Ok, I know that this concept isn't fleshed out yet, but I was hoping that you guys could give me some good ideas and I could keep updating the OP until it was a true concept.
Basically my thought is this, the two biggest problems that people have had with HOS houses in the past were stacking, and poor scare actors. Most people think the solution is more scare actors, and a simpler layout for the maze, but I had a different idea.
What better way is there to prevent stacking, then to have a guided tour here the park can control the crowds within the house 100%. The tour doesn't move on until the next portion is clear. Simple as that.
Next to address the problem of the house not being scary enough. Unlike most people on the forum, I live in Maryland (about 2 and a half hours away). The city has been gutting huge stores to prepare for some town center expansion, and last year a small, family owned company decided to take advantage of a recently gutted Toys R Us and build a haunted house inside. The house had a tiny budget and few scare actors yet it was 10x more terrifying then any house at Busch Gardens. I started thinking about why that was and I realized: scripted events. They only let in groups of about 5-10 people at a time an they were very spread out. The scares were all creative and unexpected because they were all scenes scripted in advance, designed to draw your attention to one direction and scare you from another.
If Busch Gardens used this strategy when designing their houses they could deliver plenty of quality scares, without breaking the bank on scare actors.
So what do you guys think? What would work and what wouldn't? What are some possible themes or stories or the house?
Basically my thought is this, the two biggest problems that people have had with HOS houses in the past were stacking, and poor scare actors. Most people think the solution is more scare actors, and a simpler layout for the maze, but I had a different idea.
What better way is there to prevent stacking, then to have a guided tour here the park can control the crowds within the house 100%. The tour doesn't move on until the next portion is clear. Simple as that.
Next to address the problem of the house not being scary enough. Unlike most people on the forum, I live in Maryland (about 2 and a half hours away). The city has been gutting huge stores to prepare for some town center expansion, and last year a small, family owned company decided to take advantage of a recently gutted Toys R Us and build a haunted house inside. The house had a tiny budget and few scare actors yet it was 10x more terrifying then any house at Busch Gardens. I started thinking about why that was and I realized: scripted events. They only let in groups of about 5-10 people at a time an they were very spread out. The scares were all creative and unexpected because they were all scenes scripted in advance, designed to draw your attention to one direction and scare you from another.
If Busch Gardens used this strategy when designing their houses they could deliver plenty of quality scares, without breaking the bank on scare actors.
So what do you guys think? What would work and what wouldn't? What are some possible themes or stories or the house?
