Halloween, VSP Style

At work we created a haunted house. Now, I don’t want you to get confused between your idea of a haunted house and my co-worker’s idea of a haunted house. Don’t think that we just turned my office into a spooky place. Or that we took one whole department’s area and put up tarps to wall it off. Don’t think that we even took one giant room, like a conference room, and turned it into a scary place. Oooooo noooooooo. My co-workers erected an entire separate structure, framing it, strapping it down for extra support, stapling visqueen to the walls to make it super dark, running electrical out to the structure, and putting in interior walls and everything.

My department was only one fourth of the team that put on this haunted house. The team work that was put into this thing was really impressive. We all sat down to develop an overall theme, which was Killer Klown Karn-evil, and then sectioned off the haunted house so that each department could create their own effects. I really respected and appreciated the creativity, thought, attention to detail, and team work this project produced.

Nevertheless, I pretty much resented the whole thing because – it – was – real – work! It was NOT fun! Not. At. All. Too, for the amount of time, energy, and money our joined departments put into this thing, I don’t think the payoff was there. Like. At. All. About 500 VSP employees went through our haunted house on Halloween day. They all loved it. But 500 people is really only about 1/5 the total population on site. As soon as Halloween was “over,” we had to start taking everything down. OMGosh. Really? All that work for one stinking day?!

Here are some pictures.

One of my co-workers, Janet, painted these two clowns. One was to go over the door so that it looked like you were entering through his mouth. The other clown was our team sign which displayed our team's signatures.

The clown installed over the doorway:

The team sign:

Actors on break:

The first “room” was where the ring master stood and taunted everyone to enter if they dared. There were two huge jack-in-the-boxes where people popped out of to scare the victims. The second “room” was like the midway where the victims could play games with the Killer Klowns. Games included face carving and such.

The third “room” is where the circus animals were kept, including a savage dog that attacked you as soon as it detected movement and a killer gorilla and a werewolf girl.

The fourth room was my team’s room. A Fun House maze with a lot of visual distortions and weird sensory things. We had a sloping ceiling that was black so you couldn't see it. You just kept feeling your head get brushed until you were eventually walking very stooped over. We had a hallway of hands.

A small room of masks - and yes, someone was in a mask and would move, and/or follow you as soon as you looked away.

We did a cool spider themed hallway with fishing line hanging down in your face, spiderwebs, and pipe cleaners mounted to the walls and poking out. They felt all prickly and fuzzy like spider legs.

Here they are in the dark.

And, that was why I barely did anything for Halloween at home. I did take Abby through this haunted house once it was done but without the actors. One of my co-workers though was nearby and politely asked if she could scare Abby as we went through. Abby was up for it. So Ana went ahead of us and scared her once in each "room." Abby loved it because Ana was being gentle with her. But then, in the last section, Ana moved a prop and scared her good. Abby screamed and then laughed, delighted by the good scare. My kiddo is so brave!