Halloween Experience
   
         

  > INTRODUCTION
a fascination with imagination
  > THEME PARK MAGIC
inspirational rides and attractions
  > A PHANTOM PLOT UNFOLDS
a 2003 test from Disneyland ideas
  > THE HAUNTING BEGINS
five years of Halloween, 2004-2008
> BACK FROM THE GRAVE
2010-2011 with new technology
  > A 2013 RESURRECTION
a mix of new and age-old effects
  > DAWN OF THE UNDEAD
2014 show, part one
  > THE ZOMBIES EMERGE
2014 show, part two
  > A CHANGING CONCEPT
2015 show, part one
  > BUILDING PNEUMATIC FIGURES
2015 show, part two
  > ROLL UP, ROLL UP!
2015 show, part three
  > INTO THE TUNNEL...
2016 show, part one
  > MAKING MONSTERS MOVE
2016 show, part two
  > TO HELL AND BACK
2016 show, part three
  > SHARPENING THE SENSES
2017 show, part one
  > A MAGNETIC ATTRACTION
2017 show, part two
  > THE BIG EXECUTION
2017 show, part three
  Re-animated for 2010!    
  It was September 2010 when Sam jokingly suggested to me on the phone that I should bring the Halloween Experience back. By this point, we’d been involved in lots of stage events and other similar things, and had built up a large collection of lighting equipment in the process.

The idea of using some of this to create a new and advanced display was easily enough to convince me that we should resurrect it... 		   
                     
  Improving effect automation and control  
    There was something that I definitely wanted in the new 2010 experience – synchronised lighting and sound! That is to say, when a person triggered a sensor, a sequence would run whereby the relevant lighting and sound effects would be controlled by the same device, to specific pre-set timings.

After some searching I came across a piece of software called VenueMagic. This is a well-known program that has applications all around the world, and was originally designed to control effects in dark rides and Halloween attractions. 		 
  The compelling feature was the ability to synchronise lighting effect changes with a soundtrack, through the use of a timeline (above) - exactly what I was looking for. The software could connect to a range of different DMX interfaces, to allow for DMX signals to be sent to the required lighting devices.

The lighting itself was improved by using DMX-controlled LED fixtures, such as PAR 56s. By using their arrangement of red, green and blue LEDs, colour mixing and dimming could be achieved. These were useful for providing colour washes for scenes. Incandescent PAR 36s and PAR 16s, with their much narrower beams, were used for focussing light on a particular figure or prop. I have used these for this purpose in all subsequent shows too.		    
  But how to actually trigger the VenueMagic timeline? The idea I had was that if it could be activated via a mouse-click on the computer, could I develop a circuit that performed this mouse-click when powered on by the motion sensors that I'd used before?  
  After a bit of thinking, I came up with a design. The photo to the left shows the circuits (built on prototype board) that were used to trigger the individual computers.  
  They operated as 555 monostables (normally low output, briefly high when triggered, powering an optocoupler with mouse button connected, before returning low - this action 'clicked' the mouse). This photo was taken in 2013, but the circuits were the same in 2010. Also visible, top left of the board, is another timing circuit that triggered a smoke machine.

Not a particularly electrically innovative solution, but it worked every time and I used this method for three years!		  
 
This introduction of programmable DMX control opened up a huge range of possibilities. Now, almost anything could be turned on or off, on cue, via dimmers or relay circuits, and be synchronised with a sound effect. With the new LED lighting, figures and sets could change colour, strobe, or blackout at any moment necessary, enabling the creation of magical effects. Best of all, these programmed sequences could be triggered by PIR sensors - the activation of these effects would now be totally automatic!
 		  
  Motion-triggered magic and mayhem  
    There were several things inspired from Phantom Manor once again; the same Boot Hill music from 2008 was used to give a spooky mood; the Phantom laughter skeleton up in the trees also returned, and the porch featured sounds from the opening part of the ride's soundtrack, as a motion-activated light and sound sequence.

< When visitors stepped near, the red lights suddenly went out, and loud thunder and more evil laughter was heard, accompanied by bright flashes of lightning. 

> In a nod to the 'stretching room' scene of Phantom Manor, I came up with the idea of putting a big white sheet across one of the top windows of the house, and then hanging a cut-out silhouette of a skeleton behind it. A reflector lamp behind the silhouette was flashed on and off via a dimmer, which allowed the realistic shadow of a hanging corpse to appear occasionally in the window!

< One of my other favourite features was a ghoul positioned at the back of the garden, in total darkness. With a scream, he was suddenly lit up by a strobe, creating a great shock effect as he appeared out of nowhere!

> I used a sound from the entrance of Rumpus Mansion at Blackgang Chine to bring to life a figure of a skeleton who stood in the centre of the garden. A 60W strobe was mounted up in the trees, and when visitors walked up the path, a loud clap of thunder and some bright lightning flashes startled them! The skeleton then lit up, and urged visitors to come further into the garden – “Come in, why don’t you?! Just step this way…!” 		   
       
  See the effects of the 2010 experience in this clip taken on the night 
(.mp4, 14.9mb)		            
 
The 2010 display is still one of my favourites. It marked the transition from basic effects and sounds that ran constantly (or irrespective of the proximity of visitors!), to motion-triggered sequences of pre-programmed, synchronised lighting and sound cues that ran as people approached. It was really exciting for me to see the effects, all of which operated very reliably, working for the first time.

I felt as though I'd finally built something that worked in the same way as the dark rides I'd been through when I was younger - effects that triggered simply by somebody coming near to them... Magic!
 		  
    For 2011, I did another one. It was very similar to the previous year, in terms of effects, although it did have a much brighter strobe for the lightning!

< The main addition was a witch figure that stood with a ‘cauldron’ from which green smoke billowed out. This was done with another LED PAR 56 and a smoke machine, hidden behind the scene, piping smoke into the base of the metal bin.

> I also updated the skeleton shadow in the window slightly, with the inclusion of a second light, positioned between the cardboard silhouette and the sheet. By varying which of the two lights flashed, sometimes the shadow appeared, and sometimes it had vanished. Spooky!		    
  See the 2011 display in this short video, plus us awaiting our first punters!
(.mp4, 30.2mb)		          
  The summer of 2012 was to be when I'd leave university, and hopefully become employed! It was time to bring this reboot of the Halloween Experience to an end. It had been great fun bringing it back, and I was really pleased with both of the displays. They'd been significantly more technically complex than the previous five, achieving automation of both sound and lighting via motion sensors. It had been a great opportunity to combine new lighting and control systems with my ideas for building effects of the style I'd seen in my favourite dark rides and walkthrough attractions!

So far, there had been seven displays, in two successful runs. But...I wasn't done yet. The 'next generation' of the Halloween Experience would turn out to be only another two years away!...