The Darkness

DARKNESS TOUR UPDATES - HOW REAL WILL THE PROPS LOOK?

2010-02-16T01:49:00.000-08:00

The Darkness Tour is just about 6 weeks away and you might be asking yourself just how real the attraction will look for the tour? Halloween Productions, Inc. owners and designers of The Darkness haunted house have gone over the top for this tour.

Halloween Productions have hired several Hollywood special effect companies to create custom never before seen props for the all new Darkness. The upstairs of the Darkness has been transformed into a turn of the century Funeral Home.

Clearly if you are building a FUNERAL HOME you must have lots and lots of dead bodies like the ones shown here which will hang in the all new FREEZER! Walk through and past these frozen bodies. Additionally we have built several new illusions such as two different mirror effects creating endless hallways/tunels, several new animations which are designed to scare entire groups of customers at once including falling ceilings, falling walls and much more.

If you want SIMPLY THE BEST EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE offered at the Transworld 2010 Halloween and Haunt Show click on our ticket page and purchase BEHIND THE SCENE TICKETS which includes a ticket to the live events.

We hope to see you there March 25-29, 2010. For more information about the Haunt Show go to www.HauntShow.com.

To view hundreds of photos of the construction of the all new Darkness log into the Hauntworld message board here: http://hauntworld.com/haunted_house_forums/showthread.php?t=10055

THE DARKNESS TOUR UPDATES

2010-02-01T20:26:00.000-08:00

If you are a member of the Hauntworld Message Board system follow this thread and see all the rebuilding photos. If you go to this link: http://www.hauntworld.com/haunted_house_forums/showthread.php?t=10055&styleid=4 and FOLLOW every page from the first page through all the additional pages you will find out all the new work being done to The Darkness for the tour.

The Darkness will totally renovated and just like last year we are trying to show you the entire process start to finish. We have split the events across THREE days this year so ensure that there will NOT be long lines and a better experience for our guests.

Remember if you are NOT a member to the Hauntworld Message board community to join today ... we boot many accounts for fear of spammers. So when you register try and use a haunted user name so we can pick you out as a legit user.

Purchase your tickets to the Darkness tour today! We've added some photos of new work being done inside The Darkness!

See you March 25-28, 2010.

BUY TICKETS NOW FOR THE DARKNESS TOUR

2010-01-24T01:24:00.000-08:00

You can buy your tickets ONLINE NOW follow the two links listed below and purchase your tickets! Tickets are limited by hour and by night. Only 300 lights on tickets are available which includes tours through the entire attraction, into our World class make up room, and much more. The Darkness has been totally renovated for the 2010 haunt season. Be one of the first to see the attraction!

Follow the links below to purchase your tickets:

Lights Off Tour (with actors): https://v2.interactiveticketing.com/tickets/t232_2010_the_darkness_trade_show_event_1001144052/form_lights_off.php

Lights On Tour (behind the scenes): https://v2.interactiveticketing.com/tickets/t232_2010_the_darkness_trade_show_event_1001144052/form_lights_on.php

WHEN WILL TICKETS GO ON SALE 2010???

2010-01-14T02:24:00.000-08:00

Tickets for the 2010 Darkness Haunted House Tour are NOT YET on sale... we are getting emails, phone calls and more asking questions. Some are asking is the event SOLD OUT already...NO NO NO! We just uploaded the new site and NOW we are working on getting the ticketing system working.

We are hoping by this weekend to have the online ticketing system working. Once the tickets go on sale there will be a LIMIT to all ticket types...

300 for the behind the scenes tour.

600 Friday LIVE event at the Darkness.

600 Saturday LIVE event at The Darkness.

Once all these times and dates are sold out we won't allow any more tickets to be sold. Once tickets go on sale we'll inform everyone through email blasts, notices and more.

We hope you attend the 2010 Haunt Tour !!! Tickets will go on sale within days!

Hold Tight!

