# Basic Techniques for a Start-Up Home Haunt?



## aljk635 (Nov 30, 2016)

Sorry for being so general, but I'm pretty new to the haunt business and this is my first post here. I'm a teen currently working on home haunts out of my garage, but I would love to get into the professional business once I am out of college. Anyways, I did my first home haunt last Halloween, and attracted a decent amount of visitors. I plan to do it again this year, and was wondering if you guys had any basic tips concerning easy scare tactics, scene set-ups, etc. I would really appreciate it if you all could set me on the right track. Thanks!


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## jdubbya (Nov 6, 2005)

Hey, and welcome to the forum. So many possible answers to your questions but for now, look through the haunt photo forum. See what others are doing at their homes. Garage haunts are fun and you can do some cool things with simple scares. A lot of members here are into pneumatics and motorized props and some of these are fairly easy to master. We go old school with ours and rely on actor scares, drop panels, compressed air, etc.. One thing we find that works really well is to set up a distraction; something that guests are looking at or focused on as a potential scare, then hit them with something else that takes them completely off guard. Do you have any pics of ehat you did this year or at least more info on your current set-up? Do you have a theme of any kind that you use? Did you use friends as helpers or scare actors?


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## aljk635 (Nov 30, 2016)

I appreciate the help! I will definitely incorporate a distraction scare in next year's haunt. Unfortunately the haunt this year was the first I've ever done, and I did not take the opportunity to take photos. The budget this year was extremely limited, I used pallets/sheets as walls and old props and decor I found sitting around. The house was very short, took up about half of a two-car garage, and cost under $100 total. With what I had I was able to create a very quick swamp/storm theme and a "Haunted Mansion" type room. I hope to expand next year using standard wood-panel walls and improving the length of the overall haunt with more investments in props, costumes, etc. Almost all the scares were actors, and I used 1 animatronic as well, but more as a prop rather than an actual scare.


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