Day 1: Fright Fest at Six Flags Magic Mountain

0:08 The Conjuring and saw X are coming to six Flags Magic Mountain this Halloween season. That's coming up on today's show from the Haunted Attraction Network. I'm Philip and this is Day one of our sixty one day Hauntathon, where we're counting down to Halloween by celebrating haunted houses daily via videos, podcasts, and in person experiences. Since this podcast is only one part of the Hauntathon, the best way to follow everything is by subscribing to our newsletter at the link in our show notes. And remember, the best way that you can support us this Halloween season is by sharing our Hauntathon with someone you think we'll enjoy it.

0:48 Today, we'll hear from the creative team at six Flags Magic Mountain about the design process for this year's FrightFest and their expansion into ip with mazes based on the Conjurine and saw X. This panel was recorded live during Midsummer Scream on Sunday, July thirtieth in Long Beach, Enjoying. Welcome to the stage, Manager of Entertainment and Events for six Flags Magic Mountain. Michael Ostroum Entertainment and Events, Senior Creative Supervisor for six Flags Magic Mountain, Mark Wing and prosthetic designer and artist mentor at the Scream team for Six Flags Magic Mountain, Scott Ramp, what's up, Midsummer Scream. How y'all doing today? All right, well, it sounds like there's a lot of you. I can't really tell. These lives are pretty bright, but that's great. Y'all are here to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of FrightFest with us. So we're not here just to announce an announcement today. We're gonna by the end of this event, we're gonna tell you everything that is happening with Fast in twenty twenty three, so you have all the details by the end of our presentation. So again, my name is Michael ostraum On the entertainment events manager. I'm Mark Wing thirteen years, that's creative director. Are you rich? And I'm Scott Ramp and I've been there all thirty years doing the makeup. All right,

2:25 let's get this started. So we wanted to go back and talk a little bit about the origins and the history of Fright Fast and started way back in nineteen thirty three, nineteen ninety three. I shouldn't say way back, sorry, Scott nineteen ninety three. But Scott, once you tell us a little bit about those first years when you when you were around. We'll come back a little bit later to show I'll talk about how the makeup started. But essentially I've been doing this since nineteen ninety three when it first started, and it was a very small event and it has grown exponentially as it's gone along, and still have art techniques, so of our talent, so of our makeup artists. Look at baby Scott, there's some baby pictures of me in there. Yah. Yeah, I was twelve, Scott. You want to tell us a little bit about the first iterations here of our This is actually our very first first year and this was our very first clown, and it was an actor by the name of Dave Baker, and he was Bluebell.

3:27 And then there's the one on the bottom left with his eyes. He was a little iteration a couple of years later. But that was our very first, very first Gotham City, back before it was DC Universe, and Dave was our very first clown. And from that point on we figured out that clowns work. Clowns are scary, so we that's become sort of a thing for six Flags and a thing for me. So hey, yeah, a lot of people don't know that. Obviously, Freyfest also started as a little haunted house. If you're familiar with the parting lot, our overflow lot used to be an old house of sort kind of reminiscence of what we did now with Willoughby's. And so it started out there and grew the next year even bigger. And that's when an officially years started in nineteen ninety three. So yeah, started from one house to many many now many manymore. You can see here on this slide a lot of the progression and what we've done with Scott and the Scream team and character development and Mark, why don't you talk to us a little bit about your process with creative, with our costume design, character development and well, yeah, it all starts obviously with an idea.