The Darkness Tour 2010 and Transworld 2010 Haunt Show

2009-12-08T03:32:00.001-08:00

Last year the haunted house industry set a date with haunting history by attending the first ever tradeshow for professional attraction owners and operators. Over 6000 guests walked through the doors with hundreds of vendors in St. Louis 2009! The show was SO successful that now the show is back and bigger and scarier than ever before with more vendors, more buyers and more events than ever seen or planned in our industries history!

The show is back in St. Louis, Missouri again March 25 through the 28th (NOW FOUR DAYS) 2010. Visit the site today to register for the show www.HauntShow.com

Last year one of the biggest events was the tour through one of America's most acclaimed haunted attractions: The Darkness located in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.

The Darkness has been featured on multiple Travel Channel shows, National Geographic Channel and Modern Marvels. The Darkness has also been rated by some national articles as the best haunted house in America!

In 2009 we opened The Darkness to the industry, and produced a WORLD CLASS attraction for the industry to see investing nearly $300,000.00 into the attraction between November and March. Unfortunately we didn't hit the mark in all area's specifically found it difficult to train actors or hire actors on such turn around.

Last year many may or may not realize that we COULD NOT complete The Darkness prior to the show because not only did we renovate the existing Darkness but we BUILT FROM SCRATCH a 17,000 BUILDING attached to the existing building. In October 2008 THERE was NO building just an empty lot, in November of 2008 steel was being erected, in December floors and a roof where being installed, the building was being framed in January and windows, sprinkler systems, went in February, electric, emergency systems and much more all went in late February and early March.

We somehow in addition to building this new add on building managed to build the monster museum and the 3D Terror Visions inside. NO time was left for anything but trying to build the attractions, renovate the existing Darkness and try to get as much of the new building done as possible, which was not completed for another 2 months after the show last March 2009.

Now with our building 110% complete and another successful Haunt Season behind us, we have started the process to renovate The Darkness again for the 2010 Haunt Show in St. Louis.

The Darkness will OPEN again for this show and YOU CAN EXPECT to see A WORLD CLASS HAUNTED HOUSE AGAIN... with FIVE TIMES as many awesome sets, special effects, and scenes built to scare entire groups at the same time.

The Darkness second floor area is being TOTALLY GUTTED ... almost EVERYTHING YOU SAW last year is GONE! You will SEE NO animations, no props that any vendors currently sells, everything we'll showcase was custom made for this event and for the NEW Darkness.

We do NOT know how to do ANYTHING BUT ALL OUT... We are spending in excess of $200,000.00 for the renovation process with a planned completion date of March 1st, 2010 way in advance of the show, which will give us more time to hire and train actors to work the new show.

Lastly, we are planning THREE EVENTS at the Darkness... One will be a new behind the scenes tour which will include tours through our ticket booth, access to view our security systems, and to tour our WORLD CLASS actors room! This event will be held Thursday night... then we will open the Darkness to a LIMITED crowd on Friday and Saturday.

We are limiting the amount of tickets per night to attempt to break groups up into bigger gaps... haunters touring the haunt is NOT the same as a normal customer because HAUNTERS want to touch EVERYTHING, and WALK SLOW! Its HARD to SCARE ANYONE... so this year we'll put through HALF the amount of people per night and space the groups TWICE as much.

We learned a lot from last year! We hope you will attend our tour this year at Transworld 2010! Please check back on this site for photo updates of our progress and other updates.

Tickets will go on Sale January 2010!

Darkness Tour on Track!

2009-02-06T01:59:00.000-08:00

The Darkness Haunted House tour will set new standards for haunt tours in the future. Halloween Productions, Inc. the World's biggest suppliers of haunted attractions in the World, creating haunted houses for major amusement parks World Wide and owners of The Darkness, in St. Louis, Missouri is breaking the bank for this tour. The behind the scenes tour is nearly sold out with less than 50 tickets remaining. The behind the scenes tour includes dinner, seminars, and more.

The Saturday event will feature live actors inside The Darkness.

Over $200,000.00 is being spent on the renovation of The Darkness. You will see amazing set design, incredible special effects, and animations you've never seen anywhere. You will also experience one of the best 3D haunted houses the industry has ever seen before. Everything for this tour will set a new standard!

