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| Our return to Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights began last year, before we even finished our first time there, we were discussing a return for 2002. It all worked out and by mid year we were booked to once again perform for the month but this year the event would be held at Islands of Adventure. |
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I had tried to book us at the same hotel that we had stayed in before, but the rate had more than doubled - so, after a a short search, I got us a room at Sierra Suites. The rate was actually better than what we paid previously and had the added bonus of a full kitchen in our suite. We arrived on September 30th after an 18 hour drive from Austin. This gave us a day to settle in a bit and relax before the walk through and meetings. |
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That night, Melanie threw a party to welcome us back. Melanie runs A Magi Productions and is the one who first contacted me about and then booked me for Halloween Horror Nights. We got a tour of her new home, a cake, and sent away with the remaining beer - not that plenty hadn't been consumed already. |
| The next day it was off to Universal and the now familiar offices of T65. We took a golf cart from there to Islands of Adventure to meet up with Shan, discuss our show this year, and see what be the first of our three stages and break areas. The plan was that we would be part of the Jurassic Park area and our stage would play to the queue line for one of the haunted houses. We would break between shows inside the discovery center building in a sort of backstage area to the interior lab exhibits. |  |
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Everything seemed to be ok at the walk through. We knew playing to people onlione would be a bit different than usual because we be functioning more as an unexpected diversion than something they came specifically to see and that because they were moving past that it would be harder to maintain a sense of continuity - some people would come in in the middle other would miss the end and some would only see the end. This ended up being the least of the problems. During the employee preview night a few things became apparent. First, the Jurassic Park area is extremely dark at night and the stage was so underlit as to make it nearly impossible to see even up close. However, no one could get close because of a change in line layout that moved it about a hundred feet from the stage location (they moved the line but not the stage). Another small obstacle was that in order to get to and from the stage we had to cross the line, which would mean shoving through people in a straightjacket and with Scott carrying gear. It was a simple oversight and, given all the other things they were having to work out due to being at Islands of Adventure for the firts time, a minor one. By the opening night, two days later, we had been officially relocated to the entrance of the Scream house. The move not only gave us a better position relative to the crowd and better lighting but we were now sharing their cast break area - which meant we now had people to hang out with between shows, including the rat girls back from last year. |
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| Our second stage, by Scream. |
Scream break area. |
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