4:38 We also look at what's big and happening that year. For some of the characters that you see in the concept wise all of them have come to fruition. We have our ring Master, and it's not a boy anymore. She is a lady, yes, and she's in the crowd house right now, actually performed by an amazing cast member by me Eva. Obviously, our Leviathan which we introduced still last year with our in Devil's Triangle area and located in the main gate area and then dead Zone obviously was a popular area when we announced that one. And that's our cyberpunk themed area with light up elements and all different types of fun things. And a lot of those light up elements and innovation also came from one of our makeup artists as well over the years. And I think she's in here, miss Antonita Anderson. So yeah, I think we got a few makeup artists and part of our tech crew here. So thank you to all you guys out there for pulling this all the other. Yeah. So yeah, like everything else that starts with an idea, we go do a concept. Sometimes it's many ideas. One of the things that we take pride in with us Magic Mountain is that we bring our creative team is actually made up of our cat our cast members, our texts are what's called makeup artists, and our costume folks as well, So we work as an amazing team that is our creative team, and I'm proud to say that. And a lot of the ideas also come from them, and we create some unique entertaining creatures and attractions. So yeah, there's some

6:08 concept art here that you guys all work together on in the in the past and something. Yeah, and we also get to work with some amazing companies, So a shout out to all of the companies, including Little Spider Creations, might go to let's call it, Oh my gosh. There's just been so many over the years that we're excited to work with and thank you guys for being a part of it in our history. So thank you guys. We'll have some more to talk about with that a little bit as well, so I'm excited about that. So Scott's let's move back over to the makeup side, and I want to talk about some of the progression that you've led here at the park and uh and some of the your design technique and what inspires you and that kind of thing. The makeup. The makeup is the one thing that makes Six Flags different from a lot of the other events because we I make prosthetics. That's what I do for a living. I make prosthetics. So all of our characters, a very large percentage of our characters, especially all of our walk around characters, are in prosthetics, they're not in masks, they're not in ordinary makeups, and that little thing right there makes a world of difference. And I've also prided myself in the fact that as we've gotten further along, all of the makeup artists that I've we've been able to bring in, we've become such a good team that people come up with different ideas, we share ideas. We you know, I've taught this for thirty thirty something years. I'm also like, I'm really proud to say that some of my makeup artists over the years that have come and gone with

7:41 us. One of the girls that first started with me as a student of mine, she wasn't even a makeup artist, and I trained her. She went on and won an Oscar for Best Makeup. And we've had several people that have won Emmy's one of them even on the bottom right there, Mo, We've had several people that are Emmy winners. So if you were work with us up at Six Flights, we're sort of Oscar and Emmy winning training ground. Yeah, not bad, not bad, And it's a lot of fun and it's it's really the it's a combination. Like Mark said, it's a combination of the designers and the the the operations people and the talent, and sometimes the talent come up with an idea and an artist works with it and before you know it, we're like, well, one of our people in here tonight, Haiti, she's she's in a different outfit tonight. But one of our still ladies came up with their own wonderful character. And this year there's gonna she's gonna have a twin, so that's gonna be even better.

8:39 So we have all that's just we have a we have a great bunch of people. We started out very uh you know, way back when thirty years ago, with with still with using prosthetics, but using hands and fingers and rubber mask grease and sponges and messy missy messy stuff in a little trailers outside and all that kind of stuff. And it's as it's gone on, we've gotten better and we've gotten air bush stations and our makeup area was designed for us. Actually with all our of our electric and and airbush compressors and everything else, we've we've done some that we've come a long way from this.

9:20 Most of these are from like ninety three and ninety four, So you came a long way from using the ketchup bottle there on the bottom right corp we used to put it. We used to put blood in ketchup bottles because it was easy to fake blood. Obviously fake blood. And we we even back then had yellow bottles for the mustard that we made a little kind of a bus thing. So, yeah, it was a bad day in the break room when you guys confuse those things. Yeah, yeah, my hamburger tastes weird. So now we're moving forward a little bit and you can start to see some of our more recent characters. And what Scott started to allude there too, is we really pride ourselves on allowing our our and collaborating with our talent to create their own personas and really embody these characters that they want to. And I know there's a few of you out there right now.