Click on the 'buy tickets now' button and reserve your date with Darkness!

The Haunt Show will also feature over 100 different vendors over 100,000 square feet. Visit their website at www.HauntShow.com.

Included in this blog are photos of some of the new scenes inside The Darkness.

HAUNTED HOUSE TOURS SET FOR TRANSWORLD

2009-01-30T00:38:00.001-08:00

The Haunted House Associations presents a Triple Treat of Terror!

Haunted attraction owners rarely have the freedom to visit and study other haunts during the busy October season, but now Transworld attendees will have the rare opportunity to tour three outstanding haunted attractions nearly six months in advance of the 2009 haunting season!

The Haunted House Association is proudly sponsoring three historic and unprecedented tours of three very unique attractions during the convention, all of which are opening their doors to both the public and their fellow haunters. The attraction owners have devoted thousands of dollars and hours to create all-new experiences just for the March tours, and now offer Hauntworld magazine an exclusive preview.

The Darkness (www.thedarkness.com)

The Darkness has been regularly featured on national television newscasts, publications, and programs. Ranked as “one of the Top 13 haunts in the country” by Hauntworld magazine, and as one of “America’s Scariest Halloween Attractions,” by Travel Channel, this world famous haunted attraction will present an extensive behind-the scenes tour on Thursday March 26th complete with food, drinks, and full access to all aspects of the attraction. A second tour, held on Saturday March 28, will present the attraction at “full impact” with cast, crew, and all effects in operation.

The Darkness President, Larry Kirchner, is reportedly spending over $150,000 to create and install several new scenes and special effects in time for the upcoming tours.

So why do you think The Darkness received so much attention and acclaim?
Attention to detail! Our company also builds attractions for amusement parks across the world and we now have many tools that come in handy such as hard coating machines, sophisticated animations, different types of sculpting tools, and a lot of foam hard coated scenery. As the haunted house business has grown over the past few years, more and more professional amusement facilities and theme parks are entering the industry. The Darkness has been a source of inspiration, and that puts a lot of pressure on us to outdo ourselves each year.

When did you first start planning the new ideas for this upcoming tour?
We always plan the new Darkness during our operating season. We draw more inspiration for the following seasons while looking at the same old stuff night after night. You get sick of things and you say to yourself almost nightly “we need to do this or that or replace this or that.” The day after we closed we were already ripping stuff out. However we've never worked so hard to do so much in such a small window. It is a challenge.

We have had 10 high skilled workers from our company working everyday on the Darkness since December, and it will take every single second of four months to re-build The Darkness into one of the best haunts anyone has ever seen. The first step is to design everything, then you must destroy and remove old sets, then you take a long time to rebuild the structures ... and then carving foam, to hard coating, to painting and finally all the detail.

Over 50% of the attraction will have been totally re-themed with some very amazing sets. All I can tell you is this will be one of the best haunts anyone has ever seen!!!! EVER!!!!

Are you at all nervous about opening your doors to so many haunters?
No, because I know we will amaze them. The pressure is really on due to our companies and my own personal reputation within the industry. People will be expecting to see the best of the best, and maybe in some people’s minds more than we are capable of...so the pressure was really on to outdo ourselves from any year prior.

What do you personally look for when you’re visiting someone else’s haunt? DETAIL! ORIGINALALITY! I don't want to see the typical, I want to see something I've never seen before. I want to see someone thinking outside the box. The more creative and more original you are the more accolades you will receive.

Is there a benefit to taking both the Thursday and Saturday night tours?
I would say the people who do the behind the scenes tour will get the most benefits from touring the attraction because they can walk at their own pace and explore the attraction. It’s like a really good movie, and you must see it twice to catch everything, same thing here unless you do the lights on tour you won’t catch all the detail. But Saturday night’s live tour definitely shows the scares in action. Your ticket to Thursday night’s tour also includes admission on Saturday night.

