Halloween Experience
   
         

  > INTRODUCTION
a fascination with imagination
  > THEME PARK MAGIC
inspirational rides and attractions
  > A PHANTOM PLOT UNFOLDS
a 2003 test from Disneyland ideas
  > THE HAUNTING BEGINS
five years of Halloween, 2004-2008
> BACK FROM THE GRAVE
2010-2011 with new technology
  > A 2013 RESURRECTION
a mix of new and age-old effects
  > DAWN OF THE UNDEAD
2014 show, part one
  > THE ZOMBIES EMERGE
2014 show, part two
  > A CHANGING CONCEPT
2015 show, part one
  > BUILDING PNEUMATIC FIGURES
2015 show, part two
  > ROLL UP, ROLL UP!
2015 show, part three
  > INTO THE TUNNEL...
2016 show, part one
  > MAKING MONSTERS MOVE
2016 show, part two
  > TO HELL AND BACK
2016 show, part three
  > SHARPENING THE SENSES
2017 show, part one
  > A MAGNETIC ATTRACTION
2017 show, part two
  > THE BIG EXECUTION
2017 show, part three
  The story of a Halloween fanatic...    
    So how did I come to start building all these wacky things for Halloween? Well, there were several places that I visited when I was growing up which got me interested in the tricks and technology used in dark rides and walkthroughs. I came to love seeing the fun and excitement that these attractions could inspire in people of all ages, and I thought - I want a bit of that!

A lot of the things I saw have stayed with me and helped me to design some of my own creations for Halloween. But first, we should go back to the very beginning…		  
  Pubs, ponds and photocopiers...    
 

From a very young age, I had become fascinated with lighting effects and sound. Perhaps a slightly odd interest for a four-year-old boy, but this was mainly due to where I used to go  occasionally with my family on Saturday nights.

In my village there used to be a big factory belonging to Borden Chemicals, where several of my family used to work. While its fumes may or may not be responsible for the somewhat loony nature of me and these family members, what I can tell you is that attached to this factory was a social club, where we would all often go in the evening at the weekends (back in the days when taking your toddler to the pub for the night wasn’t perhaps as taboo!).

Inside here was a large dancefloor with spotlights and a big mirror ball, and frequently there would be a DJ playing too. I used to be mesmerised by all the lights and speakers, and I loved running around the dancefloor and seeing how all this worked. A few years later, the factory and the rest of the site was bulldozed to make way for a new housing estate, and who should be presented with the salvaged mirror ball that had hung above the dancefloor? Me! This was proudly hung from my bedroom ceiling straight away!

For some reason, I was also given a plastic bag of Fosters drip trays, beer mats and bar towels. As a result, my mum and dad quickly got used to the sight of me and my sister playing ‘Pubs’. While perhaps not the greatest comfort to know that your children have been provided with many of the items required for an alcoholic lifestyle at the age of seven or eight, it nevertheless meant that I could temporarily turn my bedroom into a public house (alcohol-free, of course) many times after school.

  
                                         
  Around this time I used to love going with my Dad to visit my uncle Tony, who had a wonderful garden with two big ponds. Here, he showed me how the pumps worked to run the filters and fountains, and I spent many happy hours faffing (technical pondkeeping term...) around the ponds, building wacky water features and feeding the fish. By seeing my uncle taking the pumps apart and showing me how they worked, I became interested in the electrics side of things too. (What every parent wants to hear their child say...!)      
             
                                               
  At this time, my Dad was working for a company that sold and repaired photocopiers and reprographics machines. So he was always taking things apart and fixing them too, and from him I learned about the basics of electronic components, such as switches, sensors and motors.

But what about the things that got me interested in dark rides and walkthrough attractions?
We have to go back again to the early 90s...
 		  
  Weekend trips to Paultons Park...  
    When I was about three years old, my Dad bought a season ticket to Paultons Park, a theme park in Ower, Hampshire. We used to go on Saturday mornings for a few hours of fun. Back then, it was mainly gardens, aviaries and fountains (bonus points for those!) but there were a few rides, including its new rollercoaster for 1993, The Runaway Train.