10:11 I think, yeah, I say, I saw a company all coming in. But working hand in hand did these people to develop these iconic characters has been a real recipe for success for us. So we're we're happy to give the opportunity to for up and coming people who want to get into acting or who just want to get into the horror industry to you know, really cut their teeth in it and learn and learn something new and work their improvisa improvisational skills and all that kind of stuff. It's very true. Like I've been doing this for now thirteen years, and I've seen little kids when I want to come work for you many years ago, and they're now working for us as adults. We have families. We had a great family called the Lack of Booze who were amazing a walk around team together. So it's a big family at the park. And I've been doing it so long that I've seen people come through that now I'm meeting their children and their children are working and it gets it gets pretty bad when there. It's like you did my grandpa for me, and me and Mark were some of those. I know.

11:16 That's the other things like I think I think Mike said that when he first came to Fright first he was like a little kid, you wanted to be a slider, And I'm like, I feel old, Yeah, no more sliding for me in my future. Unfortunately he can't handle it anymore. But now we have a wonderful time with the working with the talent and really putting it together. I mean, it's a it's a it's a process. Any of you that's ever seen how we do it, it is crazy back there. If anybody ends up with our VIP tours or something like that, we'll take you backstage and show you how all that stuff is done. But it's it's pretty insane. I think we have a whole bunch of YouTube videos of probably too. I think no, there's at least three of them out there. Definitely some really good ones from some of our original cast members and stuff like that. And then our innovations over the years, which I'm very proud of that we've innovated, like as an example, our Nightmares area, which we just celebrate our tenth anniversary last year with Nightmares, and a lot of people don't know this, but obviously Nightmares is the very first chromodepth three D scare zone, not amaze, but a scare zone. So it's it took some challenging when we started developing it and testing it, and we were in teams a lot of black lights, a lot of black lights. It was a reality check, to be honest with you. But over the years it started from it's like lime greenie color to now really detailed amazing stuff that our makeup artists produce. And we have a whole black light room dedicated in our macrop room just for these locations because it's such a popular effect. A couple

12:50 more iconic characters that you guys have developed. I think people notice thees once and all of those, all of those farmers in there, came up with their own creative stuff, worked with worked with us. Talk to Mark had an idea, passed it by him, passed it by me. We we came up with all these things together. So all these people this is this is I like to say, what makes us so special? Yeah, this is there, and character say, okay, we throw this on. You know, we actually do a lot of creative development. Example Lorraine. Lorraine, she's an icon and you guys will see her out in the outside. I'm at our booth later today. But it started as a little haggard orange dress bob cut, which to the fabulous thing she is now so and if you if you see her at the booth today, she looks more like a typical which but when she's in nightmares, actually she's glow in the dark exactly and Giovanni, an amazing new artist that just started a couple of years ago with us. He developed he's doing her makeup for this weekend. And the detail, I'm telling you, the detail blows. It's our equality. I'm super, super, super proud of the artists that I have working with us.

14:05 Yeah, shout out to all of them in the back right now, you guys. All right, So now we're gonna start getting into a little bit more of our present day. So I'm happy to announce that this year we have the most nights of Fright Fest ever, thirty nights of Fright starting September eight leading all the way to October thirty feet So we'll be open some Thursdays starting the end of September this year, and and we'll love to see you guys out there, more times for you to come visit us. All right, So we're gonna jump back to again the present. So we've got some returning haunted houses this year, Vault six six six, Willoughby's resurrected Sewer of Souls, Aftermath two and Truther Dare and do you mind we can talk now? Yeah, yeah, so a a lot of you, we've heard your thoughts. We paid attention, and this year Truth or Dare is becoming a whole new concept and it's thanks to our amazing technical team, our supervisory team that are also here. Special shout out to Trevor. I know you're in here, but it is getting a whole new enhancement and we're super excited to share it with you. We're not going to go into detail because you want to surprise you, obviously, but it has a new whole new villain and some really cool stuff happening inside. We're excited about it. Also returning this year are six seven excuse me, our world famous scare zones here.