What do you hope that haunters will take away from this tour?
INSPIRATION! I want all haunters to walk out INSPIRED to do great things. Let me tell you my goal is always to be the best haunted house in the WORLD! I know that is a hard goal to achieve but if you don't aspire to be the best then why are you doing what you do? When I visit another haunted house, one I feel is one of the best I've ever seen, I sometimes walk out actually feeling kind of depressed! I think “Wow, they did something that is so much cooler than what we do” ... but then I shake my head a couple of times, the blood starts flowing, and I can't wait to get back to our haunt to push the envelope.

Other haunts inspire me to get better at what I do and they push me to attempt to achieve those lofty goals even if you never actually achieve them. So I hope people will leave the attraction inspired to go back to their haunt and work like MAD!

Only limited tickets will be sold for both tours of The Darkness, and Thursday’s “Lights On” tour will likely sell-out. Visit www.thedarkness.com for more information, media, and to buy tickets.

The Columbia Haunt Tour (www.columbiahaunttour.com )

Friday night, March 27, features a double feature of fright, with tours of two attractions in Columbia, St. Louis: FearFest and Necropolis. For just one price, guests will experience two haunted attractions with two decidedly different approaches towards content and operation. Guests can choose to drive directly to the attractions, or to take advantage of bus service directly from Transworld.

Your journey through FearFest starts in a century-old farmhouse, and includes everything from swamps to slasher asylums -- while the actors at Necropolis do their best to terrify, and touch, anyone brave enough to take a trip through this former meat packing factory. We asked the owners to tell us a little more about their attractions and the upcoming tour:

Greg Allen, Owner of FearFest (www.fearfesthauntedhouse.com)

So why did you decide to open your doors to other haunters this March?
With the haunted house convention coming to St. Louis, the opportunity for other haunt owners to see some in this area sounded like a good idea, and we wanted to be apart of that. There is such a small window to see haunted houses from around the country and we thought it would be great to open ours for a tour. When we would go to Chicago for the convention we always looked forward to the haunted house tour. Dream Reapers was always great!

Are you at all intimidated by opening up your doors for so many other owners?
There is always an intimidation factor when the best of the best are coming to see your haunt, however we eagerly await their feedback. If people say they wouldn't be intimidated or worried they are lying.

How did you get started?
I used to do a charity event in St. Louis. I ran it for several years out of my house, and by the end I had about 600 people a night coming through my yard which was getting a little ridiculous so I had to close down. But soon afterward I moved to Columbia and found this great property, and we’re now in our 7th year. It has been a very successful venue for us, we've expanded every year.

Originally it was an old farm house that led out into just plywood walls with no roofing, and you were exposed to rain, sleet, and snow! Over the years we’ve expanded into multiple haunts, buildings, a corn maze, and a hayride. We sit on 46 acres of property.

I assume the corn maze and hayride won’t be open in March?
No, but both haunted houses will be fully staffed and fully operational. The first haunted house starts inside the 100 year-old farmhouse, and the attraction inside is a low-gore, high startle haunted house that’s more mysterious and atmospheric. But with “Slashmasters Asylum” you’ve got the blood, you've got the guts, and you've got the psychos in there. Once you step in there nothing is quite right.

What makes your attraction stand out?
I think one of the things unique about our haunt is that we use actors to scare more than animatronics. We do have some animatronics but our startles and scares come from our actors and the placement of them. We have some people working for us who are just nuts.

The other thing is that our barn is actually haunted. There were two kids murdered here by their father, and people hear and see things happening all the time. I’ll hear singing, I’ll hear footsteps, and sometimes when I pull onto the property I’ll hear someone say “Oh, Daddy’s home!”

Bill Schnell, owner of Necropolis ( www.enterthenecropolis.com )

Your theme and approach is almost completely opposite of FearFest isn’t it?
Personally, for my taste, I just don’t like doing the traditional kind of haunted house or haunted mansion. I enjoy attending them, that’s fine - but I want my haunted house to be more realistic, which means no vampires and no mummies or the traditional things you'd see in a haunted house.

Our back-story revolves around a serial killer, it's a pretty gruesome and realistic style of haunt and that's definitely the style that I like. It kind of goes with our target audience, we want to push the same over-the-top realism and themes that you see in current movies. It's stuff that some haunters don't want to deal with because it happens in the real world, but we like to do it in a way that's scary and entertaining.

