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One thing I am doing that is completely different this year is that i am utilizing the creative genius of several independent emerging visual artists to design several of the rooms in the house. One artists I am very excited about working with is the notable horror photographer Joshua Hoffine out of Kansas City. I have actually commissioned him to create and photograph the room already for me to use in the "Girls" gallery of my horror/haunted house website Haunternet.
I have included here that image. It is a small teaser. This is what the room in the house will look like as well. It is a cheeky version of reenactment of Elizabeth Bathory. It is stunning and breathtaking and some other adjectives that describe paralysis.
We are announcing this for the first time today. Nightmare is moving after 5 years at its most recent home in the lower east side. It has been an amazing run. I love the neighborhood and i wish we could have stayed, but our venue there was no longer an option for many reasons, so we had to move. And we are very lucky for it. Our new venue is located at 623 Broadway. The entrance is on Mercer and Houston. It is right next door to the Angelica Film Center, and right across the street from the NYU Recreation Center. Could you ask for a better location! It is an old Crunch Gym, and it is nearly twice as big (hence the haunted house itself will be much bigger - and longer, yahoo!) I couldn't be more excited about embarking on this new adventure with this year's addition - Nightmare: Vampires, our most ambitious house (by far) to date. We are addressing all concerns from past years with this house (bigger, LONGER, more actors, etc). this house is taking all of that into consideration and is doing something about it! It is also going to be the most immersive; truly theatrical this year with a cohesive plot, through-line, repeating characters and you, the most important character of them all. You are going to love what we have in store, and you are going to love the new venue. I am giddy.
Every year i take all the notes that were given to me throughout the run and I try and improve the house. There are several areas that i feel we can always improve upon. I listen to the patrons as well as myself and i constantly try and raise the bar not just against my own expectations, but also against other haunted houses throughout the world. Some of these are general haunted house conundrums, but i am striving to figure it all out to someday create the perfect haunted house! I think Nightmare: Vampires could potentially reinvent what a haunted house can be. so in my next three blog postings i am going to break down the three things i focused on when conceptualizing this years house: length of tour, making the design look as amazing as the money we spend on it, and creating wholly unique and realistic ways to scare people that go well beyond boogiemen hiding behind walls and then jumping out at you. Today I will address one of them.
LENGTH: One complaint we always get, and as i read up on criticisms from other haunted houses elsewhere so do they, is how long it takes to go through. Unless you are in a football stadium, length of the tour is always an issue. People pay good money and they want it to last forever. I understand this. I, too, get disappointed when i am enjoying a decent haunted house and then it is over in like 10 minutes. I understand the want for this, but you have nooooo idea how hard it is to actually accomplish. The roadblocks to creating a truly long haunted house are the following:
space. If you are going to have people keep on moving, especially on truly busy days, there is just not enough square footage in 99% of venues to keep you walking in circles for much longer than 15 minutes.
Second, size of groups. often what happens in a haunted house is that groups catch up to one another because the event that happened in one room didn't have enough time to reset and do it for another group so the group that has caught up with the one in front of them doesn't get to see anything and thus the house becomes a much shorter experience. they end up walking through rooms with no event. this is especially true on really busy nights when the intervals between groups grow shorter and shorter in order to get everyone in.
Third, actors getting tired and pushing groups through instead of performing their bits. I am not impugning my actors when i say this. My actors are brilliant, and we have some amazing performers, but i understand it is a hard job to do something over and over again and sometimes it is tough to keep it up every 4 minutes. i get that, but the patrons don't, nor should they, so i have to figure out away to transcend that. in fact, i had to figure out a way to transcend it all if i want to improve this house and make it longer!
So how am i gonna do it? well, for starters we actually have more square footage. we have changed venues for the first time in 6 years and it is considerably larger. we have taken over two floors of an old crunch gym, and this alone will make the house larger and thus longer to literally walk-through. secondly, because the house is larger i can make the rooms much larger; large enough to fit more people into if it came to that. so instead of speeding up the intervals between groups we can make the groups slightly larger instead and it have little to no impact on the experience. finally, because we are not jamming patrons down our actors throats at a sound-breaking speed, they will not be as inclined to phone any groups in. Every night should feel like a a regular night and thus preserve their energy to scare the crap out of you. No pushing people though.
That is how i plan on addressing the length of the house. Next I will address the elevated design.
so, i didn't write that many blogs during the haunted house. that is when i should have been. right? like, you were only moderately interested in this in the first place, and that modicum of interests was likely driven by "hell, let me see if there are any interesting antecdontes he tells about the run, like Tyra Banks came and she screamed so hard her tit fell out." well, she didn't come, but Giselle did come on halloween dressed like an FBI agent. her boobies, much to the chagrin of everyone gawking at her, stayed inside her dress, however.
Vincent D'Anafrio came with his whole family, and his sons was too chicken and backed out after only the third room. D'Anafrio comes every year and he is actually a really nice guy. this is the first year his son chickened out. we finally got him. he's like 11.
but all in all the house was an enormous success. we broke all attendance and box office records. it was really quite remarkable really. not even in our wildest dreams did we think these kind of crowds were going to come. there was a tipping point somewhere along the way, and i'll never figure it out. i'd like to thank everyone who helped make this possible. firstly, sumeet Bharati. she's first because she helped out unumerably, but also because in my speech at our closing night party she was the only one i forgot, and she was more important than 90% of the people i mentioned, and she is secretly in love with me, but who isn't? she is the general manager for the event. next chip meyrelles the executive producer, jim glaub who headed up our website and internet marketing, and then... you know what, as i write this i realize there are like 100 people i could thank. so i am going to stop now. these people are not necessarily at the top of my list (but they might be) but they are who came to me first in my stream of conciousness. thanks to everyone involved. especially the beautiful actors. some of them werenm't so beautiful, some were extremely beautiful and others were alright. you know hwo you are sucka faces.
so thanks again, i can't wait for next year's house, but we have other things in the hopper before then, so i will be sure to blog about them if you give a shit.
