Be reasonable.
Welcome everyone to the Haunted U Podcast where we are all about pickled peppers
and clearly nothing else. That is our sole reason for being.
(01:25):
Pretty much. If you're a new listener, don't believe me. We're actually here
for Halloween things, I promise.
Don't judge us based on the pickled peppers. Although, if you want to judge
us on the pickled peppers, come over.
I'll let you try some of my pickled peppers. They are phenomenal,
especially the spicy rosemary pickled peppers. Oh, yeah.
They're good. Very nice.
(01:48):
And if you really want to lean into the pickled pepper thing,
let us know and we'll start posting pickled pepper recipes to our website.
We can, you know what, we can flex. We can flex to help meet your needs.
And if your haunted house needs involve pickled peppers, we are here to support.
That is what the haunted...
Podcast is all about. We are about helping you make the best haunted house,
(02:12):
the best home haunt that you can.
So if that involves pickled peppers, let us know. We're happy to assist.
More power to you. Absolutely happy to assist.
Okay. With that silliness out of the way, we are going to move on from there.
Indeed. We are super excited to be back into some sort of, I'm going to say,
(02:33):
a regularity, perhaps might be the right word.
Although we're only two episodes in, so I don't know. Two episodes are not a trend.
We're making a line here, but we don't yet have enough for a trend.
So keep your fingers crossed that we're able to maintain. We'll see what happens.
But in the meantime, we are starting our prep for Halloween 2024.
(02:55):
And we'll dive into that.
But before we do, there's a pretty serious topic happening in the industry right
now that we feel we need to address.
I have been very deliberate in not talking about Russ McKamey for years,
because in my mind- He is not representative of what we in the haunting industry are all about.
(03:18):
Well, that, and he does not deserve the airtime. That too.
And there's a part of me that feels really dirty devoting any kind of airtime,
but we need to address these latest allegations.
So a little bit of background, ground, Russ McKamey is the owner of a experience
called the McKamey Manor. He advertises it as the most extreme haunted house
(03:43):
in the country, possibly world.
And many in the haunted attraction industry take issue with that because what
he does is not a haunted house. And calling it a haunted house.
Just absolutely puts a black eye on everybody else who is working in the industry.
The way that he runs his experience, which is how we will be referring to it,
(04:08):
or his attraction, is very damaging to the haunt industry,
very damaging to people who want to come out and have a good time.
It is and it
has been a lightning rod of controversy
(04:29):
that again he capitalizes
on to bring in people to his attraction well said well said he ran mckamey manor
when he was living in san diego i cannot tell you much about the experience
except that it was touted as the most extreme haunted house.
(04:54):
And it basically put people through a level of torture inside that experience.
And there are numerous documentaries now that are trying to kind of bring light to the abuses.
I'm going to say potential crimes that he committed in operating that attraction.
(05:17):
It got worse after he left San Diego, moved to Tennessee, and started operating
this experience at his own home.
And a YouTuber called Reckless
Ben did a series of videos kind of showing what happens at McKamey Manor and
(05:41):
basically completely debunking the idea that there even is a haunted house or even a...
A location beyond russ mccamey's backyard
where he puts you into a small cage and waterboards
you with a molly well molly pulley pulled over your head like and making you
(06:03):
do the kind of pt that i had to do at six o'clock in the morning when i was
going through swab summer which is the coast guard academy's version of basic
training like it's it what he was showing was a lot of calisthenics,
followed by some light waterboarding and carrying really heavy things around,
and then being verbally abused by Russ and his partner while going through all of this.
(06:27):
That series of videos and a couple other documentaries that came out as well
actually caused, cause might be too strong a word, but shortly thereafter,
the Tennessee Attorney General opened a investigation into the practices at
McKamey Manor, accusing them of fraud and threatening to shut them down.
(06:47):
Russ McCamey then countersued the government claiming violation of constitutional rights.
And all of that is pending. In the midst of that, just within the last couple of weeks,
Russ McCamey was arrested for domestic abuse, sexual assault,
and probably a few other charges that have not yet come through.
(07:11):
So I just want to read a little bit bit
of this article from wkrn which is a local local news source in nashville tennessee
there is a link to it in the in the show notes so you can find the whole thing
but this was written by sierra rains and published on july 22nd.
(07:35):
The owner of a Middle Tennessee haunted attraction, do not like the use of the
word haunted attraction in this article, known for its intense.
It is what he has been claiming. It is what he has been claiming.
The utilization of it does acknowledge that this is what he claims,
and this is the basis of what the Attorney General has also formed their lawsuit
(07:55):
on, is the claim that this is a haunted attraction,
and whether or not the activities that go on to people who visit actually allows it to qualify as such.
So, no, we do not believe it's a haunted attraction, but I do give credit to
the author, to the journalist for stating it as such because that is the basis
(08:17):
of one of the bases of the attorney general's lawsuit. Fair, fair.
Back to the article. The owner of a Middle Tennessee haunted attraction known
for its intense scare tactics has been charged with attempted second degree
murder, rape and domestic assault.
Court records from the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office shows Russ Allen McCamey
was arrested at a Summertown home on Friday, July 19th after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend.
(08:39):
He was booked into jail on a thousand dollar bond in order to have no contact
with the victim. However, more charges have since been filed against the McKamey
Manor owner, accusing him of trying to kill his girlfriend on more than one occasion.
It gets, I'm not going to read what exactly he's accused of because it gets
(09:00):
fairly graphic and I do not want to trigger anyone.
But the additional charges now put his bond over $100,000.
You do the math. You do the math. Exactly. Really? Second degree murder attempt and it's only $1,000?
$100,000. Well, it started out as $1,000. It did. That was before the second
degree murder attempt. Ah, okay. Or charge.
(09:21):
Okay. I was like, I know Tennessee is special, but I didn't think they were that special.
Yeah, exactly. This is a significant issue, which is the one and only reason
that we are mentioning it on the podcast,
because it is, again, it's a highly significant event that has happened within
(09:42):
our community and with somebody who has done damage to what our community stands for.
And not just that, but also everyone deserves the opportunity to be innocent until proven guilty.
But that being said, the long history of Russ McKamey destroying people's lives
(10:07):
through what he was billing as entertainment just seems like such a lead up to these events.
For years he has been allowed to do morally questionable things in the name
of entertainment and i can't help but feel that allowing that to go on as long as it has has led to.
(10:37):
This when someone tells you who they are believe them and his actions have told
the industry exactly who he is. To the world.
And this is where we are now. So a couple of thoughts.
One, if you were ever a victim of Russ McKamey or honestly a victim of anyone
(11:01):
else, please, you do not have to bear that burden alone.
There are a multitude of resources available to help you through it.
I will post a couple of them in the show notes. If you have ever been subjected
to domestic violence or sexual assault or...
Or really just need an opportunity to talk with someone, reach out because you
(11:25):
do not have to face it alone.
And you should not have to face it alone. And you are not alone.
You are not alone. If worse comes to worse, reach out to us. We will talk to you.
Happily. Because again, you're not alone.
So let's move on to a happier topic because Russ McKamey deserves no more of our airtime. Nope.
(11:46):
We want to find out. Indeed. we want to dive in to our planning for Halloween 2024.
Which we've been teasing you about and whether or not we're going to do something
or not going to do something or maybe do something, but maybe not do something
because we're just moving in, but then we're renovating, but then we're across
the country and we really aren't sure what we're going to do.
So we're finally going to tell you what we're going to try and do.
(12:08):
Once again, you are along for the ride wherever the hell this takes us.
Well said. We are still struggling with many of the challenges that,
well, with many of the same challenges.
We still do not have the electrical permit from the county, and so work's still
not proceeded. Here we are two weeks later.
I just had to extend the storage for our household goods.
(12:31):
So at this point, I'm not sure when we're going to be getting all of our stuff.
And the big thing for me and this is all of my tools are in there,
except for, you know, the toolbox I brought with me across the country in case
I had minor issues with the car.
You must be going through withdrawal. I'm going through. I'm actually...
(12:52):
You want to know how I'm handling this? I had a really good friend at the Coast
Guard Academy who I haven't seen in 14 years, basically since we left, just about.
And just turns out that she's also assigned to headquarters the same time I
am. So we've got to reconnect and be catching up.
And I'm borrowing tools from her, honestly.
(13:15):
Who? Who is it? Crackers. Crackers. Crackers. Oh, my goodness. Tell Crackers I said hi.
I will. I will. I will. So that is what I am doing.
I've got her chop saw, a circular saw so that I could do some counter work in my laundry room.
I'm doing what I have to to continue
(13:35):
moving forward in the face of county delays. Let's put it that way.
Oh, man. Crackers is awesome. awesome yeah she she is awesome and i'm super
excited that we're assigned in the same place for the first time in our careers
because it's been a lot of fun catching up and yeah reconnecting,
(13:57):
so i'm hurting is what i'm saying it's kind of where i'm going with all of this
that but i still want to try to move forward and do something for this year
so i think I think we plan to do our ghost stories and do a multimedia display.
And if, giant asterisk, if we happen to get the rest of our household goods
(14:21):
in early October and I have the month to put together a haunted house,
we can do that. We can attack a micro haunt then.
But for now, I think we just focus on the multimedia display because the timeline
is just not looking good.
As many of you know, what we can do with the multimedia display is impressive.
(14:43):
I like to think so. So let's back up almost four years.
In fact, we're going to back up a little. We're going to back up about four
years here to the summer of 2020.
We had on Spencer Terry, who was and is the president of the Haunted Attraction
Association, to talk because he's also the general manager of Fear Factory in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(15:06):
But we had him on in the summer of 2020 because Fear Factory kind of took the
lead for the entire haunted attraction industry and put together a plan and
guidelines for operating a haunt in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
And as I'm sure all of you remember very vividly,
(15:27):
there were so many unknowns in the summer of 2020 that many people did not feel
comfortable trying to even trick or treat,
much less go to haunted houses that year.
And us being brand new home hunters in the area and i'm gonna say resource constrained.
(15:54):
That's a good word for it right not and broke,
leila is being leila is attempting to climb under my desk which usually results
in her breaking my internet again yes please don't do that leila we went through that enough last time.
So because we were resource-constrained, we also did not feel comfortable trying
to put together a full walkthrough haunt.
(16:15):
And so instead, we used the Halloween of 2020 to tell the backstory of the haunt
that we wanted to build the next year.
And what we came up with, I think, is kind of cool. I agree. It was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun. So I built the largest foam facade that I have built to date.
(16:40):
It is 14 feet high, 15 feet wide, and was the entrance to a crypt.
And it was the front of you
know a crypt facade place it inside of a
graveyard and then inside the
door of the crypt we projected ghosts using hallucinogens
(17:01):
and had the ghosts tell the
story of how they died and we hit four
different time periods in with these ghosts and each one encountered the same
malevolent spirit that has been
inhabiting the land where Sanguine Creek Estates is built for hundreds,
(17:25):
thousands of years.
We really haven't established how long it has been there, but it's been a long time.
It's been there. It's been there. And in every generation, it has infected a
person and that person ends up doing great harm in that area.
We were then able to take that backstory and apply it to the haunted house that we built in 2021,
(17:53):
where dr dr samuel
christopher edwards who just conveniently has the same initials as sanguine
creek estates it's likely dr samuel edwards was trying to find cures for various
diseases and was experimenting Experimenting on the patients in his hospital
(18:14):
built here at the estate.
And some of those experiments went awry, as they tend to do.
That ended up creating, basically taking asylum patients and turning them into some form of zombie.
And Dr. Edwards, in his... Infinite wisdom.