15:41 We've got Devil's Triangle, Territory, Twisted Carnival, the Dead Zone, City under Siege, Nightmares, of course an Exile Hill so we can all visit Innocence back up on Exile Hill and she could freak you all out like she does me. She's not sneaking up on me right now, right No, she might be playing with Oliver and the And then just a quick little note too, obviously it's our thirtieth anniversary, it's our big birthday, so there's some characters and stuff that we're gonna pay a little amsh too as well, which we'll get into shortly. All Right, I think this is probably the part you guys are the most excited for him, and I would i'd be correct, and assuming that we got the all right, So here we're gonna let you know what's new for twenty twenty three. Yeah, brand new icon character, Nightmare. So it's just a rough sculpt. It's just the rough sculpt. That's a that's a rough sculpt. But it's an amazing rough sculpt, let me tell you. Obviously. Yeah, I did the concept of Nightmare. He's our new big batty. He is the father of all monsters, and uh, you guys want to meet him, father of all monsters, come on out. This is his first time I alive. Can we get house lights real quick, because I honestly now if we can show the

17:11 detail on this guy, if you can see in the light, any house lights please bringing them up? There we go, There we go some light. So yeah, mister Nightmare here, he's gonna be joining us for our thirtieth anniversary. And with that we'll go over some new obviously some fun stuff. He will have a couple of new minions with him as well, and uh yeah, he will be a part of and can I say it? Is it? Okay if I say it? And all New Unleashed our opening of the night every night. So we are redesigning that and we are adding some amazing things. And when we get in shortly in a couple of sides, you'll see the reason why we're doing on a whole new Unleashed and introducing this guy as the father of all monsters. All right. Yes, some amazing work by Scott on the prosthetic design there, and just a fantastic shout out to our amazing costume team, Kim and her team. Amazing, thank you, thank you. All Right, we're moving forward. I'm happy to announce back by popular demand from those of you who visited us during screen Break, we have condemned House Party home. Margot. I'm sorry, Im sorry, hold on, okay, I heard about a party. I'm sorry.

18:37 Signify mumu party like like my kind of party, like your party. We'll meet you there. You get started, all right, I know you already have. But ladies and gentlemen, Margot rita our screen break screen queen. So in addition to not only Condemned House Party returning this year, we're super excited to also announce the return of screen Break in twenty twenty four, and that's thanks to all of you. Thank you for coming out. We really do appreciate it, guys, Thank you. We can't tell you how much we appreciate the feedback we got from you during that event. Surely one of the most special things I've ever been a part of professionally. Just seeing the way you guys enjoyed that event, embraced it, came out and supported all the new characters and all the new concepts. It was fantastic and honestly the most fun I've ever had. So I cannot wait to get back out there and do that again next year. Ye all right, Moving forward forward.

19:51 We spoke a little bit about this already, so we kind of hinted at that one, but truth or Darry's returning with an all new, expanded storyline and some new scenic pieces and things. They're just an enhancement to that maze and mark this is yours, an all new city under siege. We are so excited and we're so happy. We're working with a great company right now, and we're redeveloping. It's going to be one of our most innovative areas we've ever done with the most in AHIF theatrical lighting and programming with our amazing lighting designers Zach Moore of Mercat Love Zach and is something a little special to Scott and I. As you will see some of the this is a rough concept, to be honest with you, but we're going to pay homage to our clowns and our history of Gotham and City under Siege. And we're working with and let's call another great team of artists to create some very cool stylized homage murals to the art, to these amazing artists, actually these actors who have developed right fast over the years. And so Heckel's and Twitch Love.

21:00 You're gonna be on a bus because it's yeah, it's the only place for you guys to be on. Come on now, and it's gonna look amazing in there. We're taking a lot of the vehicles and stuff that we currently have and turning them into clown mobiles and sort with weapons of mass destruction and all that fun stuff. A lot of theatrical I set theatrical lighting on all new soundtrack for the area, and it's gonna be bigger and better than ever, And can I announce the other part of this. I'm looking at my boss for permission on something, and we're we said, we're announcing everything, right, Yeah, we're announcing it all man, and go for it, ladies and gentlemen. Sliders of the Night are returning this year. City under Siegs has always been one of the one of the favorite places to go in at six plays and if you if you know our area and you don't like clowns, come that's that's the place to be. And with the Sliders show, it's going to be wonderful. Yes, yeah, we're super excited to bring these things forward. So we also want to talk a little bit about expansion of Kids Boo Fest this year, a new festival that we announced last year. We've got some new items coming into the whistle Stop Train which we'll have a new theme and overlay there. And Mark, do you want to talk about our friend there's say hello to our very first fright, fast, fluffy character. Will it be the bat? He's gonna be very fluffy and

