Ghoulish Goings-On
Go behind the scenes and find out everything about our Halloween Experiences!

Halloween Experience Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the most frequently asked questions from our Halloween Experience visitors.

How long does it take to plan the experience?
Planning usually starts mid-August. From here it is decided which props and moving models are needed, what the general mood will be for the year (level of scariness), which items can be re-used from last year, and any ideas for new effects are recorded at this stage. On the day, it takes a fair few hours to set everything up, although it varies. 2004 and 2005 took about two hours, but 2008 took a whole day!


Give us a brief walk-through of how everything comes together for the big day.
First of all, new moving effects are built and tested, although this tends to be ongoing, sometimes right up to a week before the event. Some effects are last-minute additions, that are constructed literally a few days before. During these testing periods, poem boards and other smaller signs and decorations are created. Then the sounds are created, and we then work out where the various audio players and speakers will be located around the garden. This is usually done by creating a large map of the entire garden, and everything that is going to be used is drawn in.

This is used on the day to make sure that we have everything in the right place. About a week before we run all power and speaker cables out into the garden and waterproof them. Then on the big day, we install all the lighting and sound equipment, as well as the decorations and signs. Then everything is tested and any moving effects that fail at the crucial moment are either removed or switched off. Then we open at around 6:30 for trick-or-treaters to visit us if they dare!


Where do you get all your ideas from?
The main two inspirations for the Halloween Experiences are 'Rumpus Mansion', a moderately tame haunted house attraction based at Blackgang Chine, a fantasy theme park based on the Isle of Wight. The other is 'Phantom Manor', the haunted mansion attraction at Disneyland Paris. Both design ideas and effects from our experiences strongly stem from those at both these attractions. Plenty of music from the rides has also been played in the garden over the years. In the 2006 experience, virtually all of the moving models were inspired by 'Phantom Manor', including the floating candelabrum, the swinging skeleton, and the 13 hour clock.


How many of there are you controlling the part inside the front door?
Generally there are three of us: Sam, James and Richard. The house actually belongs to James's Nan and Richard, but was chosen for its locality to a very lively trick-or-treat area. As you may have seen, Sam is usually the one dishing out sweets, James is the one on the sound and lighting effects, and Richard is the one at the back shouting "RELEASE THE HOUNDS" or something similar!


How many people come to the experience on the night?
Quite a few! The number has steadily increased year-by-year, from about 70 people in 2004, to over 100 in 2008! We see some regular faces each year, as well as some new ones, so clearly people choose to bring friends and relatives to come and see our work, which is incredibly rewarding.


How do you prepare for wet weather, and have there been any wet Halloween Experiences?
We've been incredibly lucky with the weather on Halloween night, in that we have only had one wet Halloween, and this was in 2005. Although it was hugely disappointing that we couldn't put any of the cardboard or electrical equipment out in the wet weather, it didn't stop the locals turning up in force to join in with trick-or-treat. We are all actually quite thankful that it did rain in 2005, because we all learnt a valuable lesson about waterproofing and preparing for such eventualities. Also, the 2006 experience was basically all 2005's effects plus loads more, so it was essentially two year's work shoved into one night!


Are there any effects that were made, but we never got to see?
Yes there was! There have been a few that have either backfired at the crucial moment, or were just not deemed impressive enough for the actual night. In 2007, a skeleton in the top window of the house was meant to open and close the curtain periodically, so it looked as though he was looking out over the visitors as they entered the garden. However, the mechanism that controlled him started to almost pull the curtain off the rail! So this effect was abandoned and he simply stood static in the window.

There was also an effect which produced the shadow of a crow that moved its head and looked as though it was cawing angrily at passers by. However the wall at the back of the garden that it was designed to be projected onto simply did not display the shadow well enough, and so this was never used.

The final notable effect that never was, was a 'demonic skeleton' that sat on the front of the porch in 2008. It had a sound system that was designed to say "Come in, come in, don't be afraid" in an eerie voice, which was triggered by a motion sensor, set off by a visitor coming up the path. However due to James's dodgy wiring, the power supply to the audio circuit kept flicking on and off, and this eventually blew up the device altogether! So the skeleton simply sat there with no audio track.


What made you start doing the Halloween Experience in the first place?
James's creativity/insanity! He has always had a keen interest in lighting, sound, moving models and building mechanisms. He is also obsessed with any form of haunted house or atmospheric ride or attraction at theme parks, and enjoys making things that people enjoy themselves. So he thought - why not create something like that myself!  Halloween is a very popular time of year round his Nan's area, and so he decided to conduct a 'pilot' experience with very minimal lighting effects in 2003. This proved very popular, and so a run of five experiences were created, from 2004 to 2008. Sam, James's fellow lighting and sound enthusiast, joined the team in 2006, and from then on it simply got bigger and better each year. The final experience was in 2008, which marked the 'end of an era' in James's rather elongated childhood!


So there's not going to be a Halloween Experience 2009?
Absolutely not. James knows that he always says this every year, and he still ends up giving in and doing one, but 2009 will sadly not have a Halloween Experience. And don't think that James is not sad about this!


But will there ever be another in the future?
Well we'll just have to see what the future holds! A tenth anniversary experience isn't entirely improbable...
 

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