(18:38):
I wasn't even going to say infinite wisdom in his drive for more power and more
control and unable to be satiated was infected with this malevolent spirit that
transformed him into a Wendigo.
And so at the end of the haunt, or at the beginning of the haunt,
(18:59):
guests are welcomed into the asylum by Dr. Edwards.
But by the end of the haunt, he has transformed into the Wendigo,
and the guests meet the Wendigo version of Dr.
Edwards as they are being chased out of the asylum. And I had so much freaking
fun putting together that haunt and running that haunt. It was a freaking blast.
(19:26):
It ended up being something like 1,900 square feet of interior haunted house and then a good...
Thousand feet of walking outside on top of it and for a home haunt like that was freaking amazing,
we we did it was impressive it was impressive and i love it.
(19:56):
So i want to keep building on that
because it was such a cool storyline no
one else anywhere has done something like it and i
think we can keep if we
keep this whole the malevolent spirit of sanguine creek alive
then that gives us opportunities every year
to tweak what the haunted house is like so long as we are constantly bringing
(20:19):
back this spirit that is that is the the ultimate bad guy and that is our continuity
we have centuries of options exactly to choose from And,
you know, adding new ghosts, taking out ghosts, each of the ghosts can be the basis for a haunt.
(20:41):
They can be cameos in a haunt. You know, there's just, there's one of the things
that so many haunts struggle with is changing things up and trying to decide,
do we keep it the same? Do we change everything?
What's our new theme? What's our new approach? approach and
how to try and tie everything together so
(21:02):
that way when people come back year after year there's some
consistent threads that help tie everything together
and i feel that one of the things that we have done very successfully is create
a framework in which we can haunt any decade any century any type of locale
(21:25):
want to do a haunted zoo Cool.
Some rando built a zoo on the property at some point in the 1850s.
Cakewalk. Oh, hey, we want to do a circus. Well, you know, 1930s roustabout,
you know, depression era circus.
Great. We can work with that. All of these things we have the ability to play
(21:47):
with because of the story structure that we have created.
Exactly. Exactly. So.
What I want to do for this year, because I'm worried we will not be able to do a big build.
I mean, I know we won't be able to do a big build, but even a minor build.
(22:11):
I want to focus on creating more of those stories.
So let's take a look at the hunting you method for a second.
The hunting you method is a three phase breakdown of the method that we have
kind of developed while creating our haunts.
(22:32):
And this is what we use to guide ourselves and tailor ourselves,
well, guide ourselves and constrain ourselves as we are developing a haunt every year.
If you go on to our website, HauntingYou.com, just the letter U,
and click on the Haunting You method tab at the top, it will take you to a breakdown of that method.
(22:52):
And so today I want to take a look at the planning phase and kind of walk through
the planning phase steps for Halloween 2024.
So first and foremost, defining goals.
What is the goal that we want to achieve with Halloween 2024?
And I think there's a couple of goals that we have here for this year.
(23:17):
First, we want to get our name out there, which will allow us to build the audience
within Southern Maryland.
Well, I think not just get our name out there, but get our name back out there.
Back out there is accurate. We do have a bit of a following on social media,
but it's not a huge following.
(23:40):
The last time we ran this haunt, we had, what was it, 500 people in two days, which is solid.
Don't get me wrong, but I think we can do better.
So we want to grow that audience, I think, is kind of our first goal.
Secondly, we want to build on our backstory so that we have more storylines
(24:03):
that we can draw from as we're putting together the haunt in the future.
We can keep coming back to these stories, like Leslie said, and using those
to help us focus our efforts in the future.
So get our name out there, build the audience, widen our storyline.
And then, of course, because this is what kind of one of the big things that
(24:27):
we like to do with our haunts is give back to our local community.
Community and we have an established partnership here in
southern maryland with the southern maryland food bank and what
we have done in the past was collect canned goods from people
who came to see the haunt and i would
love to do that again so we can continue supporting our community in that way
i don't know how much of this is going to get cut out so this may be a really
(24:49):
awkward segue but leslie was digging back through her notes and found the backstory
we made for one our characters who was who is a patient in the asylum who thinks
that she is a porcelain doll,
and it was a very effective room just
the room was covered in dolls and the porcelain doll herself was like locked
(25:11):
up in a full-size doll box and she would burst out of the box and try to kill
the people who as they came through all of that is irrelevant to where i wanted
to go with this i I have to talk real quick about the Southeastern Pennsylvania Halloween Flea Market.
Ooh, yes. Which was a lot of fun, first of all. There were some really cool vendors there.
(25:31):
And I will check out our social media, particularly Instagram at Haunting University,
because that's where I was putting most of the stuff that I was creating there. But yeah.
If you're in the area, you love Halloween, you have to go to the Southeastern
Pennsylvania flea market, Halloween flea market.
It was a combination of professional vendors selling their wares.
(25:53):
And I got some really cool stuff, especially one of my favorites was from a
crafter called Bonehead Factory.
I'll put a link to his website in the show notes, who makes just the coolest
freaking Freaking jack-o'-lanterns that are just absolutely freaking amazing.
(26:14):
I've never seen anything quite like them anywhere. Those are awesome.
Remember you sent us the picture. I was like, I want stormtrooper pumpkins.
The stuff this guy creates are just absolutely freaking wild.
He had two pumpkins that were Star Wars based and it was basically Darth Vader and a stormtrooper.
(26:34):
They're absolutely wonderful. I love them. I had to buy one. Absolutely fantastic.
Another one, Corpse Creations, was there selling a variety of corpse skeletons.
But they had animals and people skeletons.
I see bats, spiders, dogs, demons, just all wolves, goat, all kinds of things
(27:01):
that were pre-corpsed for you so you don't have to do the work yourself.
But then there were also just random
halloween people who had stuff they wanted
to move their display into a different direction and
so they were trying to get rid of some props that they knew they
weren't going to use and get some money to buy props that they do want to use
(27:22):
i was actually one of those i took stupid ass clown prop that i absolutely despise
sold it for 200 bucks and bought a coffin with it like full size metal coffin
absolutely thrilled with that purchase i'm so freaking excited.
But i had a lot of fun uh if you were at the southeastern pennsylvania halloween
(27:45):
flea market i hope i got a chance to chat with you i talked with a ton of people
gave out a ton of business cards and we've had a few listens since then so i
think some people at least found found like our conversation interesting but
for future years go check out the southeastern halloween pennsylvania,
southeastern pennsylvania halloween flea market facebook page to stay up on
(28:06):
when they're going to be doing it next year they do it once a year usually in
late july august time frame,
well worth the trip i drove three hours to get there and it was well worth the trip,
But back to our main, main topic. Yes, we have those.
Sometimes we even remember that we have those. Sometimes, occasionally. So we defined our goals.
(28:30):
We, and we know what we're trying to accomplish with this year.
Identify audience. Who is our target audience, Les?
I would say in this case, our target audience is definitely families,
particularly those doing kind of a trunk or treating type of Halloween.
And anybody who wants to come by and walk around a site wow i have no words.
(28:56):
Once again that doesn't happen to you very often no
it doesn't it tells you exactly how my months been yeah so i think you hit it
on the head like we're targeting families we are targeting families this year
which is a little bit different when we're from when we're building the haunt
but we We want Halloween lovers to come out and we want to entertain them.
(29:17):
So families, I think, are our primary audience.
And anyone else who gets a kick out of it as well? Great. That's a win. Yeah.
Okay. Theme and backstory are the next two steps of the planning phase.
And we've talked about this significantly already about, you know,
our theme is, how would you describe our theme?
(29:41):
Like the theme of the haunt was asylum
slash zombie asylum into zombie that's not
quite where we're going this year though no no we've got a little bit we've
got a slightly different kind of approach because of how we're setting it up
so with that in mind and just kind of in that
(30:05):
contemplation of how we're doing it.
I think really in this case, we're doing a haunted estate.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. This is much, this is going to be a little
more like haunted housey ghost, like ghost haunted housey theme than what we did last year.
(30:28):
Yeah. You're an even like haunted graveyard, I think could be.
A haunted state really. so
it's it's there's a house that's obviously you guys are going to make
your house look haunted assuming you can get your stuff out of oh it'll
be haunted no matter what at the very least you can
put sheets on your children and have them run around over sky
and have her really run around and be confused and bored yeah exactly
(30:51):
sky give her pets for me i do love her but you know we'll have the the graveyard
set up we'll have the ghost stories and you know depending if we really want
want to get creative depending on how much capacity you have and technology i think it might,
(31:11):
i know i'm so unhelpful it might be
kind of cool if we could pull it off and if by we
i mean you if we did a couple of like
one or two ghosts along your
property line not just within the graveyard i 100 agree with you so the way
my yard is set up and we we've got we're at the end of a cul-de-sac and as you're
(31:36):
driving down the cul-de-sac we're on the left hand side right at the end where
you know, a bulges for the turnaround.
And the way I intend to set up and have set up, you know, the last two times
we did this was we had the graveyard and the crypt right up there by right next to the road.
And my driveway, it comes down from the road, goes in front of the house and
(32:00):
then over to the side of the garage.
And that's where I store like my trailer.
And there's a shed over there. And that was the main area that we built for 2021.
21 but so most of
the people so people will be staying up on the street for the most part cars
will not be allowed to come down they'll be able to see the the crypt up there
(32:22):
by the road but next to the house there is a big open area of grass that we
have not we've used a little bit set up
like static displays of skeletons doing things for
instance but like it's a big dark area
there are no lights there we have there's no spillage from like even the house
(32:44):
and we could very easily put some ghosts in there something i have been wanting
to try that i keep seeing videos of is Is chicken wire ghosts.
Oh, my neighbor's done those. Yeah. Yeah.
Like I've never tried them, but the videos I see online look super freaking cool.
(33:08):
And considering I have this big dark space that we could pepper a couple of
ghosts through, I think that could be freaking sick.
Yeah, I think so, too. Yeah, they've got a handful that they set up every year.
And at night when they're all
lit up they're solid yeah like it's
(33:30):
yeah it's definitely i've even i've done a
double take a couple of times yeah i
don't i think you're right like if if we're gonna be leaning into
the haunted estate we need to
haunt the crap out of our estate state yeah
we need a lot more ghosts so i'm going
to be bringing in lots of
(33:52):
lots of projector effects we can put stuff in all of the windows we can put
stuff in you know the crypt obviously but and then we could do a couple of holusions
in the in the yard as well chicken wire goes to fill it out and just get ghosts
absolutely freaking everywhere mm-hmm,
(34:12):
I love it. I love it.
So next step, create a backstory. We've already got our backstory.
The backstory is well established.
We've talked about it extensively, even in this episode. I'm not going to go into it anymore.
We have our benevolent spirit. Create a budget.
Our budget is $5. I hate this one.
(34:38):
So here is the keone hutton theory of budgeting do we discuss what your current job is.
My current job is be in the coast guard and
for the last two years because i was assigned to
a ship i did a very
poor job of building out a
(35:01):
revenue stream for that was able to support the haunt so we lost a lot of we
didn't really lose money over the last two years but we didn't bring in any
money either and that's hurting us a little bit right now like i said our budget is five dollars.
(35:21):
Exactly. A couple of feet of chicken wire. So what I need to start doing is
bringing in money here that we can then put toward the haunt.
In the past, I have done that by reselling stuff from estate sales or,
well, pimping myself out as a handyman to the local arcade, which is I'm actually
meeting with him on Tuesday to discuss more pimping myself out.
(35:44):
So there is potential for revenue streams coming in here shortly,
but we don't have them established yet.
