HHN 24: The Walking Dead: End of The Line

[Brian G.]

I've heard a couple people say that a Walking Dead scarezone/street experience will be part of the house. Any ideas on whether some of it will actually be outside?

The only scarezone mentioned that will include the Walking Dead is in Hollywood. As far as Orlando is concerned, there have been several statements made claiming that the IP will only be used for this mega-house.

 

[Cole]

I've heard a couple people say that a Walking Dead scarezone/street experience will be part of the house. Any ideas on whether some of it will actually be outside?

I'm thinking maybe a mini street outside the facade but it's been announced that no actual zone will have the walking dead near it

 

[melodiousdiscord]

Well not an "actual" scare zone, just an outdoor portion that's actually part of the house walkthrough/entrance or exit. To add to the size of it.

 

[Lucky Planet]

I disagree... outside AWIL (which was also overrated), Cabin, and Evil Dead, the houses were pretty uninspired or outright bad. It's not so much a destruction of a HHN but a slipping of standards - again, this doesn't mean the whole property-driven thing. We had that in 2007 and 2009, and those years were fantastic. The difference is both in presentation (lots of creative theme/world building to those events to justify the properties) and actual execution (simply better, scarier, more realistic houses). See the quote below for an example of how the nitty gritty standards of the event have fallen... it's hard to really pick up on if you've only been attending a few years.

Exactly. Is not even about the ips, it is just the overall way they go about making the event. 2009 had an actual story and a great Icon. 2012 had nothing besides "Oh Look It's walking Dead and Alice Cooper Kids!"
feels like more effort went into 2009 as far as the atmosphere goes. now it feels like they are just showing ips on billboards and expect people come.
If you think about the houses in 07 and 09 compared to 2012, yeah,technically the sets have the same quality, But seems like the scares were better placed before. there was more misdirection. It wasn't just about seeing a beautiful set. I don't know what happened but houses like Silent Hill and Resident Evil sucked in that aspect. They felt more like rides, I could see both of them working pretty well as rides, but not as houses.

I will say when I went to Hollywood HHN's in 2012, I found a lot of the houses to better than their Orlando counterparts. The Texas Chainsaw maze was legit frightening enough to where my fiance had to stop and go to the side for a breather. But I don't wanna make this thread into a "Vs." conversation.

Silent Hill seemed to be way better in Hollywood. Also the first walking dead house had a lot more stuff, same properties but those houses over there looked so much better.

 

[graspthesun]

I will say when I went to Hollywood HHN's in 2012, I found a lot of the houses to better than their Orlando counterparts. The Texas Chainsaw maze was legit frightening enough to where my fiance had to stop and go to the side for a breather. But I don't wanna make this thread into a "Vs." conversation.

I had to carry my bf out of that house because he jumped into my arms. I can't make fun of him too much though. My knees gave out at the end of Walking Dead house and had to crawl out. That was a good year.

 

[Brian G.]

Well not an "actual" scare zone, just an outdoor portion that's actually part of the house walkthrough/entrance or exit. To add to the size of it.

There could be actors outside the house before you enter, but they did confirm that the facade will be outside the sound stage because they wanna use everything they can in the sound stage.

 

[Lucky Planet]

well if the house will start in the prison then they could have the gates and the fence outside as the facade. Then they would have the actors trying to go inside the fence like in the show, they might even create the spikes from the gate and have actors get "impaled" in them like last year.

 

[Felipe]

I'm thinking maybe a mini street outside the facade but it's been announced that no actual zone will have the walking dead near it

Well not an "actual" scare zone, just an outdoor portion that's actually part of the house walkthrough/entrance or exit. To add to the size of it.

I think that can only be done by the exit of the Disaster! house, which I think is probably the reason why they placed TWD there during its first year. No other locations have a guest area by the house locations to have a full scarezone like that, unfortunately.

 

[Macfr3ak]

i personally dont have a problem with this i think last years maze was great and if its going to be better than last years i expect this to be better that great lol

 

[melodiousdiscord]

Some of you probably already saw this, but I think its great he's standing up for A & D. I'm guilty of being one of the complainers, but he's totally right, none of us have any right to be whining. Plus it confirms that they're doing the best with something that was forced upon them. Aiello is dealing with way too much backlash for something he didn't have control over.

 

[Lucky Planet]

i personally dont have a problem with this i think last years maze was great and if its going to be better than last years i expect this to be better that great lol

well the problem with it is that the budget will go mostly here. so either one of the other houses might suffer from that, Or yet again the scarezones will suffer because of it like they did before, who knows

 

[Cole]

I'm not blaming Aiello or anybody in A&D. In my book they are still beyond phenomenal. It's just all on marketing who find always find one or two ways to mess up things post 2008 billboard (I'll be on marketing's side for that one)

 

[graspthesun]

well the problem with it is that the budget will go mostly here. so either one of the other houses might suffer from that, Or yet again the scarezones will suffer because of it like they did before, who knows

Or they take one of the extra truckloads of money they made last year and reinvest it into this year.