One of my favourite attractions was a walkthrough called The Magic Forest, which was a winding trail of scenes depicting nursery rhymes, built in 1986. All the classics were there; Hickory Dickory Dock and the mouse, Old King Cole and his three fiddlers, Little Miss Muffet and the spider… you walked round and pressed buttons and these things moved and made sounds! To me, as a three year old, this was a magic place! It really sparked my imagination, and even then I can remember wanting to know how it all moved.

Some visitors to the park may also remember Captain Blood's Cavern, a scary pirate-themed animated walkthrough also installed in 1986, but removed a few years later.
 		  
    Later, in 1996, the park opened another attraction called The Wonderful World of Wind in the Willows. This was another, bigger walkthrough, with lots of animated figures and scenes from the famous story. About halfway round, in the Wild Wood, there was a massive spider with motorised legs that sat on a log, which scared the life out of me and I never went back in until about a year afterwards!

Nevertheless, it was a very impressive attraction; all the scenes were created with UV-reactive paints, so everything was black-lit with UV tubes. There were many elaborate motorised figures and I got lots of ideas as to how to build simple mechanisms by looking at how things moved in here.		    
  Image credit:
 aldridge-animation.co.uk		     Image credit:
 themeparksofengland.com		  
                                               
 
Ghosts and dinosaurs at Clarence Pier...		  
  About half an hour away from home was Southsea, located in Portsmouth on the South Coast. Here, we used to visit Clarence Pier, with its huge funfair full of rides, and big amusement arcades.  
    Up until 2002, there was a ghost train on the pier called Monster Express. It had a very impressive exterior, particularly in the evening when it used to glow an ominous green. I used to like standing outside this, watching others venturing inside, and then a minute or two later, emerging through the doors at the other end either looking very shocked or laughing hysterically.

It was clearly enormous fun, but I just wasn’t brave enough to try it myself! I remember that my sister and my Dad went on it once, and came back out telling me that most of the figures inside looked like they were "made of cardboard"! But I loved the idea that something like this could be designed to entertain people of all ages...and it was all done with lights, sounds, motors and electronics – all the stuff that I wanted to learn more about. 		 
The other attraction at the pier that I found intriguing was a dark ride called Jurassic 3001. This was situated on the first floor of an amusement arcade opposite the main funfair. It opened in 1995, and was themed around the curious idea of dinosaurs returning from extinction in the year 3001. Riders boarded cars in a futuristic 'space departure lounge' and then set off on an adventure, past various mesozoic beasts which roared and moved. Some even spat water at you!

Outside this attraction, above everyone’s heads, was a huge triceratops emerging through the big stones on the corner of the building, which would move and roar loudly at passers by (see photo to the right). This frightened me to death the first time I saw it – I used to try and run past underneath it before it roared! Part of the ride track allowed the cars to emerge outside onto a balcony at the front. I used to enjoy watching people coming out through the doors, having just escaped the monsters they’d been facing in the dark depths of the building.
     
    Image credit: Clive Bailey  
    Like the ghost train, it closed at the end of 2001. Oddly however, much of the ride’s jurassic theming remained on the building for another ten years or so (minus the triceratops). Signs still pointed the way, even though the entrance was locked and the ride out of operation.

In those later years, I often wondered what became of the interior - what was behind those locked doors? Was it all still in place?

So here were two interesting rides that really inspired me when I was younger. I loved their theming and seeing the excitement that they generated in their riders. Even just watching these attractions in operation, I felt part of the experience, which I think is one of the qualities of a well designed dark ride - a clever exterior design will engage people's minds and help to entice them into riding. 		 
                                               
  Goblins and wizards at Blackgang Chine...  
    As we lived in Southampton, a regular favourite holiday trip was just across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. In 1994, I was taken to a place called Blackgang Chine. It is the oldest theme park in the UK, and surely one of the oldest in the world. It first opened in 1843, and is perched on crumbling cliffs situated close to the southern tip of the island; a place with a legendary history of smuggling and shipwrecks!  Overlooking the English Channel, the park has spectacular sea views.

When I first visited, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I quickly realised that this place had it all! Lights! Sounds! Moving figures! Fountains! And at night, they lit it all up! It was a complete wonderland to me, full of magical attractions and fantasy worlds...