In general, I don't usually set a budget like this is all I am able to afford for this year.
I do something more like, this is what I think I need to spend in order to do this effectively.
(36:05):
And then at the end of the year, I compare to our initial budget and say,
wow, marketing costs a lot more than I expected it to this year.
We need to take that into account next year and plan for it.
Leslie's laughing at me because she is a finance professional and has
(36:25):
a very different opinion than i do not necessarily
there's definitely the i'm budgeting for a company in which we're for profit
and i answer to higher powers than family the only i would say the only higher
power i answer to is my wife and she tends to be at least somewhat understanding yes Yes.
(36:47):
She's amazing. But again, yes, there's many different ways to budget.
The way I usually budget for my job is slightly different than the way I would
budget for, say, putting together a haunt.
It's also about, for me, who you work with. Kay does not budget the way that I would for a business.
Because I'm not a business. Exactly. He's also the one who's doing most of the
(37:11):
spending, money making and everything else. And I'm here in an advisory capacity.
So that's true. You need to start bringing in funding for this.
Okay. I'll see what I can't do. Pick myself out as an accountant.
Somehow I don't think that's going to work so well. Yeah.
But that said, it's also about working with your team.
(37:34):
If you're somebody who's very, very numbers oriented, but nobody else in your team is,
you're going to want to compromise and you're going to need to compromise to
make sure that the numbers that you're working with, you can then put those
in a way that is functional,
for others and also make sure that everybody understands where the boundary
(37:59):
lines are and what the goals are.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.
So that's really all I want to say on budget.
Use budget in whatever way is most effective for you. I think is,
is the big takeaway here.
And I will continue to ignore it because that is effective for me.
I know before we get to the last two parts of the planning phase,
(38:23):
let's take a quick moment here from our sponsors, and then we will talk about
marketing and designing a business plan.
Music.
(38:49):
Out of d23 this weekend uh this
weekend or last weekend this weekend no i've literally
been half a sleep all weekend i'm not surprised so big
things live action lilo and stitch
is coming and they showed stitch
i'll send you a video they showed stitch up on the screen
(39:10):
they did him justice he is phenomenal i love
it who's playing nani i don't i
don't know that it was just release these dates okay because
see i watched the trailer for it was
agatha all along that looks so good too i'm excited and i watched the trailer
for skeleton crew yes and i watched the trailer for moana too yes so you did
(39:36):
get some of the coverage well i was on disney this morning trying to figure out
what to watch and yeah it's like all of that was announced at
d23 yeah so so beyond that they announced expansions to the theme parks they're
getting a cars land at walt disney world that's different from radiator springs
(39:57):
at disneyland so like a whole new land oh in the world of cars.
Okay which i'm kind of excited about are they gonna pull
from movie two or three or just completely create not clear new not clear some
of the like concept art they were showing was like i don't know if you remember
during the credits of cars when they were showing kind of like what all of the
(40:19):
characters from radiator springs are doing after they start getting.
People coming through again yes that's gonna give me 20 miles that's exactly
where i was going with this like some of the concept art looked like it was
some off-roading type stuff with suvs and And I don't know where it's going
to go, but I'm kind of excited about it.
It's just one of my, honestly, out of that entire movie, it's one of my favorite
(40:42):
lines. Oh, I got your aquariums.
More than that. I'm going to think of any time I see one of those absurd trucks.
Reasonable. It's like. Reasonable.
But Les, you're going to freak out about this. They're building a Monsters,
Inc. land at Disney World.
They're going to have. They're going to put in there.
(41:05):
You're going to make me spend money in Florida. the first hanging under roller
coaster that Disney has done like below the track for the trip for the doors for the doors yes,
that's gonna be so cool you're gonna make me spend money at Florida I know I
know but wait I'm not done,
(41:26):
They're also building an entire land devoted to villains.
Oh, yes.
I am so excited. World? It sounds like both. I think both.
(41:47):
Okay. So, clearly what we need to do is do an extended family road trip.
Wait. it gets better actually not so that's what disney's doing are you following
what universal's doing no i think i've seen some rumblings but i haven't really been tracking it god,
(42:09):
in florida they have two theme parks right and in those theme parks well they
have two theme parks already they are building a third okay it is called epic
universe epic universe is going to contain four lands.
One land is nothing but classic movie monsters.
(42:32):
Yes, I know I've heard that they were doing something with that.
One land is Berk from How to Train Your Dragon.
And the video, like, I keep seeing people filming parts of construction for this.
They were testing flying dragons.
(43:02):
How lovely.
I'm going to have to fucking spend money in Florida. They're doing a third Harry
Potter park in Epic Universe.
So they've got Hogsmeade in one park. They have Diagon Alley in another.
And you can actually board the Hogwarts Express to go back and forth between
the two of them. And it's phenomenal.
(43:23):
That's awesome. Now they're doing a third part of it. And there's going to be an entire ministry.
I think it's going to be the Ministry of Magic. There was a ride all about the
Ministry of Magic where Dolores Umbridge is being put on trial for her crimes
after Voldemort's fall,
and she escapes, and there's a huge battle inside the Ministry of Magic,
(43:47):
and we are there in the midst of it, riding the elevators through the battle
at the Ministry of Magic.
Oh, that's awesome. awesome i'm trying
to figure give me the term oh and then super nintendo world they're
putting nintendo world there as well nice which they
opened that at hollywood and we went to it
and it's one of the most interactive lands
(44:10):
that i have ever seen so okay we bought the kids these wristbands and then they
can go around punching question mark blocks and collecting coins and And there
are all of these challenges spread throughout that you have to complete in order to collect keys.
And once you've collected three keys, you can actually unlock Bowser Jr.'s castle,
(44:35):
go in and face off against Bowser Jr.
In this absolutely freaking ridiculous motion capture experience.
Experience like you're standing there's you're
standing in a giant room with all of you arrayed in front
of this giant screen and it there are
cameras that track your movements and so stuff
(44:59):
bowser jr pops up on the screen and you have to dodge the stuff that he's throwing
at you while collecting power-ups and eventually you get a flower and you get
fireballs and you start throwing fireballs at him and you're you're doing it
it's using the motion capture to follow you as
you're doing it, it is so much freaking fun.
(45:19):
That's awesome. Oh my God. And then the freaking Mario cart ride is ridiculous.
They put you inside of these cars and then you put a visor, like a augmented
reality visor over your eyes that shows everything that's going on.
(45:39):
You collect turtle shells and you can shoot them at the other guys.
You're collecting coins through all of this. And it is so much freaking fun.
Holy shit. Awesome.
We just had this whole conversation on the break, but I'm going to have to incorporate
all of this now into the freaking episode.
Yes. I was going to bring us back with now after that very long word from our wonderful sponsor.
(46:06):
We're back on track. This is the conversation we're going to have as we come back.
That that's, what's going to end up happening after I've edited all of this. Yeah.
So absolutely freaking enormous news coming out of the, the entertainment industry
right now, and I'm super excited for it.
Yeah, that's just delightful.
(46:27):
But Villainland? Oh my god, I want a Villainland.
I can't wait to see what comes of it. Yeah, that's just gonna be awesome.
Like, oh man. But we've now wasted, I don't know, the last 10 or 15 minutes
talking about this, and we should probably get back on topic so we can finish
(46:49):
our topic and finish up this podcast for today. On topic?
On topic.
On topic. Don't hurt yourself.
I don't know what that means. I know. I know. It's okay. We're going to talk
about marketing here for a few minutes.
(47:09):
Basically what they've been doing. Basically what they have been doing.
But we're probably not going to market in the same way they did because we can't
afford to bring hundreds of thousands of peoples together to and show them what we intend to do,
instead we need to get our word out in in some other
ways and so i think
we have some steps that we need to complete here we have had i think fairly
(47:33):
we have been fairly successful in using like yard signs to point people in grabbing
random people off the street and say hey go check out this haunted house just
by carefully positioning them on the roads leading into my neighborhood.
And I think that has been fairly successful and I intend to do that again.
(47:54):
We should also bring back the website because the website did such a good job
of answering people's questions before they could even ask the questions,
which is generally my goal.
Yeah. Period. Period.
Minimize questions by having everything be clear. By having as many answers
put out there as possible.
(48:17):
I think, though, because I didn't log into YouCraft, which was the website builder
that I used because it was free and let me use my own domain.
I think because I haven't logged into that in two and a half years,
I think they disabled my account because the SCE website is gone.
Right, Ro. I still own the domain, but the website itself is gone.
(48:38):
On so that's gonna have to be created from scratch again
which is a little unfortunate yeah but
doable it's unfortunate but doable so yard
signs website and then i
think facebook groups are the third way that
have been fairly successful i'm a member of several community facebook
(49:00):
groups as well as like next door and those
are all good ways of getting people in the local area to pay
pay attention to what we're doing so any other
thoughts on on marketing i think again yeah let's capitalize on what we have
capitalize on the following that you know we've already built having done sce
(49:24):
there for a couple years previously and really highlighting the we're back.
And i think that's going to be very very
effective for us yeah i agree so
i think that'll be kind of our three-pronged approach yard signs
facebook and well community groups specifically
and then the website itself which we can
(49:46):
point everybody to from all those other ways here's
all the information that you could need and the nice thing about the website
is we can put here's what's happening this year and where we intend to go in
the future help us get there yeah by supporting us by coming and giving us food
for don't and again highlighting and that would be other thing is,
(50:07):
see if there's anything that we can do with the southern maryland food bank
to work with them and see what marketing they can help with yeah yeah they can
put our our word out as well Hey,
here's a group that's supporting us.
Go check them out. Bring food, donations. Everything will come back to us.
(50:29):
Something fun to do with your family and friends on Halloween. Exactly. Exactly.
Love it. So it's not just that we are giving back to them, but we're also working with them to...
Ultimately mutually beneficial but also really to
benefit them as we rebuild this relationship
and rebuild the haunt yep yep exactly
(50:51):
exactly so the last step of the planning phase is to design a layout and that's
less important this year since we're not you know building a walkthrough or
anything like well but we still need to have i mean we don't need a layout in the traditional
sense of here's the room, here's what's first, here's what's second, here's the scares.
(51:14):
But we should have, and we should build out a layout that is all about.
Here's what's happening in different parts of the estate. And here's what we
need to have built, or here's the tech that we need to have for each of these
different parts in order to make it work.
So it might not be a layout in the term of a walkthrough, but you still want to have defined.
(51:36):
Find places and activities going on in each of those locations and preferably
have them tied together in a way that there is still a flow.
So you can have people just kind of wander around aimlessly.
But if they want to try and, you know, follow the story, as it were,
having that kind of built in as you walk down here.
(51:57):
And that's also how you can set up kind of your your arrows lighting the way
or like lit paths or things like that.
That's an excellent point. And I met someone very cool a couple years ago when
I first went to Fear Expo, but he had a brand new product this year that I bought,
(52:19):
and I'm excited that and that I want to incorporate.
Tell okay so i met nathan and
the first time i met him a
couple of years ago he was trying to
sell these event packages for
like if you wanted to set up a halloween fair or
(52:39):
a christmas fair it's basically everything you need
to do that here's your materials list here's all
of the graphics and and media that
you would need to do this and all you have to do is take the materials list go
buy the materials and and set it up everything was
designed to be like under a 10 by 10
pop-up tent right and and
(53:01):
i'm like okay that's that's super cool it makes it very easy for someone like
me breaking into the industry to set up something fairly extensive more extensive
than i would be able to do just all my own right this year though he had something
new and i'm kind of excited about it.