Does that mean that you don't have very many animations or effects?
The realism really only goes as far as the core of the back-story, and all the crazy stuff he did. But from that, springs a little more creativity and illusion. The story goes into a more supernatural direction. He's been executed for his crimes and now he inhabits the building as an all-powerful evil spirit. Once you go into the building you're entering into his world and his spirit, and he can throw whatever he wants at you! That allows us to do a lot of different things within the haunted house.

So tell us about your building...
The first time we produced Necropolis we were actually located in a strip mall that didn’t really lend itself into the theme of our back-story. We knew we wanted to move after that first year so we started looking for new locations and now we’re in a building that was once part of a meat-packing complex. Part of our building was the store where customers would come in to actually purchase packages of meat, and then there were large factory floors where they did a lot of the processing with meat racks and everything ... and that's all still in there. It definitely helps the intensity.

Speaking of intensity, when and why did you make the decision to start touching customers?
I'd always thought about the supposed rule, that somehow everyone in America knows, which is that if you go through a haunted house no one is going to touch you. From the beginning I definitely wanted to do whatever it took to scare people, I didn't want to back off to allow us to market to families or have kids coming through. We wanted the intensity.

New actors aren't allowed to touch, they have to had worked for us for at least a year and also have received permission from us. They are trained as to what to do, when to do it, how to do it and when not to do it ... and there are very clear warnings outside.

I know that a lot of haunted houses want the actors to do a scare and then go away, and I'm totally the opposite way: I want it so that almost the whole way through the haunted house you are exposed to our actors. They do the scare, and then are interacting with you until the next room ... and while they're doing that, some of our actors will slip into a little bit of comedy or that's when you can start the creepy touching: brushing the back of the girl's hair, touching the back of her neck, or putting your hand on top of somebody's head ... just simple things like that which take it to a whole other level.

What do you think the reaction from other haunters will be?
I had a chance to experience House of Shock with some other haunters during a tour last year, many of whom were grabbed or touched by the actors, and it was interesting to listen to their reactions because we knew that it was something that we were planning to start doing at our attraction. There were haunters saying that they didn't like it, or that the haunt went too far, and some of them even said they were offended ... and I think it's awesome that House of Shock managed to freak out or even offend haunted house owners! We’re talking about the hardcore of the hardcore, and the owners managed to make them uncomfortable? That’s awesome! I loved it.

We're close to downtown, our theme is very industrial and the tone is more over-the-top ... and Greg is more traditional with trails and corn mazes and a country feel. It's definitely a contrast in styles, and I'd love to hear what the haunters have to say afterward.

Guests can choose to drive directly to the attractions and buy tickets directly at the gates, or take advantage of bus service directly from Transworld. Visit www.columbiahaunttour.com for tickets and more information

Scott Simmons is the Executive Producer and co-owner of The ScareHouse haunted attraction in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

DARKNESS HAUNT TOUR TICKETS ON SALE

2009-01-17T03:21:00.001-08:00

DARKNESS HAUNTED HOUSE TOUR TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!!

One of the nations PREMIER haunted houses is set to open during the March 2009 Transworld Haunted and Halloween Attraction Tradeshow (www.HauntShow.com). The Darkness as featured on National Geographic Channel, History Channels Modern Marvels, and multiple Travel Channel shows, is set to open on March 26th, 2009 for a behind the scenes lights on tour which includes dinner, drinks, with photography allowed. Tour starts at 7pm until 9pm.

Then two nights later on Saturday, March 28, 2009 The Darkness will open for a full blown LIVE SHOW with actors and a party sponsored by HHA (www.HauntedHouseAssociation.org). The party on Saturday will include drinks, snacks and an live auction of major props from some of the biggest vendors from Scarefactory to Gore Galor to everyone in between.

The Darkness has been TOTALLY renovated for this tour, designed and created by Halloween Productions, Inc. (www.HalloweenProductions.com). You will experience The Darkness in March the same way St. Louis will experience the Darkness in October 2009. This will be the single greatest haunted house tour ever produced to date! Make sure you purchase your tickets today and be part of haunting history.