22:32 very very very huggable. Say all right, So we actually before we move forward, want to kind of take a couple of minutes and just reach out to you guys and see you know, if you guys have any questions for our creative team here, anything about past fright Fest experiences or anything like that. So yeah, if anyone's got any questions or anything, I believe we have some mics. So one thing I have to say is that you guys have always been super responsive to guests and listening to feedback, and that's not often the case in a lot of places. So a huge applause for you guys for actually listening to what guests want and what fans want. That's a huge thing. So my question is is that when you guys do here, you know the constructive criticism when I hope it would be constructive criticism when they do come in, how do you approach wanting to either change fixed or adjust what you've done in order to meet guests expectations. We take that very very seriously, and I can't tell you guys that enough. All of your comments are never unheard. As prime example, truth or Dare was one of them this past year. And yeah, we immediately immediately what was a week after Holiday in the Park, we started developing and talking about Okay, we need to make changes on this We do it for everything to be honest with you, Like Nightmares as it's evolved over the years, it's because also there's been

24:02 guest comments about well, why can you have this character and stuff like that, so we've always transitioned our characters. We kept our icons, yes, but there's been princesses, there's been other like fantasy characters as an example of Nightmares, but we have a core group of individuals that have been there for a very long time now that the guests love. And like I said, we never never just rest on anything. We are always inspired by our fellow community, our other parks, and we, like I said, we take very seriously and we listen to you guys. And if we're in the park, we're Mike and I especially don't ever be afraid to come up to us and talk to us and ask us questions. We're always open to you guys and listening to you guys, and that's something we really do take to heart because we really do care of our product and what we present to you guys.

24:52 Every year. There's really nothing I just reiterate, nothing I love more than talking with you guys about our event and seeing your passion for what we do is the most fun part of our job. And and from constructive criticisms to also compliments that that lead our our you know, our creative direction. If we hadn't got the response necessarily from you guys about screen break and about condemned House Party, we may not have been doing this year. But it was such a hit. And at the moment, the moment the first couple of groups started coming out of House Party during screen break and coming up to be out standing at the exit and explaining how how much they loved it. I turned to Mark, I said, oh, god, Mark, we created a problem. I was like, we can't take this away. There's no way, no. Ben especially like, yeah, we definitely saw those comments. We read all of your comments, we see all of your videos.

25:41 And I was like, oh, this is a reality check. We need to bring us back. We don't ever say sorry. We love it. We love it. We are yeah, we are YouTube and podcast junkies on the creative team here, so we love hearing what you all have to say. And we're all we're all following everything that's going on there. And like with House Party, two guys, this is our thirtieth anniversary. This whole event is going to be a party. So we're really excited for that. So don't don't assume it's. Yeah, we're gonna be scary. We're gonna do our thing, but it's going to be a party as well, because we want you to have fun. So that's the whole point of the celebrating a birthday party. Oh yeah, yeah, Like Scott's saying very secretively, we have a lot of new talent this year, and there's a lot of new innovation. There's a lot of new even with our technical team and our wardrobe team as well. There's a lot of new minds bringing coming into this now and we're super excited. We always love fresh blood, so blood.

26:41 Any other question we got right over here. How you doing, I'm doing good. Sorry, it's a little harder talk in this problem. My question is is Final Scare coming back? Or are you bringing back Thriller? We only have two options. One of those two, I'm gonna be honest with you guys right now, that's our walk arounds. You know that's a biased crowd. You know what, y'all are gonna have to come and see it, and we gotta we gotta hold some things back to just a little bit on and uh, yeah, you need to come to an audition as well, and yeah, get hired. We have one on August fifth, you guys at the park, so if you're looking, we are casting still.