It's called Terror Tap, and you can find out more about it at terror tap.com.
(53:25):
It's actually they have a special going on until August 15th.
This is coming out on August 15th. That's not going to be very helpful to people,
but go check out terror tap.com anyway. We can tease it in social media.
Yeah, that's not a bad idea. The cool thing about this terror.
So what he showed me and what I bought at at Fear Expo was a ghost hunting game.
(53:47):
He and so it uses your phone and it comes with I think there were eight or nine.
Like, what's that plasticky cardboard kind of material?
It's a little bit more waterproof. You use it for, or I always use it for like
doing displays for the science fair. Poster board?
(54:12):
It might just be poster board, but it's a... I mean, poster board's usually
the cardboard, but you can get it in the plasticky... But it's a plasticky version.
Corrugated. Plasticky, corrugated. Plastic.
Yeah, exactly. Like a corrugated plastic. Corrugated plastic.
Something like that. Anyway, he made ghosts out of these corrugated plastic
and embedded in each one a, I don't know what to call them, but it's,
(54:35):
you scan it with your phone just by holding, it's not a QR code.
It uses the same technology as like if you're doing paying with your phone at a kiosk.
Oh, Bluetooth chip. It's probably some kind of Bluetooth chip or something like that.
But you scan it with your phone and then it pops up a video that's on the internet
(54:57):
that shows that you've captured this ghost and it gives you a clue for you're
trying to unscramble a secret code.
And each ghost that you catch gives you more hints toward this code.
Okay. The cool thing about it is you don't have to download anything on your
phone because it's all web-based.
All you're doing is scanning each of these things. It takes you to the appropriate
(55:19):
website based on that scan.
And it tells you you captured the ghost. Here's your hint. Go find more ghosts.
So I've got like eight of these ghosts that we can hide all around the yard
and have people go on a ghost hunt,
exploring the estate, state, seen everything that we've set up and giving them
(55:40):
something interactive to do, even though we don't have a haunt for them to walk through.
But we're still giving that and see, you say that we don't have a haunt,
but I would say that we do have a haunt. It's just not your typical.
It's not a walkthrough walkthrough. We don't have a walkthrough,
but we, but we will be setting up a haunt and this I think will give us a.
(56:04):
Something more entertaining beyond just, Hey, look at all the cool decorations
and effects and, and all of the stories.
Exactly. Exactly. And I think it fits so perfectly with our theme this year, the haunted estate.
We have ghosts all around the estate. Go on a ghost hunt, find some ghosts.
And there'll be a mix of the game ghosts and there'll be a mix of our story ghosts.
(56:28):
Exactly. So how many story ghosts do you want? We have four.
We have four already. I would love to add at least a couple more.
I i intend to throw in
a few other ghosts in there as well that are
not necessary and they may not end
(56:49):
up being inside the uh inside the
crypt they may just be up here in other places but like halo fx showed a teaser
of a ghost that they are working on right now and i've talked about halo fx
before on the podcast they are one of my favorite companies companies for creating digital effects,
(57:10):
because most of the.
Effects that they create are very inexpensive relative to many of the others
and less check out who they are working on.
Oh, oh, it is the hat box ghost from Disney's haunted mansion.
(57:33):
It's not actually because it is not licensed by Disney, but it's the hat box ghost.
He's one of my favorite characters out of the haunted mansion. I freaking love him.
He is going to appear somewhere on our haunt. Yes. That's awesome.
Yeah. My, uh, my coworkers actually just spent the week at Disney world.
(57:54):
Yeah. With her kids. And I was like, you need to do two things for me.
You need to ride to blast mountain and you need to ride the haunted mansion. Yes. Yes.
So hello, fx.com. If you want to learn more, if you want to check out any of
their effects, they are a super cool company. Love them.
Go buy from them because it's cool stuff. And I'm very excited about the head box ghost.
(58:14):
So let's kind of sketch out what the what our layout is going to look like,
and i mean do this like super easy just
so we haven't just so that i have an idea of what i
need to build here over the next you know couple of months okay so there's the
generic layout of the estate yes we have it is yep we have our driveway there's
(58:41):
the house over here is the big open field i was talking about i should probably
put the playground in because it's an obstacle,
as big as the house apparently it's drawing is not to scale,
now come on you're telling me you aren't me trying to scale.
Playground okay so that's kind of what we have to work with
(59:02):
we have the house we have a garden up
on up by the street there's a little copse of trees that's
what these random circles are over here and then we have the playground so what
i kind of want to do is just kind of is sketch out where we want to put things
so first and foremost we will have the crypt right here crypt and graveyard
(59:24):
okay so we have the cryptic graveyard up there and then what else have we talked about.
Places that we need to put the ghost game ghosts.
Yeah. Let's, let's see where everything else is going to end up first.
And then we can, we'll litter ghosts in around it.
So if we do three or four of our ghosts in the crypt, our storyline ghosts,
(59:48):
then let's say two somewhere else on the property.
Yeah. So over here we can do chicken wire ghosts in our big dark spot.
And that's something that we'll need to get built. Okay, so we have chicken
wire ghosts in the field over here.
I still want to do a pumpkin patch with the singing jack-o'-lanterns.
(01:00:10):
This copse of trees over here is another fairly dark spot, so we could probably
put another halusion ghost over there.
Okay, yeah, I think that'd be a good place for one.
And that's close to the street, so people will be able to see it.
I know this is super exciting for all of you listeners who cannot see this as we're creating it.
(01:00:31):
But if you go check out our social media, I will definitely put up a picture
so you can see it afterwards.
Remember, it's not to scale. It's not to scale.
Okay, we've got the big... Otherwise, the chicken wire ghosts would be much
bigger than the house. Indeed.
(01:00:52):
And really what I'm saying is The chicken wire ghosts are over this whole area
Over here The playground is almost as big as the house.
Speaking of which, inside the house We're going to want to put some Ghosts in the window,
Ghost projections in Windows. And then what else? So we got the pumpkin patch.
(01:01:18):
We got our chicken war ghost.
I'll probably do something with the playground. In the past,
I've done skeletons playing on the playground. Yeah.
And I think that is still in keeping with our theme. And it makes for a pretty
good photo op for people coming to visit.
Yeah, definitely. Although, speaking of photo ops, one of the most popular has always been the arches.
(01:01:42):
Yep. Or the arch, the Zangakria Estates arch, which I don't have anymore.
Right, because it blew over and you threw it away. I didn't throw it away.
I gave it away. I hope someone else is making use of it. So that is going to have to get rebuilt.
Okay. We've got this big old hill right here that I feel like we need to do something with it.
That was the exit for us last time. And I had extended the graveyard into that last time.
(01:02:08):
There's a lot of people were, you know, walking out through the graveyard.
I definitely think graveyard definitely was some of the hide and go seeky ghosts.
Maybe I'm concerned about people walking in there.
It's a fairly steep hill. Yeah. And so I don't.
And so whatever it is, people, we've walked out of things. Yeah.
(01:02:32):
Yeah. They can certainly, We can certainly put a ghost on the perimeter.
But the well is up there. There's an old stump up there. Too many tripping hazards.
Ooh, wait. The well is up there. I wonder if I could do something around that
to make it less trippy hazard.
I've had the thought for a couple of years about building a fake well that looks
(01:02:54):
like what you think a well looks like.
And putting it around that. And then having something come up out of the well.
Yeah. I think that'd be kind of fun. I think that'd be good.
Yeah, have a ghost or something come up out of the well? I think this is a good start for our layout.
And then we can, as we go, we potentially add to it.
Or subtract, depending on when your permits go through. Or subtract,
(01:03:16):
depending on how things go. Yeah, exactly.
So based on this, like big things, I need to get the crypt out of storage.
And by storage, I mean underneath the deck.
And see if it's been damaged in the last two years and if it's ready to set up again.
Because there's a reasonable chance it's going to need some repair.
Pair so fix the crypt is going to be big i need to build a new archway and i
(01:03:38):
would love to have a a sign for sanguine creek estates that like on the road
level sign i've seen people do some very cool,
like gothic looking signs using old
headboards from beds if i
could find a headboard i would would love to
(01:04:00):
do that because i think i just think it turns out so freaking cool
i mean if you want to come pick up i'm not
picking up a headboard from colorado that the opportunity for that has passed
twice this year i did that drive twice this year i'd be happy to get rid of
them they're you should have said that when i was there but you were in Denmark
(01:04:22):
i wasn't Denmark it was so Oh, lovely.
That was so nice.
So, repair the crypt, build the archway, potentially SCE sign, chicken wire ghosts.
Well, those are the five big builds. Yep.
If any of those fall off, it's going to be the well. And then we'll have to
(01:04:44):
do some I'm going to say minor builds if I want to do a standalone hallusion.
Actually, if I just stretch it between the trees up there, then that would get rid of the seams.
Ooh, maybe I don't need to do, I'll have to play with that. See how far apart
they are and see if I have enough illusion material to do that.
Yeah. Cause then you just have to put the projection up. Yep. Exactly. Exactly.
(01:05:07):
So I think we, we have our, the, the start of our plan.
Yep. And I have some ghosts to write. You have some ghosts to write.
So you're going to try to do two more backstory ghosts, right? Yep.
Okay. And then when we get together for our next recording session,
we can knock those out as well. Okay, perfect.
Preferably one female, one male. I can do that. Any particular era?
(01:05:31):
I'm going to leave that completely up to you. Different from what we've done already.
Okay, so I think we have our plan for the next couple of months while we try to put this together.
So, so,
Les, you want to do a quick run-through of our social media?
Really? Give me a look. Really?
When have I ever been able to do our social media? I will give a quick run-through
(01:05:55):
of our social media since you are so skilled at it.
Definitely go check out all of our social media at facebook.com slash hauntingu, just the letter U.
We're on Instagram at hauntinguniversity and YouTube at hauntingu,
again, just the letter U.
Those are the places that we will be posting all of our builds and all of the
content as we make our way to Halloween 2024.
(01:06:18):
And of course, definitely go subscribe to the Haunting You podcast.
You can follow along as we're putting out more episodes through our planning
process, as well as a whole bunch of other topics as we find time and are able to do so.
But you can subscribe on any podcast app.
We recommend Podbean, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music,
(01:06:39):
Pandora, but really, seriously, anywhere that you can find podcasts,
you can find the haunting you podcast and check out our website,
haunting you.com to learn more about all the resources that we talked about here today.
Okay. I think that wraps us up less. I think it does take us out.
All right. From all of us here at haunting you. Thank you for listening and.
(01:07:02):
Music.
Happy haunting. We'll see you next time.
Bye everybody. We are incredibly grateful to all the sponsors who make this
show possible, Especially our premium sponsors, the Chamber of Haunters, Fear Expo, and VFX.
You can learn more about our premium sponsors by checking out their websites,
chamberofhaunters.com, fearexpolive.com, and vfxcreates.com.
(01:07:25):
Check out our website, Haunting You, for more information on everything that we do.
Music.
Thanks for watching!
(01:07:55):
Haunting You is a production of the Rocky Mountain Home Haunters, LLC.
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Music.
(00:20):
I am your host, Leslie Reed. And I'm Keone Hutton. Welcome back to the Hudson
View Podcast, everyone.
I wish you could have heard Leslie trying to do the introduction just now.
It was like listening to someone trying to do tongue twisters.
It was wonderful. I enjoyed it a lot less. I can do tongue twisters better than
that, apparently. She sells seashells by the seashore.
(00:43):
Rubber baby buggy bumpers. Rubber baby buggy bumpers. Rubber baby buggy bumpers. Peter picker.