Lots of Blackgang's attractions have a wonderful eccentricity to them. In recent years the park has styled itself as a 'Land of Imagination'. I thought this was certainly true when I first visited!		  
                                               
    < The Weather Wizard was my favourite. There were a number of brilliant illusions inside… There were figures of flowers in Spring that lifted up their heads when you pressed a button – how was that done? Towards the end of the attraction, the wizard suddenly appeared out of nowhere – what made that happen? All of a sudden, snow started falling behind the wizard – how did they do that?! (a mirror ball skewered sideways on a rotating rod, as it turned out!). This place was mesmerising!

> Rumpus Mansion was a similar revelation – a mysterious stone house full of clever trickery with lighting and mirrors. I think it was on a return visit in 1997 when I first felt brave enough to go inside! There were goblins and boggarts, witches and dragons, and not only that, but these things all moved as you walked near them! What was making that happen?

I walked through these attractions again and again, looking at all the lights, figures and speakers and trying to work out how it was all done. Then I most probably bored my mum and dad rigid discussing in great detail all the lights, figures and speakers on the ferry home! I do remember asking my Dad how I could make my own mirror ball, like the one I’d seen in The Weather Wizard - “Dad, can I borrow a football and some tin foil?...”

Many years later, I would find out some of the secrets of Rumpus Mansion and receive help with my own creations from a man who worked on the installation and animation of the moving figures - robotics engineer David Buckley. But more about that later…		    
       
       
 
Blackgang Chine very quickly became my new favourite place ever, and I never wanted to leave. Indeed, since 1994, I’ve gone back at least another fifteen times I suspect!

This fantasy world of animated models, puppets and moving figures would go on to inspire lots of the things I’ve made for Halloween. You’ll see several examples in the following pages where the Blackgang influence has crept in! 		 
                                               
 
Into the world-class dark rides of Disneyland Paris...		                  
  In 1999, we went on a holiday to Disneyland Paris. The park was enormous, and made up of five distinct worlds themed around different time periods and locations; Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, Discoveryland and Main Street USA. I remember being amazed by the realism of everything; the attention to detail of all the rides and surroundings was extraordinary. It really made you feel as though you were actually in the jungle, or the Wild West, or a pirate cove…

I found more examples of great illusions in some of the Fantasyland dark rides in the park. Blanche Neige et les Sept Nains (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and Les Voyages de Pinocchio (Pinocchio’s Daring Journey) both used black-lit scenes to great effect; the latter also used a reflection-in-glass illusion called Pepper's Ghost to make the Blue Fairy of the story slowly vanish into thin air. 		   
Image credit: Disney
                                     
    These dark rides were more of the 'ghost train' style - as your car took you past each scene, figures turned towards you, spoke, lit up, or did all three!

I thought of these rides as magical places that created convincing fantasy environments. I was enthralled by their clever use of lighting, moving figures and sounds, and wanted to ride them again and again. There were lots of illusions that worked by means of mirrors and reflections; scrims and gauze; UV-reactive paints and dyes...simple concepts, but very effective in operation. I loved journeying through, spotting them and trying to figure out their workings...("ah...I see how that's done!")

One of my favourite examples was the transformation of the queen into the old hag (shown left) in the Blanche Neige et les Sept Nains ride. A simple idea, using two separate rotating figures positioned either side of a 'mirror'; in truth, a transparent pane of glass. Riders however would assume that the 'queen' figure was indeed a reflection, so it created a big surprise when both figures turned and they saw the hag standing before them!		  
                                     
                       
  We visited the park again in 2001, and one attraction which caught my eye this time was in Frontierland, up on a hill overlooking the Rivers of the Far West - the eerie, derelict Phantom Manor. This huge, dilapidated old house, situated in decaying grounds next to the old town cemetery, certainly looked very spooky to me.

This attraction first opened with the park in 1992, and is the equivalent to the Haunted Mansion rides at the other Disney theme parks around the world. It does, however, follow a different and much richer storyline to its counterparts, which ties in with the surrounding mining town of Thunder Mesa. It tells of how, on the wedding day of the proprietor's daughter, her groom mysteriously vanished...

What remained of it now? Not the slightest sign of life. Or was that a candlelight flickering in one of the windows?...

I didn’t know it at the time, but this ride was to inspire me to begin making my own magic for Halloween…