27:34 If you want to look cool like some of these people, come, there's one of ours. Few spots left for those good ones. I'm leaving it right now. We can say too, as part of the new City under Sieges, there is a stage returning to that area like we had during screen breaks, so we'll have some opportunity to do some new entertainment for freight fests on that area as well. Hi. All right, so I got a quick question Scott. You are, i would say, like the pre eminent like makeup artist theme parks down in southern California. Do you do an amazing job after all of these years? How do you keep it fresh? How do you keep your passion going for these haunts and for these characters. That's a great question. I've been doing this a long time. Obviously, I love Halloween. I can't show you what Halloween tattoos I have, but I do have some, and I just I every year. I sometimes i think I'm gonna burn out because I'm not the twelve year old that you saw in the pictures anymore. But I get back up here and I see my artists, and I see Mark and Mike and what they come to do.

28:40 And essentially the thing that gets me going is I literally walk out in the park. I won't lie. I'm exhausted by November. I'm exhausted. The joke is I get gray or every November. But I don't. I'm never gonna quit this kind of thing. I love this and what makes it is coming out and watching the reactions with the guests. All I need is one good scare. I can have a crappy day, I can be super tired. I walk out and see one person just freak out and run or the one I call the I don't know what anybody else calls it. I call it ball bearing feet because it looks like somebody just you know, when you get a good scare and their feet just go boom. I just I'll see a couple of those and go, Okay, I could do this again.

29:26 Yeah, but I've been. But I've been doing this for just forever and ever and ever, and I love it and I love sharing with other other people and other you know, even with other parks and and talking about haunts and seeing what's what, and if people come up to me with an idea that you know, is something I hadn't thought of, I'm like, okay, so please feel freedom bombard me with that. Thank you. Yes, I forgot to mention that the Raffle winner also gets to see your your folloween tattoos. Yeah, yeah, most of them. Good good win for you over there. How you doing, I'm doing all right, high there. I really enjoy I think part of what makes fright Fests so special Magic Mountain is the whole Voodoo Nights show aspect of it, and specifically the atmospheric elements of the park I think are just so like strongly developed. What goes into consideration when it comes to like you guys are going to build a new facade or a new scare zone. I'm thinking like specifically about when you guys were building Dead Zone for when the whole underground West Coast Razors area was being built, Like, what are the considerations for what is like freight Fest, what is atmospherically kind of like what you think is like that is an amazing question.

30:48 I'll let Mark chime in here, but I think, yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna any hard ones like that. If you have a hard question over there, it's going straight to market Scott. But I'll to that a little bit. I think that, you know, it's constantly evolving. We're always trying to do something new, but we're we're not afraid to try things in general. So so we you know, we push, we push boundaries, we go to the edge, We do whatever kind of things that maybe other parks wouldn't do. Dead Zone was kind of a kind of a stretch. It's a good example because we we went out and we went with the cyberpunk theme which we which we hadn't seen before. We started adding to Scott's I'm sure pleasure adding lighting and things to the makeup that we were doing and special you know, little effects on the talent themselves. But really we're just trying to do something new each year and try to try to do so with us in our tech team are makeup parties. Like we said, we're just such a collaborative department that comes up with all these things, and and it's always just trying to not rest on something we've done before and do something you know that that that's going to excite you guys. Honestly, No, it's it's really with our history as well, not just as fright as but a theme park. Over the years of not a lot of you know, we've started. We have first of its kind or the tallest and largest and fastest. It's part of that innovation. Innovation is a key factor with what we do and dead Zone. At the time, there was the video game that was really Dead Zone was actually slated to come out in twenty twenty.