I can usually do that. Well, great. Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers. There we go.
If Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did
Peter Piper pick? Where are the pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked? Nobody knows.
(01:03):
I like that answer. What else are you going to do with a pack of pickled peppers?
With a bunch of pickled peppers.
Seriously. I mean, that's why I pickle peppers, so I can eat them later. Be reasonable.
Welcome everyone to the Haunted U Podcast where we are all about pickled peppers
and clearly nothing else. That is our sole reason for being.
(01:25):
Pretty much. If you're a new listener, don't believe me. We're actually here
for Halloween things, I promise.
Don't judge us based on the pickled peppers. Although, if you want to judge
us on the pickled peppers, come over.
I'll let you try some of my pickled peppers. They are phenomenal,
especially the spicy rosemary pickled peppers. Oh, yeah.
They're good. Very nice.
(01:48):
And if you really want to lean into the pickled pepper thing,
let us know and we'll start posting pickled pepper recipes to our website.
We can, you know what, we can flex. We can flex to help meet your needs.
And if your haunted house needs involve pickled peppers, we are here to support.
That is what the haunted...
Podcast is all about. We are about helping you make the best haunted house,
(02:12):
the best home haunt that you can.
So if that involves pickled peppers, let us know. We're happy to assist.
More power to you. Absolutely happy to assist.
Okay. With that silliness out of the way, we are going to move on from there.
Indeed. We are super excited to be back into some sort of, I'm going to say,
(02:33):
a regularity, perhaps might be the right word.
Although we're only two episodes in, so I don't know. Two episodes are not a trend.
We're making a line here, but we don't yet have enough for a trend.
So keep your fingers crossed that we're able to maintain. We'll see what happens.
But in the meantime, we are starting our prep for Halloween 2024.
(02:55):
And we'll dive into that.
But before we do, there's a pretty serious topic happening in the industry right
now that we feel we need to address.
I have been very deliberate in not talking about Russ McKamey for years,
because in my mind- He is not representative of what we in the haunting industry are all about.
(03:18):
Well, that, and he does not deserve the airtime. That too.
And there's a part of me that feels really dirty devoting any kind of airtime,
but we need to address these latest allegations.
So a little bit of background, ground, Russ McKamey is the owner of a experience
called the McKamey Manor. He advertises it as the most extreme haunted house
(03:43):
in the country, possibly world.
And many in the haunted attraction industry take issue with that because what
he does is not a haunted house. And calling it a haunted house.
Just absolutely puts a black eye on everybody else who is working in the industry.
The way that he runs his experience, which is how we will be referring to it,
(04:08):
or his attraction, is very damaging to the haunt industry,
very damaging to people who want to come out and have a good time.
It is and it
has been a lightning rod of controversy
(04:29):
that again he capitalizes
on to bring in people to his attraction well said well said he ran mckamey manor
when he was living in san diego i cannot tell you much about the experience
except that it was touted as the most extreme haunted house.
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And it basically put people through a level of torture inside that experience.
And there are numerous documentaries now that are trying to kind of bring light to the abuses.
I'm going to say potential crimes that he committed in operating that attraction.
(05:17):
It got worse after he left San Diego, moved to Tennessee, and started operating
this experience at his own home.
And a YouTuber called Reckless
Ben did a series of videos kind of showing what happens at McKamey Manor and
(05:41):
basically completely debunking the idea that there even is a haunted house or even a...
A location beyond russ mccamey's backyard
where he puts you into a small cage and waterboards
you with a molly well molly pulley pulled over your head like and making you
(06:03):
do the kind of pt that i had to do at six o'clock in the morning when i was
going through swab summer which is the coast guard academy's version of basic
training like it's it what he was showing was a lot of calisthenics,
followed by some light waterboarding and carrying really heavy things around,
and then being verbally abused by Russ and his partner while going through all of this.
(06:27):
That series of videos and a couple other documentaries that came out as well
actually caused, cause might be too strong a word, but shortly thereafter,
the Tennessee Attorney General opened a investigation into the practices at
McKamey Manor, accusing them of fraud and threatening to shut them down.
(06:47):
Russ McCamey then countersued the government claiming violation of constitutional rights.
And all of that is pending. In the midst of that, just within the last couple of weeks,
Russ McCamey was arrested for domestic abuse, sexual assault,
and probably a few other charges that have not yet come through.
(07:11):
So I just want to read a little bit bit
of this article from wkrn which is a local local news source in nashville tennessee
there is a link to it in the in the show notes so you can find the whole thing
but this was written by sierra rains and published on july 22nd.
(07:35):
The owner of a Middle Tennessee haunted attraction, do not like the use of the
word haunted attraction in this article, known for its intense.
It is what he has been claiming. It is what he has been claiming.
The utilization of it does acknowledge that this is what he claims,
and this is the basis of what the Attorney General has also formed their lawsuit
(07:55):
on, is the claim that this is a haunted attraction,
and whether or not the activities that go on to people who visit actually allows it to qualify as such.
So, no, we do not believe it's a haunted attraction, but I do give credit to
the author, to the journalist for stating it as such because that is the basis
(08:17):
of one of the bases of the attorney general's lawsuit. Fair, fair.
Back to the article. The owner of a Middle Tennessee haunted attraction known
for its intense scare tactics has been charged with attempted second degree
murder, rape and domestic assault.
Court records from the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office shows Russ Allen McCamey
was arrested at a Summertown home on Friday, July 19th after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend.
(08:39):
He was booked into jail on a thousand dollar bond in order to have no contact
with the victim. However, more charges have since been filed against the McKamey
Manor owner, accusing him of trying to kill his girlfriend on more than one occasion.
It gets, I'm not going to read what exactly he's accused of because it gets
(09:00):
fairly graphic and I do not want to trigger anyone.
But the additional charges now put his bond over $100,000.
You do the math. You do the math. Exactly. Really? Second degree murder attempt and it's only $1,000?
$100,000. Well, it started out as $1,000. It did. That was before the second
degree murder attempt. Ah, okay. Or charge.
(09:21):
Okay. I was like, I know Tennessee is special, but I didn't think they were that special.
Yeah, exactly. This is a significant issue, which is the one and only reason
that we are mentioning it on the podcast,
because it is, again, it's a highly significant event that has happened within
(09:42):
our community and with somebody who has done damage to what our community stands for.
And not just that, but also everyone deserves the opportunity to be innocent until proven guilty.
But that being said, the long history of Russ McKamey destroying people's lives
(10:07):
through what he was billing as entertainment just seems like such a lead up to these events.
For years he has been allowed to do morally questionable things in the name
of entertainment and i can't help but feel that allowing that to go on as long as it has has led to.
(10:37):
This when someone tells you who they are believe them and his actions have told
the industry exactly who he is. To the world.
And this is where we are now. So a couple of thoughts.
One, if you were ever a victim of Russ McKamey or honestly a victim of anyone
(11:01):
else, please, you do not have to bear that burden alone.
There are a multitude of resources available to help you through it.
I will post a couple of them in the show notes. If you have ever been subjected
to domestic violence or sexual assault or...
Or really just need an opportunity to talk with someone, reach out because you
(11:25):
do not have to face it alone.
And you should not have to face it alone. And you are not alone.
You are not alone. If worse comes to worse, reach out to us. We will talk to you.
Happily. Because again, you're not alone.
So let's move on to a happier topic because Russ McKamey deserves no more of our airtime. Nope.
(11:46):
We want to find out. Indeed. we want to dive in to our planning for Halloween 2024.
Which we've been teasing you about and whether or not we're going to do something
or not going to do something or maybe do something, but maybe not do something
because we're just moving in, but then we're renovating, but then we're across
the country and we really aren't sure what we're going to do.
So we're finally going to tell you what we're going to try and do.
(12:08):
Once again, you are along for the ride wherever the hell this takes us.
Well said. We are still struggling with many of the challenges that,
well, with many of the same challenges.
We still do not have the electrical permit from the county, and so work's still
not proceeded. Here we are two weeks later.
I just had to extend the storage for our household goods.
(12:31):
So at this point, I'm not sure when we're going to be getting all of our stuff.
And the big thing for me and this is all of my tools are in there,
except for, you know, the toolbox I brought with me across the country in case
I had minor issues with the car.
You must be going through withdrawal. I'm going through. I'm actually...
(12:52):
You want to know how I'm handling this? I had a really good friend at the Coast
Guard Academy who I haven't seen in 14 years, basically since we left, just about.
And just turns out that she's also assigned to headquarters the same time I
am. So we've got to reconnect and be catching up.
And I'm borrowing tools from her, honestly.
(13:15):
Who? Who is it? Crackers. Crackers. Crackers. Oh, my goodness. Tell Crackers I said hi.
I will. I will. I will. So that is what I am doing.
I've got her chop saw, a circular saw so that I could do some counter work in my laundry room.
I'm doing what I have to to continue
(13:35):
moving forward in the face of county delays. Let's put it that way.
Oh, man. Crackers is awesome. awesome yeah she she is awesome and i'm super
excited that we're assigned in the same place for the first time in our careers
because it's been a lot of fun catching up and yeah reconnecting,
(13:57):
so i'm hurting is what i'm saying it's kind of where i'm going with all of this
that but i still want to try to move forward and do something for this year
so i think I think we plan to do our ghost stories and do a multimedia display.
And if, giant asterisk, if we happen to get the rest of our household goods
(14:21):
in early October and I have the month to put together a haunted house,
we can do that. We can attack a micro haunt then.
But for now, I think we just focus on the multimedia display because the timeline
is just not looking good.
As many of you know, what we can do with the multimedia display is impressive.
(14:43):
I like to think so. So let's back up almost four years.
In fact, we're going to back up a little. We're going to back up about four
years here to the summer of 2020.
We had on Spencer Terry, who was and is the president of the Haunted Attraction
Association, to talk because he's also the general manager of Fear Factory in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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But we had him on in the summer of 2020 because Fear Factory kind of took the
lead for the entire haunted attraction industry and put together a plan and
guidelines for operating a haunt in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
And as I'm sure all of you remember very vividly,
(15:27):
there were so many unknowns in the summer of 2020 that many people did not feel
comfortable trying to even trick or treat,
much less go to haunted houses that year.
And us being brand new home hunters in the area and i'm gonna say resource constrained.
(15:54):
That's a good word for it right not and broke,
leila is being leila is attempting to climb under my desk which usually results
in her breaking my internet again yes please don't do that leila we went through that enough last time.
So because we were resource-constrained, we also did not feel comfortable trying
to put together a full walkthrough haunt.
(16:15):
And so instead, we used the Halloween of 2020 to tell the backstory of the haunt
that we wanted to build the next year.
And what we came up with, I think, is kind of cool. I agree. It was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun. So I built the largest foam facade that I have built to date.
(16:40):
It is 14 feet high, 15 feet wide, and was the entrance to a crypt.
And it was the front of you
know a crypt facade place it inside of a
graveyard and then inside the
door of the crypt we projected ghosts using hallucinogens
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and had the ghosts tell the
story of how they died and we hit four
different time periods in with these ghosts and each one encountered the same
malevolent spirit that has been
inhabiting the land where Sanguine Creek Estates is built for hundreds,
(17:25):
thousands of years.
We really haven't established how long it has been there, but it's been a long time.
It's been there. It's been there. And in every generation, it has infected a
person and that person ends up doing great harm in that area.
We were then able to take that backstory and apply it to the haunted house that we built in 2021,
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where dr dr samuel
christopher edwards who just conveniently has the same initials as sanguine
creek estates it's likely dr samuel edwards was trying to find cures for various
diseases and was experimenting Experimenting on the patients in his hospital
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built here at the estate.
