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2013, Arizona, Entertainment, Events, fun, Halloween, Haunted Attractions, Haunted House, Phoenix, Photo, Photo Galleries, Photography, Scary, travel
This gallery contains 7 photos.
01 Friday Nov 2013
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2013, Arizona, Entertainment, Events, fun, Halloween, Haunted Attractions, Haunted House, Phoenix, Photo, Photo Galleries, Photography, Scary, travel
This gallery contains 7 photos.
24 Thursday Oct 2013
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Arizona, Entertainment, Events, fun, Halloween, Haunted Attractions, Haunted House, Phoenix, Photo, Photography, Scary, travel, Video, Videography
The 13th Floor is a haunted attraction in Arizona that can send shivers down your spine, but what makes this attraction so scary?
A few owners who were running their own haunts partnered together and spread The 13th Floor throughout a few different markets, according to Jacob Redwood, The 13th Floor’s performance manager.
“We have six physical locations and typically each location has two or more shows…,” said Redwood.
The premise of The 13th Floor is to show its customers why buildings can’t have a 13th floor and what could be on that floor if they did.
“Essentially in our shows we typically will start with what we deem as an elevator ride that takes you to the 13th floor,” said Redwood.
The creation of a haunted house typically starts with nothing more than an idea.
“Basically what we like to do is come up with a theme or a story that’s going to carry out throughout a zone or a whole show,” said Redwood.
The attraction then reaches out to different sources of media to see what’s popular in video games, movies, and comics to get an idea of the direction they want to go in, according to Redwood.
“…Then we’ll put our own spin on it…and build off it,” said Redwood.
Once everything is in its proper scene and looks right, they then move on to the final step.
“The final [and] fun part for me as a performance manager is [getting] the actors in place and bringing the scenes to life,” said Redwood.
But where do the props come from?
“They come from all over the place…yard sales are great,” said Redwood. “The great thing about a yard sale is its already been used, its already been loved, its already been beaten so by the time we get it…it has all that wear and tear.”
They have also find props from closed down businesses that auction off their items, as stated by Redwood.
“We create a lot of stuff too, theres a lot of things…throughout the sets that we build from scratch and [we] find ways to mimic the real life things at an economical layer,” said Redwood.
On top of building up the attraction, they have to hire actors, which is a complicated process within itself.
The way people hear about The 13th Floor hiring is through word of mouth, Craigslist, listings, and by the attraction going to local schools and recruiting, according to Redwood.
“We’ll promote the fact that we are going to bring on actors,” said Redwood. “We’ll typically start that with…an information session.”
Informing the actors of what exactly they are doing is very important.
“After that it’s a voluntary group of workshops that we invite them to do,” said Redwood. “It starts with core training — we call them scare circles…we take people through some of the basics we are looking for.”
The attraction averages about 90 people a night throughout the season, according to Redwood.
When everything is ready to go, The 13th Floor then starts to prepare for a night of screams.
“We start basically looking at the set…get an idea…[we] make sure everything is safe for customers, visually appealing…” said Redwood.
Redwood said that the actors come in two hours before they open and they make sure everybody is present to fill in their spots. Then, they get their wardrobe and makeup done.
“In the meantime the event staff…some of the upper management…are checking the set, getting foggers ready to go, getting air systems turned on, getting all the hardware of the show fired up so that both come out at the same time,” said Redwood.
The supervisors then take the actors into their scenes and begin bringing the attraction to life.
“It’s just kind of this magic moment that all kind of happens in like a ten-minute window…” said Redwood.
The final step they take is making a fast walk through the haunted attraction and making sure everything is good to go.
Redwood then explained what he thinks makes their attraction stand out from all the others.
“I think something that we have that a lot of different haunted attractions just don’t have is the luxury of a pretty solid and a rather large team of full time employees that work on these year round…” said Redwood.
Working in a team and collaborating together makes for a final product.
Redwood then explained what his favorite thing about the haunted attraction is.
“For me it’s almost a second home thing…it becomes that playground where I come in and have crazy ideas,” said Redwood.
When everything is in place and ready The 13th Floor opens and the customers try to make it out alive.
Click HERE for more information on The 13th Floor.
17 Thursday Oct 2013
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Arizona, Entertainment, Events, family, fun, Halloween, Haunted Attraction, Haunted House, Holiday, Scary, Seasonal, travel, Videos
Click HERE to check it out!
16 Wednesday Oct 2013
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Arizona, Entertainment, Events, family, fun, Halloween, Haunted Attraction, Haunted House, Holiday, Scary, Seasonal, travel, Video, World
Video by: Alexandra Gaspar
Check out Field Of Screams HERE