Mark Whitis's Website

High Tech Halloween Show

Introduction

For the past 17 years, I have been working on a high tech outdoor haunted house halloween show. Every year, I take off 1 week from work to work on this show. My two friends who started this show typically take three weeks off each october. Many other people invest considerable amounts of time on the show.

1999 news

This year the weather was good. It was warm and there was no rain. Attendance was lighter than usual; this normally happens when halloween falls on a sunday. We were short handed this year; it is hard to find enough skilled people. I also wasn't able to do as much as I usually do either because of broken bones in my foot. The radio link for the claw (which reaches over 6 foot high brush walls and picks people up) remote control was fried at the last minute. This used a chip which is no longer made and we didn't have time to make a new link so the claw didn't get as much use as usual (we still had control from the control panel at the mechanism itself). We had a skelaton man in the claw much of the time (calling to specific spectators for help). Darth Mull was added this year; the double ended light saber was made with RF pumped neon tubes. He spins his light saber back and forth while rotating left and right. Kenny was back in town with the Genesis robot (a robot he built while in high school which was inspired by the halloween show and the movie Short Circuit). After the show while we were eating pizza before strike, a film crew from the Discovery Channel spent about an hour filming on location for a special program to air next Halloween. We allowed them to videotape only after they agreed not to reveal the location of the show and to not use those damn video lights during the show. I took pictures again with Jeff's Kodak DC260 digital camera, which has more resolution than mine. We burned out some more servos in Yoda but reducing the pulse rate on the control signal reduced the power consumption so we didn't have any more problems.

Images

NEW! Halloween 1999 Pictures. Availible in 4 resolutions: thumbnail (64x48), Low (320x240), Medium 640x480), and High (1532x1024).

I took the 1998 Pictures with Jeff's Kodak DC260 1.6 megapixel digital camera (1532x1024). Some were taken with flash, others without, and many were taken with the flash partly covered. Images have been processed with ppmnorm.

Some pictures I took in 1996 with my Casio QV-10A digital camera are availible.

Location

Location Witheld: You will not find directions here; these are deliberately withheld. Publicising the location of the show via TV, newspapers, magazines, usenet, WWW, etc. is prohibited, particularly within the Washington, DC metropolitan area or via any media readily accessable within that area; we are inundated with about 3000 people every year from word of mouth alone. As it is, the police block off the street, we have to reseed the lawn twice, and there is a serious shortage of elbow room during the peak time. Every year, we get many visitors from outside the DC, Virginia, and Maryland area; we have had some people travel from Florida, Ohio, and even California to see the show.

The show takes place in an undisclosed location in Alexandria, VA, so those who try showing up at my house will be disappointed.

You can email me for directions.

The show takes place in the front yards of two houses in a residential neighborhood in a suburb of Washington, DC for one night only (always halloween night itself), rain or shine. The show starts at around dusk and we usually start to tear it down sometime between 11PM and Midnight. This year (1997) the show takes place on a friday night.

Some features of the show

Laser show (using Argon, Helium Cadmium, and assorted colors of Helium Neon Lasers)
Animated critters (Yoda, ET, Gizmo, Knife Lady, skelatins, etc.)
Robots (Probe Droid, Genesis ("Short Circuit"), R2D2, ICU2, etc.
The Claw (reaches over a 6 foot high brush wall to pick people up and drop them in the hell pit.
The graveyard. Spectators names show up on computer controlled gravestones.
The mad scientist's bench, from which candy is dispensed. Be sure to ask for a piece of candy, no matter what your age.
Pirate scene.
operating room scene
Wang Man, and friends. You may have heard that staring at a computer screen can be bad for your health...
Neat light show effects
Three 5 foot high Jakob's ladders, including one double helix.
The main audio system has about a dozen speakers, not counting all the critters which have their own speakers (probably about 200 speakers total).
Dozens of strobes, particularly in "Boo Ghosts". Boo Ghosts are the electronic equivalent of firecrackers. A loud noise and brilliant flash of light
Assorted body parts.
Rocket ship
Giant Spider
Wall of Heads
several dozen each: electronic crickets, frogs, cicadas, and fireflies. We don't settle for some cheesy recorded insect backgrounds; we synthesize each bug individually.

I would like to clear up some common misconceptions:

The show happens Rain or Shine
It is not a "party", no refreshments are served other than halloween candy. Lots of people do come and hang out, though.
It is not indoors and it is not a walk-through style haunted house. The show itself is outside. You walk around amongst the various creatures at your own pace and choose your own path.
This is not a bunch of people dressing up in costumes. Traditionally, only one person has dressed up and that was the person who gave out candy, and that is entirely optional. For the last seven years of the shows 20 year history, we have had one or two more people who wear costumes; these are two people who put on a more traditional "haunted-house" nearby and decided to go the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" route. Almost all of the creatures are machines of one sort or another.
This is not a stage performance, either.
Adults are not to old to go to the door and trick-or-treat. We have a little surprise for you :-).
There is no charge for admission or "donation". This is not a commercial or charity event.
Kids are welcome. With a little barbecue sauce, they taste pretty good. The show may be overwelming for very small children (toddlers) who may need to take it in small doses. Dogs may pull their owners to the other side of the street.
The show really isn't that gorey. Yes, there are a bunch of mutilated bodies and body parts (some still moving) in one particular area but those are just the knife lady's victims.

People

Here is a very incomplete list of people who have worked on the show. The people listed have here are adults and have generally worked on more than one years show.

Jeff
Brian
Mark Whitis (ME)
Elron
Chris Golatta
Brian Hicks
Clark
Kenny
Binar 0
Binar 1
Velcro Tom
Bike Tom (BT>
Ken Whitehead
John Rhines
Mike Mackenzie
John Wiley
Kim
Many more...

Press

We ask the press not to reveal the location of the show. If they revealed the location of the show, we would be overwelmed with people. The use of video lights is not permitted at any time during the show; besides ruining the ambiance for other people, these lights can damage the low light level cameras. We have occassionally allowed the press to write about or videotape the show. Press should contact us before the show. In general, the DC area Television stations and Papers know the score by now and have behaved. I do remember one year a TV crew didn't ask for permission before filming; I had fun chasing the TV crew off of the premises with a very large robot.

This file is maintained by Mark Whitis (whitis@freelabs.com).

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