And some of those experiments went awry, as they tend to do.
That ended up creating, basically taking asylum patients and turning them into some form of zombie.
And Dr. Edwards, in his... Infinite wisdom.
(18:38):
I wasn't even going to say infinite wisdom in his drive for more power and more
control and unable to be satiated was infected with this malevolent spirit that
transformed him into a Wendigo.
And so at the end of the haunt, or at the beginning of the haunt,
(18:59):
guests are welcomed into the asylum by Dr. Edwards.
But by the end of the haunt, he has transformed into the Wendigo,
and the guests meet the Wendigo version of Dr.
Edwards as they are being chased out of the asylum. And I had so much freaking
fun putting together that haunt and running that haunt. It was a freaking blast.
(19:26):
It ended up being something like 1,900 square feet of interior haunted house and then a good...
Thousand feet of walking outside on top of it and for a home haunt like that was freaking amazing,
we we did it was impressive it was impressive and i love it.
(19:56):
So i want to keep building on that
because it was such a cool storyline no
one else anywhere has done something like it and i
think we can keep if we
keep this whole the malevolent spirit of sanguine creek alive
then that gives us opportunities every year
to tweak what the haunted house is like so long as we are constantly bringing
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back this spirit that is that is the the ultimate bad guy and that is our continuity
we have centuries of options exactly to choose from And,
you know, adding new ghosts, taking out ghosts, each of the ghosts can be the basis for a haunt.
(20:41):
They can be cameos in a haunt. You know, there's just, there's one of the things
that so many haunts struggle with is changing things up and trying to decide,
do we keep it the same? Do we change everything?
What's our new theme? What's our new approach? approach and
how to try and tie everything together so
(21:02):
that way when people come back year after year there's some
consistent threads that help tie everything together
and i feel that one of the things that we have done very successfully is create
a framework in which we can haunt any decade any century any type of locale
(21:25):
want to do a haunted zoo Cool.
Some rando built a zoo on the property at some point in the 1850s.
Cakewalk. Oh, hey, we want to do a circus. Well, you know, 1930s roustabout,
you know, depression era circus.
Great. We can work with that. All of these things we have the ability to play
(21:47):
with because of the story structure that we have created.
Exactly. Exactly. So.
What I want to do for this year, because I'm worried we will not be able to do a big build.
I mean, I know we won't be able to do a big build, but even a minor build.
(22:11):
I want to focus on creating more of those stories.
So let's take a look at the hunting you method for a second.
The hunting you method is a three phase breakdown of the method that we have
kind of developed while creating our haunts.
(22:32):
And this is what we use to guide ourselves and tailor ourselves,
well, guide ourselves and constrain ourselves as we are developing a haunt every year.
If you go on to our website, HauntingYou.com, just the letter U,
and click on the Haunting You method tab at the top, it will take you to a breakdown of that method.
(22:52):
And so today I want to take a look at the planning phase and kind of walk through
the planning phase steps for Halloween 2024.
So first and foremost, defining goals.
What is the goal that we want to achieve with Halloween 2024?
And I think there's a couple of goals that we have here for this year.
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First, we want to get our name out there, which will allow us to build the audience
within Southern Maryland.
Well, I think not just get our name out there, but get our name back out there.
Back out there is accurate. We do have a bit of a following on social media,
but it's not a huge following.
(23:40):
The last time we ran this haunt, we had, what was it, 500 people in two days, which is solid.
Don't get me wrong, but I think we can do better.
So we want to grow that audience, I think, is kind of our first goal.
Secondly, we want to build on our backstory so that we have more storylines
(24:03):
that we can draw from as we're putting together the haunt in the future.
We can keep coming back to these stories, like Leslie said, and using those
to help us focus our efforts in the future.
So get our name out there, build the audience, widen our storyline.
And then, of course, because this is what kind of one of the big things that
(24:27):
we like to do with our haunts is give back to our local community.
Community and we have an established partnership here in
southern maryland with the southern maryland food bank and what
we have done in the past was collect canned goods from people
who came to see the haunt and i would
love to do that again so we can continue supporting our community in that way
i don't know how much of this is going to get cut out so this may be a really
(24:49):
awkward segue but leslie was digging back through her notes and found the backstory
we made for one our characters who was who is a patient in the asylum who thinks
that she is a porcelain doll,
and it was a very effective room just
the room was covered in dolls and the porcelain doll herself was like locked
(25:11):
up in a full-size doll box and she would burst out of the box and try to kill
the people who as they came through all of that is irrelevant to where i wanted
to go with this i I have to talk real quick about the Southeastern Pennsylvania Halloween Flea Market.
Ooh, yes. Which was a lot of fun, first of all. There were some really cool vendors there.
(25:31):
And I will check out our social media, particularly Instagram at Haunting University,
because that's where I was putting most of the stuff that I was creating there. But yeah.
If you're in the area, you love Halloween, you have to go to the Southeastern
Pennsylvania flea market, Halloween flea market.
It was a combination of professional vendors selling their wares.
(25:53):
And I got some really cool stuff, especially one of my favorites was from a
crafter called Bonehead Factory.
I'll put a link to his website in the show notes, who makes just the coolest
freaking Freaking jack-o'-lanterns that are just absolutely freaking amazing.
(26:14):
I've never seen anything quite like them anywhere. Those are awesome.
Remember you sent us the picture. I was like, I want stormtrooper pumpkins.
The stuff this guy creates are just absolutely freaking wild.
He had two pumpkins that were Star Wars based and it was basically Darth Vader and a stormtrooper.
(26:34):
They're absolutely wonderful. I love them. I had to buy one. Absolutely fantastic.
Another one, Corpse Creations, was there selling a variety of corpse skeletons.
But they had animals and people skeletons.
I see bats, spiders, dogs, demons, just all wolves, goat, all kinds of things
(27:01):
that were pre-corpsed for you so you don't have to do the work yourself.
But then there were also just random
halloween people who had stuff they wanted
to move their display into a different direction and
so they were trying to get rid of some props that they knew they
weren't going to use and get some money to buy props that they do want to use
(27:22):
i was actually one of those i took stupid ass clown prop that i absolutely despise
sold it for 200 bucks and bought a coffin with it like full size metal coffin
absolutely thrilled with that purchase i'm so freaking excited.
But i had a lot of fun uh if you were at the southeastern pennsylvania halloween
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flea market i hope i got a chance to chat with you i talked with a ton of people
gave out a ton of business cards and we've had a few listens since then so i
think some people at least found found like our conversation interesting but
for future years go check out the southeastern halloween pennsylvania,
southeastern pennsylvania halloween flea market facebook page to stay up on
(28:06):
when they're going to be doing it next year they do it once a year usually in
late july august time frame,
well worth the trip i drove three hours to get there and it was well worth the trip,
But back to our main, main topic. Yes, we have those.
Sometimes we even remember that we have those. Sometimes, occasionally. So we defined our goals.
(28:30):
We, and we know what we're trying to accomplish with this year.
Identify audience. Who is our target audience, Les?
I would say in this case, our target audience is definitely families,
particularly those doing kind of a trunk or treating type of Halloween.
And anybody who wants to come by and walk around a site wow i have no words.
(28:56):
Once again that doesn't happen to you very often no
it doesn't it tells you exactly how my months been yeah so i think you hit it
on the head like we're targeting families we are targeting families this year
which is a little bit different when we're from when we're building the haunt
but we We want Halloween lovers to come out and we want to entertain them.
(29:17):
So families, I think, are our primary audience.
And anyone else who gets a kick out of it as well? Great. That's a win. Yeah.
Okay. Theme and backstory are the next two steps of the planning phase.
And we've talked about this significantly already about, you know,
our theme is, how would you describe our theme?
(29:41):
Like the theme of the haunt was asylum
slash zombie asylum into zombie that's not
quite where we're going this year though no no we've got a little bit we've
got a slightly different kind of approach because of how we're setting it up
so with that in mind and just kind of in that
(30:05):
contemplation of how we're doing it.
I think really in this case, we're doing a haunted estate.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. This is much, this is going to be a little
more like haunted housey ghost, like ghost haunted housey theme than what we did last year.
(30:28):
Yeah. You're an even like haunted graveyard, I think could be.
A haunted state really. so
it's it's there's a house that's obviously you guys are going to make
your house look haunted assuming you can get your stuff out of oh it'll
be haunted no matter what at the very least you can
put sheets on your children and have them run around over sky
and have her really run around and be confused and bored yeah exactly
(30:51):
sky give her pets for me i do love her but you know we'll have the the graveyard
set up we'll have the ghost stories and you know depending if we really want
want to get creative depending on how much capacity you have and technology i think it might,
(31:11):
i know i'm so unhelpful it might be
kind of cool if we could pull it off and if by we
i mean you if we did a couple of like
one or two ghosts along your
property line not just within the graveyard i 100 agree with you so the way
my yard is set up and we we've got we're at the end of a cul-de-sac and as you're
(31:36):
driving down the cul-de-sac we're on the left hand side right at the end where
you know, a bulges for the turnaround.
And the way I intend to set up and have set up, you know, the last two times
we did this was we had the graveyard and the crypt right up there by right next to the road.
And my driveway, it comes down from the road, goes in front of the house and
(32:00):
then over to the side of the garage.
And that's where I store like my trailer.
And there's a shed over there. And that was the main area that we built for 2021.
21 but so most of
the people so people will be staying up on the street for the most part cars
will not be allowed to come down they'll be able to see the the crypt up there
(32:22):
by the road but next to the house there is a big open area of grass that we
have not we've used a little bit set up
like static displays of skeletons doing things for
instance but like it's a big dark area
there are no lights there we have there's no spillage from like even the house
(32:44):
and we could very easily put some ghosts in there something i have been wanting
to try that i keep seeing videos of is Is chicken wire ghosts.
Oh, my neighbor's done those. Yeah. Yeah.
Like I've never tried them, but the videos I see online look super freaking cool.
(33:08):
And considering I have this big dark space that we could pepper a couple of
ghosts through, I think that could be freaking sick.
Yeah, I think so, too. Yeah, they've got a handful that they set up every year.
And at night when they're all
lit up they're solid yeah like it's
(33:30):
yeah it's definitely i've even i've done a
double take a couple of times yeah i
don't i think you're right like if if we're gonna be leaning into
the haunted estate we need to
haunt the crap out of our estate state yeah
we need a lot more ghosts so i'm going
to be bringing in lots of
(33:52):
lots of projector effects we can put stuff in all of the windows we can put
stuff in you know the crypt obviously but and then we could do a couple of holusions
in the in the yard as well chicken wire goes to fill it out and just get ghosts
absolutely freaking everywhere mm-hmm,
(34:12):
I love it. I love it.
So next step, create a backstory. We've already got our backstory.
The backstory is well established.
We've talked about it extensively, even in this episode. I'm not going to go into it anymore.
We have our benevolent spirit. Create a budget.
Our budget is $5. I hate this one.
(34:38):
So here is the keone hutton theory of budgeting do we discuss what your current job is.
My current job is be in the coast guard and
for the last two years because i was assigned to
a ship i did a very
poor job of building out a
(35:01):
revenue stream for that was able to support the haunt so we lost a lot of we
didn't really lose money over the last two years but we didn't bring in any
money either and that's hurting us a little bit right now like i said our budget is five dollars.
(35:21):
Exactly. A couple of feet of chicken wire. So what I need to start doing is
bringing in money here that we can then put toward the haunt.
