Howl-O-Scream

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On the one hand, I really don't want the park to spend money more than they have to.

On the other hand, there absolutely has to be changes this year to HoS. They literally cannot do another year of repeat everything. The houses are stale. People are realizing that they haven't changed up their lineup of houses in two years. It's going to hurt them.

At least one house has to go. I would like 3 to go and be replaced, but it just won't happen. My three would be Catacombs, because the inside has definitely seen better days. 13, because it's just out right awful. and CTC, because pirates aren't scary.

Deadline, would be an amazing house if it was ever properly staffed. Bitten, also has a lot of unused potential, but really it could be reversed for newness. The props inside Bitten while old, are aging a lot better than Catacombs. And Root since it's revamp in 2013 has basically been the best house at the park. And when I say that I mean it's been consistent with it's scares.

The park is in a really bad spot when it comes to HoS. Because of their stupid ass decision to not only have SSN, but to also extend it, on top of the rest of their budget issues, I can't see this years HoS going anywhere good.

At the end of the day though, what ultimately matters is that the park doesn't need another show for HoS.
 
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I say we cut a house or two and make a new version of the haunted train, Vladtastic Express! Back to reality, they could freshen up Deadline by using the laser tag system used at BGT in Z.C.U 15. I imagine it doesn't cost that much and I heard the GP eat it up. Bitten could be reversed knowing that it was designed so that the entrance and exit wouldn't affect the story.
 
Interactive mazes are extremely expensive to staff and run. The logistics of getting people through the maze in a timely manner is a HUGE undertaking; it's insane for a park with budget problems to take on a laser system.

Reversing Bitten is the LEAST they could have done, and yet they're still holding out.
 
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I hope they make the most of the extra time this year. Though knowing the executive staff, they won't do much.
 
Connor said:
I say we cut a house or two and make a new version of the haunted train, Vladtastic Express! Back to reality, they could freshen up Deadline by using the laser tag system used at BGT in Z.C.U 15. I imagine it doesn't cost that much and I heard the GP eat it up. Bitten could be reversed knowing that it was designed so that the entrance and exit wouldn't affect the story.
Click to expand...

Hearing Vlad's voice over the speakers every 15 mins last season was SO annoying. I don't know who decided he was going to be the poster boy, but ughhhhh I don't like him. Deadline has just as much, if not more theming and decor as Bitten. Reversing it may help, but it needs a reboot so badly....
 
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Deadline is a perfect example of how a maze can be gorgeous and do nothing. Someone once said deadline is like walking through a museum.
 
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The maze does a ton though. The atmospherics are spot on. That's the house doing work. The issue is that Howl-O-Scream is run by an incompetent management team which doesn't understand the first thing about scaring guests, let alone the fact that employees need to be trained to do it.

If you put most any Kings Dominion house cast (including maze leadership) into any Busch Gardens Williamsburg house and gave them a few nights to rehearse under KD's rehearsals team, the results would be unreal- especially in a house the caliber of Dead Line or Bitten.

Dead Line and Bitten are both top-of-the-line houses. Sadly they're located at a park that would rather paint their actor's faces blue and sell bacon on a stick than train their scare crew.

It's crucial to differentiate between three different things in discussing Howl-O-Scream's houses:
  1. The Quality of the House
  2. The Quality of the Performance
  3. The Quality of the Complete Package
In my opinion Busch Gardens Williamsburg...
  1. Has four great houses, one good house, and one poor house.
  2. Has maybe one house that has consistently performed well.
  3. Has maybe two houses that I believe consistently provide quality experiences.
Busch Gardens Williamsburg's problem has, for years, been staffing- not just numbers, but quality. And as far as I can tell, BGW just doesn't care.
 
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For what it is worth, I want to see Deadline removed. I know this is a wildly unpopular position, but all I ever read is people explaining that it could be good if only...

The fact is that it has been nothing more than a museum (yes, I said that) for years. The fact that I don't actually like gross-out houses aside, there is simply nothing scary about walking through a highly-decorated maze. Perhaps it could be great if BGW staffed it better or whatever. I think we all have seen that putting actors in houses is fairly low on their list of HOS priorities. And now they are dealing with fiscal austerity. If they couldn't staff it before, how could they possible do so now?

Honestly, most of the other houses still work for me (even if they are getting a bit old), but Deadline has been boring me for years.
 
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Dead Line remains up all year- the park doesn't have to pay for yearly construction or removal. That's one of the multitude of reasons Bitten and Dead Line are likely here to stay for a while longer. The cost of running them comes down to basic maintenance and staffing.

I'd much rather see the park remove Catacombs and Thirteen entirely and run the event with four "average" houses instead of the six mediocre to bad ones they have right now. Especially given their current financial state.

That would mean setup and striking work would only be required at Root of All Evil and, to a far lesser extent, Cut Throat Cove. Shift money from setup, striking, and staffing crappy houses (Thirteen especially) to staffing the remaining houses during the event. Cut Ports of Skull and Vampire Point as well as at least one show to trim down the fat of the event. Invest a little in employee training and start implementing a reward system for quality performances and suddenly, boom, budget cut Howl-O-Scream that won't completely suck.
 
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Do they still have the sand pit at the end of Bitten? Reversing it would mean tracking that grossness all throughout the house. I remember years ago when at the end of Sunday night, the Bitten sand pit would extend halfway down the exit path just from people walking through it (and there would be a scare guy hiding in the bushes there too!).

The thing with KD scare house actors, is that they get so invested in scaring ONE guest that they forget anyone coming afterwards. I went through all of the KD houses this past year and in every single one, I would literally run into a scare actor trying to walk back to their designated spot because they had followed a guest down a hallway or whatever. I also wound up in back areas twice because of poor house design - and at one point I had a whole line of people who followed me before someone broke character and lead us back out, I think it was in the Alien house, haha whoopsie.
 
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Something I missed about Bitten this year was there was no actors in the garden or on the small bridge before entering the house. Back in 2009 the park placed scaffolding on the right side of the bridge before the house making it seem as if the actors were hanging on to the railing. I will admit Bitten did fantastic this season as all of the staff were using hiding places that I had never seen used in previous years. If I had to decide between Catacombs and Bitten I would honestly pick Catacombs as it doesn't fit with the Terror-Tory and since the space is smaller it would probably be cheaper to replace.
 
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Except Catacombs is the only maze located inside of a scare zone to begin with.

Bitten and Catacombs perform consistently well each year. I don't see why they should be replaced. Is it because they're old? So why not replace Club Blood or Alien Outbreak at KD while we're at it since those mazes have been around a long time and are pretty subpar?
 
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I think the most feasible option at this point for the park is to cut two of the houses and bring in one new one. They could pull off going back to five houses, and doing so would allow for any salvaged props to be used to theme Terror-tories as well as throw some more staff into the understaffed houses. For years we never had six houses but we had less, higher quality mazes.
 
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Nah, if they shut two houses down, and made one new house, they'd just hire less people. They would just use the lack of a 6th house as an excuse not to hire more people because they "wouldn't need them."
 
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Why not let people volunteer, then you wouldn't have to pay so many people

Give them free passes and stuff like that for the volunteers
 
One word: "lawsuit." They would have a huge liability on their hands if they did that directly. Now they could take the approach KD did last year and work with local schools and let kids in the theater depts have an opportunity to work through their classes. At least then the school would carry some of the liability.
 
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