We have had so many people come on fridays and saturdays that the accumulated body heat turns that place into an easy bake oven by 9 PM. so people come out drenched in sweat (partly because of the scares, partly because it is as hot as a bitch up in the place. but mostly because of the scares. of course).
and also, please get your tickets in advance for any performance this thursday on. you should for wednesday and tuesday as well (the 23rd and 24th) but you might be able to get those at the box office. but you will be told it is sold out from thursday and beyond. one of the main questions we get on our hotline is "do we have to get them in advance?" well, yes, if you wanna get in. please listen to me as i tell you. get them in advance or don't whine about it if you get there and you are told we are sold and happy Halloween.
finally, were some g-d sensible shoes to this thing. i have seen so many stupid flip-flops and 3 inch heels. those are awful for this house. it isn't dangerous, but it is messy and challenging and requires some physicality on your behalf. so don't wear stupid shoes. please. you are just as cute without them. i think you are super cute in tennis shoes. they look great on you. all your friends are going to like you and that dude is till going to think it's hot that you are jumping all over him even if you are wearing an old pair of sauccony's. cool? thanks
i turned 34 on tuesday. several of my cast members, who are on the youngish side, made me feel very old. they genuinely thought i was between 40 and 50. now i don't look taht old do i? so for the record i am 34. and you are welcome to send me gifts.
Evidently, people read these things, so i need to be better about it.
We are in the stretch run and things couldn't be going better. people are coming, people are getting scared, people are leaving (sweating and hyper-ventilating). i look at the house and there are a million things i would do different, but that is always the case. i like its rough around the edges fell, but in years to come i would like to make it a little slicker and a little more durable. that's definitely happening. i feel the ideas are strong, but those ideas have to mesh better with a gaziliion people trampling al over it every night. it has definitely held up better than year's past both literally and artistically, so i am happy about that, but it could always be better. much better. i will always strive to do that.
Our reviews have been fantastic. The Times gave us an out-of-the-box review that didn't make much sense, but it seemed like he thought it was distrubing and scary which is what we want (the part he didn't get is why enyone would subject themselves to htat - and you know why you do!), The Daily News gave us a wonderful write-up. 5 out of 5 screams! Time Out also rated us ghihger than our in-city competitor (not to be named here, but you know who they are. Daily News did the same by the way). So we are very happy.
NPR is doing another feature and I was on Maxim Radio yesterday ("whoa, bor, too much information. ha ha. are the girls hot, dude? awesome brohan i can't wait to go!")
oddly enought we are going to be on the cover of this week's Next Magazine (a gay rag) and some MTV Network (i think MTV 4 or some shit) is coming to shoot their top 20 countdown from our house tonight and air it on halloween. and did you guys see me on good day new york last week? of course not, you guys aren't awake at 7:30 AM.
So it is going really well. i am going to the house right now to do some beautification of it. You guys are wrecking the crap out of it. but that just means your scared. so we'll fix it and be happy.
wow, people are loving this house and attendance is up two and a half times over last year. Cipha Sounds from Hot 97 was there on Friday night and it was a ton of fun. he is great DJ. Hot 97 night was amazing. a kazillion people came, Cipha was broadcasting live from the house, and our ears are still ringing. we had such a new york moment on friday as well. Hot 97 send down a 73 piece marching band to perform outside the haunted house. we had no idea they were coming, but there they were standing on the sidwalk with their tubas and flag dancers. it weas 9 PM, and all of a sudden a powerful marching band version of Thriller started blaring and filling up the streets of the LES. people were gathering from the whole neighborhood to watch, and people were poking their little pointy heads out the windows. it was pretty amazing...that no one issued a noise complaint and had us arrested. marybe its a case for the feds.
anyway, we have fangoria night coming up on thursday the 11th (and the giveaways for that night are amazing!).
tickets are sincerely selling fast from this point on, so don't wait a few days before. we also are selling tickets for this wednesday and thursday at smarttix a real good discount. use the codeword HUMP when purchasing your tickets at and you will get $15 off the SuperHaunt ticket (normally $35 at the door- includes both the house and the maze). this is absolutely the last time we are going to do anything like that. once we get into this weekend forget about it. we are damn near laready sold our for many performances!
finally, nightmare backstage is coming up on october 15th. this is actually going to be an awesome event. me and my concept team and designers are goin gto answer any questions you might have, do demonstrations and then take you through the house and show you how things work in the house. show you all the secrets. like a DVD special feature "making of", "behind the scenes", "featureette", sneak peak", "inside look", "first look," you saw it here first", "this is how we do it", "come and get some", "tuna fish sandwich" kind of thing. it is totally worth the $20 . that is an amazing tuna fish sandwich we aren't talking about here.
check out the youtube video of me talking about nightmare backstage! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsLj0cvPnRg&eurl=http%3A%2Fhauntedhousenyc%2Eblogspot%Ecom% 2F
hey, go to nightmare backstage. go to our website, under promotions and check out nightmare backstage. it is an hour and a half seminar on the making of the house, demonstrations on some cool effects, and a tour through the house with me and the other designers where we explain the secrets of the house. it is going to be a lot of fun, and a very rare opportunity to be taken backstage of nightmare! friggin' do it!
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