In the past, I have done that by reselling stuff from estate sales or,
well, pimping myself out as a handyman to the local arcade, which is I'm actually
meeting with him on Tuesday to discuss more pimping myself out.
(35:44):
So there is potential for revenue streams coming in here shortly,
but we don't have them established yet.
In general, I don't usually set a budget like this is all I am able to afford for this year.
I do something more like, this is what I think I need to spend in order to do this effectively.
(36:05):
And then at the end of the year, I compare to our initial budget and say,
wow, marketing costs a lot more than I expected it to this year.
We need to take that into account next year and plan for it.
Leslie's laughing at me because she is a finance professional and has
(36:25):
a very different opinion than i do not necessarily
there's definitely the i'm budgeting for a company in which we're for profit
and i answer to higher powers than family the only i would say the only higher
power i answer to is my wife and she tends to be at least somewhat understanding yes Yes.
(36:47):
She's amazing. But again, yes, there's many different ways to budget.
The way I usually budget for my job is slightly different than the way I would
budget for, say, putting together a haunt.
It's also about, for me, who you work with. Kay does not budget the way that I would for a business.
Because I'm not a business. Exactly. He's also the one who's doing most of the
(37:11):
spending, money making and everything else. And I'm here in an advisory capacity.
So that's true. You need to start bringing in funding for this.
Okay. I'll see what I can't do. Pick myself out as an accountant.
Somehow I don't think that's going to work so well. Yeah.
But that said, it's also about working with your team.
(37:34):
If you're somebody who's very, very numbers oriented, but nobody else in your team is,
you're going to want to compromise and you're going to need to compromise to
make sure that the numbers that you're working with, you can then put those
in a way that is functional,
for others and also make sure that everybody understands where the boundary
(37:59):
lines are and what the goals are.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.
So that's really all I want to say on budget.
Use budget in whatever way is most effective for you. I think is,
is the big takeaway here.
And I will continue to ignore it because that is effective for me.
I know before we get to the last two parts of the planning phase,
(38:23):
let's take a quick moment here from our sponsors, and then we will talk about
marketing and designing a business plan.
Music.
(38:49):
Out of d23 this weekend uh this
weekend or last weekend this weekend no i've literally
been half a sleep all weekend i'm not surprised so big
things live action lilo and stitch
is coming and they showed stitch
i'll send you a video they showed stitch up on the screen
(39:10):
they did him justice he is phenomenal i love
it who's playing nani i don't i
don't know that it was just release these dates okay because
see i watched the trailer for it was
agatha all along that looks so good too i'm excited and i watched the trailer
for skeleton crew yes and i watched the trailer for moana too yes so you did
(39:36):
get some of the coverage well i was on disney this morning trying to figure out
what to watch and yeah it's like all of that was announced at
d23 yeah so so beyond that they announced expansions to the theme parks they're
getting a cars land at walt disney world that's different from radiator springs
(39:57):
at disneyland so like a whole new land oh in the world of cars.
Okay which i'm kind of excited about are they gonna pull
from movie two or three or just completely create not clear new not clear some
of the like concept art they were showing was like i don't know if you remember
during the credits of cars when they were showing kind of like what all of the
(40:19):
characters from radiator springs are doing after they start getting.
People coming through again yes that's gonna give me 20 miles that's exactly
where i was going with this like some of the concept art looked like it was
some off-roading type stuff with suvs and And I don't know where it's going
to go, but I'm kind of excited about it.
It's just one of my, honestly, out of that entire movie, it's one of my favorite
(40:42):
lines. Oh, I got your aquariums.
More than that. I'm going to think of any time I see one of those absurd trucks.
Reasonable. It's like. Reasonable.
But Les, you're going to freak out about this. They're building a Monsters,
Inc. land at Disney World.
They're going to have. They're going to put in there.
(41:05):
You're going to make me spend money in Florida. the first hanging under roller
coaster that Disney has done like below the track for the trip for the doors for the doors yes,
that's gonna be so cool you're gonna make me spend money at Florida I know I
know but wait I'm not done,
(41:26):
They're also building an entire land devoted to villains.
Oh, yes.
I am so excited. World? It sounds like both. I think both.
(41:47):
Okay. So, clearly what we need to do is do an extended family road trip.
Wait. it gets better actually not so that's what disney's doing are you following
what universal's doing no i think i've seen some rumblings but i haven't really been tracking it god,
(42:09):
in florida they have two theme parks right and in those theme parks well they
have two theme parks already they are building a third okay it is called epic
universe epic universe is going to contain four lands.
One land is nothing but classic movie monsters.
(42:32):
Yes, I know I've heard that they were doing something with that.
One land is Berk from How to Train Your Dragon.
And the video, like, I keep seeing people filming parts of construction for this.
They were testing flying dragons.
(43:02):
How lovely.
I'm going to have to fucking spend money in Florida. They're doing a third Harry
Potter park in Epic Universe.
So they've got Hogsmeade in one park. They have Diagon Alley in another.
And you can actually board the Hogwarts Express to go back and forth between
the two of them. And it's phenomenal.
(43:23):
That's awesome. Now they're doing a third part of it. And there's going to be an entire ministry.
I think it's going to be the Ministry of Magic. There was a ride all about the
Ministry of Magic where Dolores Umbridge is being put on trial for her crimes
after Voldemort's fall,
and she escapes, and there's a huge battle inside the Ministry of Magic,
(43:47):
and we are there in the midst of it, riding the elevators through the battle
at the Ministry of Magic.
Oh, that's awesome. awesome i'm trying
to figure give me the term oh and then super nintendo world they're
putting nintendo world there as well nice which they
opened that at hollywood and we went to it
and it's one of the most interactive lands
(44:10):
that i have ever seen so okay we bought the kids these wristbands and then they
can go around punching question mark blocks and collecting coins and And there
are all of these challenges spread throughout that you have to complete in order to collect keys.
And once you've collected three keys, you can actually unlock Bowser Jr.'s castle,
(44:35):
go in and face off against Bowser Jr.
In this absolutely freaking ridiculous motion capture experience.
Experience like you're standing there's you're
standing in a giant room with all of you arrayed in front
of this giant screen and it there are
cameras that track your movements and so stuff
(44:59):
bowser jr pops up on the screen and you have to dodge the stuff that he's throwing
at you while collecting power-ups and eventually you get a flower and you get
fireballs and you start throwing fireballs at him and you're you're doing it
it's using the motion capture to follow you as
you're doing it, it is so much freaking fun.
(45:19):
That's awesome. Oh my God. And then the freaking Mario cart ride is ridiculous.
They put you inside of these cars and then you put a visor, like a augmented
reality visor over your eyes that shows everything that's going on.
(45:39):
You collect turtle shells and you can shoot them at the other guys.
You're collecting coins through all of this. And it is so much freaking fun.
Holy shit. Awesome.
We just had this whole conversation on the break, but I'm going to have to incorporate
all of this now into the freaking episode.
Yes. I was going to bring us back with now after that very long word from our wonderful sponsor.
(46:06):
We're back on track. This is the conversation we're going to have as we come back.
That that's, what's going to end up happening after I've edited all of this. Yeah.
So absolutely freaking enormous news coming out of the, the entertainment industry
right now, and I'm super excited for it.
Yeah, that's just delightful.
(46:27):
But Villainland? Oh my god, I want a Villainland.
I can't wait to see what comes of it. Yeah, that's just gonna be awesome.
Like, oh man. But we've now wasted, I don't know, the last 10 or 15 minutes
talking about this, and we should probably get back on topic so we can finish
(46:49):
our topic and finish up this podcast for today. On topic?
On topic.
On topic. Don't hurt yourself.
I don't know what that means. I know. I know. It's okay. We're going to talk
about marketing here for a few minutes.
(47:09):
Basically what they've been doing. Basically what they have been doing.
But we're probably not going to market in the same way they did because we can't
afford to bring hundreds of thousands of peoples together to and show them what we intend to do,
instead we need to get our word out in in some other
ways and so i think
we have some steps that we need to complete here we have had i think fairly
(47:33):
we have been fairly successful in using like yard signs to point people in grabbing
random people off the street and say hey go check out this haunted house just
by carefully positioning them on the roads leading into my neighborhood.
And I think that has been fairly successful and I intend to do that again.
(47:54):
We should also bring back the website because the website did such a good job
of answering people's questions before they could even ask the questions,
which is generally my goal.
Yeah. Period. Period.
Minimize questions by having everything be clear. By having as many answers
put out there as possible.
(48:17):
I think, though, because I didn't log into YouCraft, which was the website builder
that I used because it was free and let me use my own domain.
I think because I haven't logged into that in two and a half years,
I think they disabled my account because the SCE website is gone.
Right, Ro. I still own the domain, but the website itself is gone.
(48:38):
On so that's gonna have to be created from scratch again
which is a little unfortunate yeah but
doable it's unfortunate but doable so yard
signs website and then i
think facebook groups are the third way that
have been fairly successful i'm a member of several community facebook
(49:00):
groups as well as like next door and those
are all good ways of getting people in the local area to pay
pay attention to what we're doing so any other
thoughts on on marketing i think again yeah let's capitalize on what we have
capitalize on the following that you know we've already built having done sce
(49:24):
there for a couple years previously and really highlighting the we're back.
And i think that's going to be very very
effective for us yeah i agree so
i think that'll be kind of our three-pronged approach yard signs
facebook and well community groups specifically
and then the website itself which we can
(49:46):
point everybody to from all those other ways here's
all the information that you could need and the nice thing about the website
is we can put here's what's happening this year and where we intend to go in
the future help us get there yeah by supporting us by coming and giving us food
for don't and again highlighting and that would be other thing is,
(50:07):
see if there's anything that we can do with the southern maryland food bank
to work with them and see what marketing they can help with yeah yeah they can
put our our word out as well Hey,
here's a group that's supporting us.
Go check them out. Bring food, donations. Everything will come back to us.
(50:29):
Something fun to do with your family and friends on Halloween. Exactly. Exactly.
Love it. So it's not just that we are giving back to them, but we're also working with them to...
Ultimately mutually beneficial but also really to
benefit them as we rebuild this relationship
and rebuild the haunt yep yep exactly
(50:51):
exactly so the last step of the planning phase is to design a layout and that's
less important this year since we're not you know building a walkthrough or
anything like well but we still need to have i mean we don't need a layout in the traditional
sense of here's the room, here's what's first, here's what's second, here's the scares.
(51:14):
But we should have, and we should build out a layout that is all about.
Here's what's happening in different parts of the estate. And here's what we
need to have built, or here's the tech that we need to have for each of these
different parts in order to make it work.
So it might not be a layout in the term of a walkthrough, but you still want to have defined.
(51:36):
Find places and activities going on in each of those locations and preferably
have them tied together in a way that there is still a flow.
So you can have people just kind of wander around aimlessly.
But if they want to try and, you know, follow the story, as it were,
having that kind of built in as you walk down here.
(51:57):
And that's also how you can set up kind of your your arrows lighting the way
or like lit paths or things like that.
That's an excellent point. And I met someone very cool a couple years ago when
I first went to Fear Expo, but he had a brand new product this year that I bought,
(52:19):
and I'm excited that and that I want to incorporate.
Tell okay so i met nathan and
the first time i met him a
couple of years ago he was trying to
sell these event packages for
like if you wanted to set up a halloween fair or
(52:39):
a christmas fair it's basically everything you need
to do that here's your materials list here's all
of the graphics and and media that
you would need to do this and all you have to do is take the materials list go
buy the materials and and set it up everything was
designed to be like under a 10 by 10
pop-up tent right and and
(53:01):
i'm like okay that's that's super cool it makes it very easy for someone like
me breaking into the industry to set up something fairly extensive more extensive
than i would be able to do just all my own right this year though he had something
new and i'm kind of excited about it.