 

[Clive]

I'll copy-paste what I posted in that thread.

I don't think anyone is saying A&D, specifically, is lazy... in fact, most detractors are commenting that they know this isn't A&D's fault, and that they did fight to avoid this (as Kim confirms here). We're upset at the people a tier up - the marketeers, the executives, the decision makers, not A&D themselves. Again, what Kim doesn't acknowledge is that this goes way beyond a more casual reliance on property-based houses... it's the entire degradation of the event, from scare quality to crowd control to prices to reduced offerings to reduced cast sizes. IP houses executed well (like Evil Dead and AWIL) are great - a great house is a great house. The past couple years, HHN hasn't been turning out consistently great houses. Hell, even AWIL and Evil Dead had a LOT of problems people aren't willing to acknowledge - possibly because they don't know any better, or because they don't want to.

You stay at #1 because you have a reputation for being the best, at one point. Right now, in terms of overall event quality, HHN is not the best, at all (Howl-O-Scream and HHN Hollywood are doing much better in terms of the corporate mega haunt arena). Kim clearly has a lot of loyalty to his team despite his departure, and I don't blame him for defending them so vigorously... but he needs to fully understand the argument the fans are making. There are clearly a lot of decision and budgetary issues plaguing A&D's ability to turn out their best work. We're complaining in an effort to change that, not to bash A&D.

 

[Octobers Fade]

Some of you probably already saw this, but I think its great he's standing up for A & D. I'm guilty of being one of the complainers, but he's totally right, none of us have any right to be whining. Plus it confirms that they're doing the best with something that was forced upon them. Aiello is dealing with way too much backlash for something he didn't have control over.

What?! I have every right as a paying customer to complain when the product is below my expectations.

 

[jarmor]

I had the pleasure of going to Hollywood for their HHN last year. Now this "façade outside the house" brings back memories of Hollywood's TWD house "pre-section" once you got off the tram you went thru a bunch of fence like at the prison THEN you entered the house, thru the prison unlike Orlando's where you exited the house thru the prison. So, since this season of TWD started at the prison, I can definitely see Orlando's entrance mimicking Hollywood's

 

[Felipe]

Some of you probably already saw this, but I think its great he's standing up for A & D. I'm guilty of being one of the complainers, but he's totally right, none of us have any right to be whining. Plus it confirms that they're doing the best with something that was forced upon them. Aiello is dealing with way too much backlash for something he didn't have control over.

Aside from the last part, which I think was not in the best taste (saying Orlando is better than its sister event in Hollywood), I think that should be good enough for the people who were lashing out on Facebook, at least so they're a bit more informed about the process now. I think all of us here on OU are lucky to have people who are either in the business or very familiar with the industry, so we're aware that it's not all up to A&D and they have to balance their ideas with marketing's demands. The whole thing was just very heated, and ignorant comments are bound to come up like telling them they've gotten lazy or that they have no ideas left and crap like that... People just gotta be more level headed when complaining; I think it is very important that people do voice their opinions, so that marketing can and the execs get the message that we're sick of The Walking Dead... but it has to be done in a respectful manner so it's well received, too.

What?! I have every right as a paying customer to complain when the product is below my expectations.

Agreed. Feedback and constructive criticism is key. Like I mentioned above, it should be done in a respectful manner, but if you have an opinion, positive or negative, it should be voiced.

 

[Teebin]

oops

 

[Lucky Planet]

Some of you probably already saw this, but I think its great he's standing up for A & D. I'm guilty of being one of the complainers, but he's totally right, none of us have any right to be whining. Plus it confirms that they're doing the best with something that was forced upon them. Aiello is dealing with way too much backlash for something he didn't have control over.

Seems kind of sad that people are hating on A&D and on Mike Aiello for what marketing is doing. Some people probably have no idea what marketing is or that it exists. I bet if someone mentions it to the people hating on facebook they'll be like "What?"

It's like they are responsible for all these choices these past couple of years but they get none of the hate or backlash, must be nice to work in marketing :rofl:

 

[Nick]

so, is the plywood on the road in London, in HTF's twitter vid for video equipment, i.e. dollies? And what are the black tarps covering next to Wyndham? More video stuff?

I would assume so. I know they had a 10-hour shoot today. I wonder how much the rain disrupted the production.