Halloween Horror Nights 29 General Discussion

SeventyOne

SeventyOne

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Jul 1, 2010
2,619
Orlando
Wednesday night (10/23) was odd. After a reasonable Monday, I thought with TMs blocked it would be a moderate crowd at best. Instead it was the busiest of the 13 nights I've seen this year. Even at 7:30 entry mob--there were no lines--stretched back beyond ticket booths. A hard crowd to read, too. Ton of little kids for a school night (in 10 minutes at Duff, passed by three strollers and an infant harness), many more older people than I'm used to seeing at the event as well. "Older" as in elegible for AARP. The only short lines were for booze.

Much of the cast of ZombieLand has stepped it up. I wonder if the online criticism got back to them. Springfield Chainsaw Team felt a bit more aggressive, as well, finally finding their groove and got a few classic guest freak-outs.

On the flip side, Vanity Ball was worse than ever. No one attempted to scare me on two walk-throughs, most just stood around, a couple chatted with friends.
 
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Brian G.

Brian G.

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Jan 21, 2008
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Kinchkinet85 said:
No, it was as we were leaving Wolfman into Hunchback. She came though the doorway and everything. It sucked.
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Ah, ok. We had an Ops guy get a little too pushy with us in the Brides’ room. Bride scared my wife, and even got in front of her. My wife hesitated for a second and Ops dude got right in front of her yelling out “you need to keep going”. I actually told him something; basically “you need to relax with that crap. Give fans a chance to get scared and recover before getting in their face about it.”
 
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itsabee

itsabee

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Sep 11, 2019
191
Brian G. said:
Ah, ok. We had an Ops guy get a little too pushy with us in the Brides’ room. Bride scared my wife, and even got in front of her. My wife hesitated for a second and Ops dude got right in front of her yelling out “you need to keep going”. I actually told him something; basically “you need to relax with that crap. Give fans a chance to get scared and recover before getting in their face about it.”
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Monsters ops are apparently ... inconsistent ... I’ve heard about another particularly pushy one. Over all of my late-night runs where it’s almost pulsed, I’ve had quite a few experiences of the ops person coming into the room from the other direction to make sure that no guests were hanging around, I guess. Even when I’ve done solo runs, I’ve been ushered through aggressively. I just wanted to watch the Wolfman harness scare...
 
Kinchkinet85

Kinchkinet85

Member
May 24, 2018
532
itsabee said:
Monsters ops are apparently ... inconsistent ... I’ve heard about another particularly pushy one. Over all of my late-night runs where it’s almost pulsed, I’ve had quite a few experiences of the ops person coming into the room from the other direction to make sure that no guests were hanging around, I guess. Even when I’ve done solo runs, I’ve been ushered through aggressively. I just wanted to watch the Wolfman harness scare...
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Just keep walking slow. It’s annoying when they do that, but what can they really do but tell you to “hurry”.
 
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itsabee

itsabee

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Sep 11, 2019
191
Kinchkinet85 said:
Just keep walking slow. It’s annoying when they do that, but what can they really do but tell you to “hurry”.
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It sort of makes me anxious about making them mad. I know they’re the ones being kind of mean, but I’m still worried. I’m also not looking to piss off Monsters ops in particular; I want to have a good reputation as much as I keep repeating that house.

My UTH guide literally told us to fake-limp through the house if ops are like that. They can’t say anything about a purported injury. I can’t say how right or wrong that is, but given that even fellow team members are telling you to ignore ops, it must be a problem to more than just guests.
 
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HandsomePete

HandsomePete

Newcomer
Jul 8, 2019
77
I have a few things to say but first wanted to address this:

Lucky Planet said:
One of the yeti, the one hiding on the roof, slapped the crap out of me by accident.
He reached out to scare but gave me a big slap in the face....
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It’s interesting you posted this because I saw that Yeti swinging wildly back under its perch last night from about three people back and thought he was probably going to smash some people in the face. When something like this happens, you absolutely need to make a point of it to Ops at house exit. I had an incident in Fallen where a scareactor left his boo hole and straight up chest bumped me to the point that I tripped in his/her costume fabric and fell into the wall on the opposite side. I unloaded on Ops at the end, but there’s a tactful way to do it:
1) express repeatedly that you trust it was an accident
2) express repeatedly that you don’t want anyone to get fired
3) politely point out that contact the other direction would result in you getting trespassed
4) most importantly, politely suggest that someone needs to coach the scareactor because you don’t want it to happen to someone else and cause worse consequences.

Anyways, last night was crowded but the house staffing was the best I’ve seen since opening weekend. I thought Monday was a joke - did four houses that night and all were awful relative to other runs through those houses.

It also felt like the aggression has hit a new level. Zombieland seems like it’s finally awoken from whatever slumber it’s been in for basically the entire event. Concur about Vanity Ball - it will probably end up winning scare zone of the year because it’s this year’s flavor of Vamp, but they all seem to have checked out after a solid first month.

Special kudos is in order for the Depths of Fear crew (pun not intended but I’ll roll with it now). This was my most anticipated house going into the event and it completely fell flat when it debuted. But talk about making lemonade out of lemons - whoever decided to scrap the fish and turn it into what it is now has completely redeemed what was a broken house. I would put my run last night on par with the best of Scarecrow or Tomb of the Ancients. Full disclosure: it took me like a month to see the dog so I probably missed the most egregious effects there (it was fogged out last night), but the energy this team has brought to the house is incredible. I doubt it will beat Stranger Things or Ghostbusters for house of the year, but it would get my vote.
 
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Joe

Joe

aka TestTrack321
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Feb 15, 2012
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HandsomePete said:
Concur about Vanity Ball - it will probably end up winning scare zone of the year because it’s this year’s flavor of Vamp, but they all seem to have checked out after a solid first month.
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Just to reiterate that "___ of the Year" is mostly a favorites contest with hype/expectations. Based on that I think Monsters is winning house and Hellbilly is winning zone.

 
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OhHaiInternet95

OhHaiInternet95

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Aug 18, 2017
2,262
Joe said:
Just to reiterate that "___ of the Year" is mostly a favorites contest with hype/expectations. Based on that I think Monsters is winning house and Hellbilly is winning zone.

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Considering Ghostbusters is Aiello's sendoff, I doubt they pick anything else. Hellbilly absolutely deserves SotY.
 
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Darko

Darko

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Feb 20, 2019
445
I must say, both Rob Zombie properties are my favorites this year. Hellbilly is a fun zone and easily my favorite of the year, and one of my favorites over the past couple of years. And Ho1C is just fantastic.

Out of the original houses, Depths of Fear and Graveyard Games are tied for me.
 
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Lucky Planet

Lucky Planet

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Sep 23, 2013
2,240
Rob Zombie and Hellbilly Deluxe deserve a house or to come back as a zone in another area of the park with bigger props and more costumes.
even if a Hellbilly Deluxe house wont be as fun as the street was, i think it still could be amazing as a house that incorporates more stuff from his videos and more stuff from the artwork of the CD booklet,
 
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