It's called Terror Tap, and you can find out more about it at terror tap.com.
(53:25):
It's actually they have a special going on until August 15th.
This is coming out on August 15th. That's not going to be very helpful to people,
but go check out terror tap.com anyway. We can tease it in social media.
Yeah, that's not a bad idea. The cool thing about this terror.
So what he showed me and what I bought at at Fear Expo was a ghost hunting game.
(53:47):
He and so it uses your phone and it comes with I think there were eight or nine.
Like, what's that plasticky cardboard kind of material?
It's a little bit more waterproof. You use it for, or I always use it for like
doing displays for the science fair. Poster board?
(54:12):
It might just be poster board, but it's a... I mean, poster board's usually
the cardboard, but you can get it in the plasticky... But it's a plasticky version.
Corrugated. Plasticky, corrugated. Plastic.
Yeah, exactly. Like a corrugated plastic. Corrugated plastic.
Something like that. Anyway, he made ghosts out of these corrugated plastic
and embedded in each one a, I don't know what to call them, but it's,
(54:35):
you scan it with your phone just by holding, it's not a QR code.
It uses the same technology as like if you're doing paying with your phone at a kiosk.
Oh, Bluetooth chip. It's probably some kind of Bluetooth chip or something like that.
But you scan it with your phone and then it pops up a video that's on the internet
(54:57):
that shows that you've captured this ghost and it gives you a clue for you're
trying to unscramble a secret code.
And each ghost that you catch gives you more hints toward this code.
Okay. The cool thing about it is you don't have to download anything on your
phone because it's all web-based.
All you're doing is scanning each of these things. It takes you to the appropriate
(55:19):
website based on that scan.
And it tells you you captured the ghost. Here's your hint. Go find more ghosts.
So I've got like eight of these ghosts that we can hide all around the yard
and have people go on a ghost hunt,
exploring the estate, state, seen everything that we've set up and giving them
(55:40):
something interactive to do, even though we don't have a haunt for them to walk through.
But we're still giving that and see, you say that we don't have a haunt,
but I would say that we do have a haunt. It's just not your typical.
It's not a walkthrough walkthrough. We don't have a walkthrough,
but we, but we will be setting up a haunt and this I think will give us a.
(56:04):
Something more entertaining beyond just, Hey, look at all the cool decorations
and effects and, and all of the stories.
Exactly. Exactly. And I think it fits so perfectly with our theme this year, the haunted estate.
We have ghosts all around the estate. Go on a ghost hunt, find some ghosts.
And there'll be a mix of the game ghosts and there'll be a mix of our story ghosts.
(56:28):
Exactly. So how many story ghosts do you want? We have four.
We have four already. I would love to add at least a couple more.
I i intend to throw in
a few other ghosts in there as well that are
not necessary and they may not end
(56:49):
up being inside the uh inside the
crypt they may just be up here in other places but like halo fx showed a teaser
of a ghost that they are working on right now and i've talked about halo fx
before on the podcast they are one of my favorite companies companies for creating digital effects,
(57:10):
because most of the.
Effects that they create are very inexpensive relative to many of the others
and less check out who they are working on.
Oh, oh, it is the hat box ghost from Disney's haunted mansion.
(57:33):
It's not actually because it is not licensed by Disney, but it's the hat box ghost.
He's one of my favorite characters out of the haunted mansion. I freaking love him.
He is going to appear somewhere on our haunt. Yes. That's awesome.
Yeah. My, uh, my coworkers actually just spent the week at Disney world.
(57:54):
Yeah. With her kids. And I was like, you need to do two things for me.
You need to ride to blast mountain and you need to ride the haunted mansion. Yes. Yes.
So hello, fx.com. If you want to learn more, if you want to check out any of
their effects, they are a super cool company. Love them.
Go buy from them because it's cool stuff. And I'm very excited about the head box ghost.
(58:14):
So let's kind of sketch out what the what our layout is going to look like,
and i mean do this like super easy just
so we haven't just so that i have an idea of what i
need to build here over the next you know couple of months okay so there's the
generic layout of the estate yes we have it is yep we have our driveway there's
(58:41):
the house over here is the big open field i was talking about i should probably
put the playground in because it's an obstacle,
as big as the house apparently it's drawing is not to scale,
now come on you're telling me you aren't me trying to scale.
Playground okay so that's kind of what we have to work with
(59:02):
we have the house we have a garden up
on up by the street there's a little copse of trees that's
what these random circles are over here and then we have the playground so what
i kind of want to do is just kind of is sketch out where we want to put things
so first and foremost we will have the crypt right here crypt and graveyard
(59:24):
okay so we have the cryptic graveyard up there and then what else have we talked about.
Places that we need to put the ghost game ghosts.
Yeah. Let's, let's see where everything else is going to end up first.
And then we can, we'll litter ghosts in around it.
So if we do three or four of our ghosts in the crypt, our storyline ghosts,
(59:48):
then let's say two somewhere else on the property.
Yeah. So over here we can do chicken wire ghosts in our big dark spot.
And that's something that we'll need to get built. Okay, so we have chicken
wire ghosts in the field over here.
I still want to do a pumpkin patch with the singing jack-o'-lanterns.
(01:00:10):
This copse of trees over here is another fairly dark spot, so we could probably
put another halusion ghost over there.
Okay, yeah, I think that'd be a good place for one.
And that's close to the street, so people will be able to see it.
I know this is super exciting for all of you listeners who cannot see this as we're creating it.
(01:00:31):
But if you go check out our social media, I will definitely put up a picture
so you can see it afterwards.
Remember, it's not to scale. It's not to scale.
Okay, we've got the big... Otherwise, the chicken wire ghosts would be much
bigger than the house. Indeed.
(01:00:52):
And really what I'm saying is The chicken wire ghosts are over this whole area
Over here The playground is almost as big as the house.
Speaking of which, inside the house We're going to want to put some Ghosts in the window,
Ghost projections in Windows. And then what else? So we got the pumpkin patch.
(01:01:18):
We got our chicken war ghost.
I'll probably do something with the playground. In the past,
I've done skeletons playing on the playground. Yeah.
And I think that is still in keeping with our theme. And it makes for a pretty
good photo op for people coming to visit.
Yeah, definitely. Although, speaking of photo ops, one of the most popular has always been the arches.
(01:01:42):
Yep. Or the arch, the Zangakria Estates arch, which I don't have anymore.
Right, because it blew over and you threw it away. I didn't throw it away.
I gave it away. I hope someone else is making use of it. So that is going to have to get rebuilt.
Okay. We've got this big old hill right here that I feel like we need to do something with it.
That was the exit for us last time. And I had extended the graveyard into that last time.
(01:02:08):
There's a lot of people were, you know, walking out through the graveyard.
I definitely think graveyard definitely was some of the hide and go seeky ghosts.
Maybe I'm concerned about people walking in there.
It's a fairly steep hill. Yeah. And so I don't.
And so whatever it is, people, we've walked out of things. Yeah.
(01:02:32):
Yeah. They can certainly, We can certainly put a ghost on the perimeter.
But the well is up there. There's an old stump up there. Too many tripping hazards.
Ooh, wait. The well is up there. I wonder if I could do something around that
to make it less trippy hazard.
I've had the thought for a couple of years about building a fake well that looks
(01:02:54):
like what you think a well looks like.
And putting it around that. And then having something come up out of the well.
Yeah. I think that'd be kind of fun. I think that'd be good.
Yeah, have a ghost or something come up out of the well? I think this is a good start for our layout.
And then we can, as we go, we potentially add to it.
Or subtract, depending on when your permits go through. Or subtract,
(01:03:16):
depending on how things go. Yeah, exactly.
So based on this, like big things, I need to get the crypt out of storage.
And by storage, I mean underneath the deck.
And see if it's been damaged in the last two years and if it's ready to set up again.
Because there's a reasonable chance it's going to need some repair.
Pair so fix the crypt is going to be big i need to build a new archway and i
(01:03:38):
would love to have a a sign for sanguine creek estates that like on the road
level sign i've seen people do some very cool,
like gothic looking signs using old
headboards from beds if i
could find a headboard i would would love to
(01:04:00):
do that because i think i just think it turns out so freaking cool
i mean if you want to come pick up i'm not
picking up a headboard from colorado that the opportunity for that has passed
twice this year i did that drive twice this year i'd be happy to get rid of
them they're you should have said that when i was there but you were in Denmark
(01:04:22):
i wasn't Denmark it was so Oh, lovely.
That was so nice.
So, repair the crypt, build the archway, potentially SCE sign, chicken wire ghosts.
Well, those are the five big builds. Yep.
If any of those fall off, it's going to be the well. And then we'll have to
(01:04:44):
do some I'm going to say minor builds if I want to do a standalone hallusion.
Actually, if I just stretch it between the trees up there, then that would get rid of the seams.
Ooh, maybe I don't need to do, I'll have to play with that. See how far apart
they are and see if I have enough illusion material to do that.
Yeah. Cause then you just have to put the projection up. Yep. Exactly. Exactly.
(01:05:07):
So I think we, we have our, the, the start of our plan.
Yep. And I have some ghosts to write. You have some ghosts to write.
So you're going to try to do two more backstory ghosts, right? Yep.
Okay. And then when we get together for our next recording session,
we can knock those out as well. Okay, perfect.
Preferably one female, one male. I can do that. Any particular era?
(01:05:31):
I'm going to leave that completely up to you. Different from what we've done already.
Okay, so I think we have our plan for the next couple of months while we try to put this together.
So, so,
Les, you want to do a quick run-through of our social media?
Really? Give me a look. Really?
When have I ever been able to do our social media? I will give a quick run-through
(01:05:55):
of our social media since you are so skilled at it.
Definitely go check out all of our social media at facebook.com slash hauntingu, just the letter U.
We're on Instagram at hauntinguniversity and YouTube at hauntingu,
again, just the letter U.
Those are the places that we will be posting all of our builds and all of the
content as we make our way to Halloween 2024.
(01:06:18):
And of course, definitely go subscribe to the Haunting You podcast.
You can follow along as we're putting out more episodes through our planning
process, as well as a whole bunch of other topics as we find time and are able to do so.
But you can subscribe on any podcast app.
We recommend Podbean, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music,
(01:06:39):
Pandora, but really, seriously, anywhere that you can find podcasts,
you can find the haunting you podcast and check out our website,
haunting you.com to learn more about all the resources that we talked about here today.
Okay. I think that wraps us up less. I think it does take us out.
All right. From all of us here at haunting you. Thank you for listening and.
(01:07:02):
Music.
Happy haunting. We'll see you next time.
Bye everybody. We are incredibly grateful to all the sponsors who make this
show possible, Especially our premium sponsors, the Chamber of Haunters, Fear Expo, and VFX.
You can learn more about our premium sponsors by checking out their websites,
chamberofhaunters.com, fearexpolive.com, and vfxcreates.com.
(01:07:25):
Check out our website, Haunting You, for more information on everything that we do.
Music.
Thanks for watching!
(01:07:55):
Haunting You is a production of the Rocky Mountain Home Haunters, LLC.
All audio clips and sound effects are used under a Creative Commons attribution
or public domain license from Purple Planet Music at purple-planet.com or the
Sound Bible at soundbible.com. Please see the show notes for more information
on all the clips used in this episode.
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