Purchase tickets here:

Main Event-March 28:
https://v2.interactiveticketing.com/tickets/t232_the_darkness_haunted_house_2009_090116231c/form_buy_tickets.php

Light On Tour – March 26:
https://v2.interactiveticketing.com/tickets/t232_the_darkness_haunted_house_2009_090116231c/form_LightsOn.php

To Learn MORE about the Darkness visit www.TheDarkness.com and or learn more about the Transworld Haunted Attraction Show visit www.HauntShow.com.

TICKETS WILL GO ON SALE THIS WEEK!!!

2009-01-11T21:30:00.000-08:00

The most anticipated haunted house tour in the industry history is set to put tickets on SALE THIS WEEK! Tickets will go on sale this FRIDAY January 16th, 2009. Tickets are being handled by our sponsor 'Interactive Ticketing' who are currently settting up all of our ticketing options.

You can purchase the 'Behind the Scenes Tour' which includes dinner, drinks, photography and much more. Tickets for the behind the scenes tour will cost $125.00 and tickets are LIMITED. PURCHASE QUICKLY!

Tickets to the full production show with actors is also LIMITED by time slots so purchase NOW! Tickets for this event are $50.00 per person and also includes a party sponsored by the new HHA Haunted House Association. Room will include drinks and snacks plus an auction for HHA. You can arrive at the Darkness starting at 7pm for the pre/after party until your time to enter the attraction is called.

The Darkness is under HEAVY construction, the whole entire place is being rebuilt from scratch. Included in this blog are photos from some of the renovations ongoing.

KEEP CHECKING THE TICKET PAGE ALL THIS WEEK AS TICKETS WILL GO ON SALE!

Darkness Tour Updates

2008-12-19T02:08:00.000-08:00

The Darkness Haunted House will open in conjunction with the Transworld Halloween and Haunted Attraction tradeshow March 26-29, 2009. There are several exciting updates ... first tickets will go on Sale on January 7th, 2009. Sorry for the delay in getting the tickets sold sooner. Check back with the site on that date.

Secondly, we are proud to announce on Saturday during our tour we will open a reception area for you to chat with over 1,000 haunted house owners, have drinks and eat some light food. We will provide a 7,000 square foot area for haunted house owners to hang out while they wait for their time to enter the attraction or to chat after they exit the attraction.

The Darkness tour reception area will be sponsored by HHA (www.HauntedHouseAssociation.org).

Lastly, we are happy to report that renovations to the Darkness are moving quickly. Soon several pictures of the renovations will be available. The owners of the Darkness are spending over $150,000.00 to renovate the Darkness just for this tour!

Keep checking back!

Happy Hauntings and see you in St. Louis!

Haunted House Association

2008-12-12T22:46:00.000-08:00

Finally the haunted house industry has come together to formulate the one and only association for the professional haunted house owner and operator. Over the past few years (HHA) has been funding a national public relations effort for the entire haunted house industry. Single handed the HHA has increased the national awareness of the industry and raised the amount of patrons who attend haunts. HHA will now roll out an entire program for the industry industry, and will introduce new bylaws, a board, and much more at the first even National Haunted House Tradeshow (www.HauntShow.com)

A new website will be replacing the old one and additionally new logos everything when the new association rolls out for the whole industry. Finally industry professionals will have a new voice for their industry. As we stated last year HHA promote national PR. Here is video of one of those efforts on Fox News Coast to Coast... Join the haunted house association today and support professionals!

Visit their website at www.HauntedHouseAssociation.org.

The Darkness supports the new HHA.

The Darkness on Travel Channel

2008-11-28T11:01:00.000-08:00

The Darkness will open for the 2009 Halloween and Haunted House Tradeshow in St. Louis March 27 through March 29th, 2009. Here is a video of the Dakness on Travel Channel. To learn more about the 2009 Tradeshow visit www.HauntShow.com.

Welcome to The Darkness Transworld Show Site!

2008-11-06T01:08:00.001-08:00

First Post!