32:15 Obviously we had a situation in twenty twenty, so twenty twenty one we redeveloped and brought it back and made it even bigger and better. And obviously it's also just not the over like the big expenditures, the animatronics and all that fun stuff. It's stuff that we do with the makeups, the costumes. Shout out to Michelle Lynn, amazing costumer and she did she did all the designing for Dead Zone, for the costumes and a lot of the stuff you see for pr Fest. But the big thing is it's within the area. It's what we do with Foggers. We all we're always our texts are always playing with how we can change things and make it even better and to suit what our theme is for the year. So innovation has always been a key factor with not just frie Fest, but with Six Flags, Magic Mountain, as our as our history. That also goes with the question that the guy other guy answered about might and how do I keep busy is because when you know, having done this now for thirty years, sick this didn't. Fright Fest didn't start out as big as it is. It's it's grown sometimes a little exponentially, but it's grown so much. And most of the reason it's grown is because of the things that the public has said. They wanted to stay open longer, they wanted more events. We went from there was a period a long time ago where people, oh, well, I don't want to be scared. So it's like, well, but you don't get scared, and this finally everybody want to know you're gonna get scared, and you know that. And so as we've gotten these people in and gotten more creative and heard more things from the audiences, it's just gotten better and better and

33:45 better. And then and that thing. We draw more makeup artists, we draw more actors, we draw more talent, and then that draws more audience and you guys are you know, and it just it continues to grow, but it really is collaborative with the people. It's not just you know, us sitting up here. Yeah, all right, so well move forward to our final question real quick and then we'll move We'll get this chill on the road here, so I'll make it quick. So, as a guest who has been coming for years, obviously you know with the little ones and now they're growing and they're bigger and everything. Everybody loves the interaction of the characters, the roamers, the scare zone areas. The only thing is is some people get a little rude and annoying. So my question is security wise because we don't want to lose the interactions of all the characters that are out there because people love it for that. So is there any any updates or changes that you guys are thinking of security wise for these characters because some people do get a little too much. Yeah, oh, it looked. So I'll give you a little bit a bit of background about myself. I've worked for for six Flags for about twenty years now in a variety of different roles before joining the entertainment team. But my first full time position at Magic Mountain was actually in the security department. So coming from the security background and now working

35:20 with the team and all the talent here and hearing their feedback again and working off a feedback and doing that, we've expanded our escort system for our for our team members. We've also expanded security coverage and you know, other forms of law enforcement coverage and things like that. So safety is always going to be in the theme park world the number one priority. Having you know, like I said, the security background, but also on the on the flip side, having worked as a talent a few times here and some of our events and seeing it from that side as well, it really helps us mold how we're protecting people. But it's one the first thing that we think of about with our team. Yeah, and what's called it A definitely, it's it's part of obviously our training. It's a big thing. Obviously common sense is to be as a performer is to be at least arms distance away from somebody. But what's called it, you gotta know your distance if you're one of our walk arounds. And that's why we do have a lot of great retention with our walk arounds because they know what they're doing, they know they're distancing. Unfortunately. Yes, we are going to have rude guests here and there. Everybody has them, and it's really up to the talent to just avoid that, get away from that, and obviously reported as quickly and efficiently as possible so that guests unfortunately may not be able to stay for the remainder of the event. So yeah, we are constantly evolving and changing that and it really does have to do with our also amazing walk around talent because they know what they're doing, and then you's got to keep your distance. That's

36:51 the biggest thing. And having done this for so many years, I gotta just say you guys, obviously this room is full of people that love Halloween. We all love Halloween. We don't we don't we understand that that Halloween brings some people that act like, you know, not not the grab, not in say anything bad up here, but but there's some people that are not terribly nice about it. The one thing that I have seen over all my years, not just the thirty doing fright Fest, but the other decades before that, is is that the crowds are not being a lot of people are not willing to let people do that. So sometimes I've actually been out in the park seen somebody, a jerky person do something and other crowds going, hey, dude, knock it off. You know they're you know, they're working or and I think that's cool because you guys end up being part of the defenders. Does that make sense, It's like it's like the audiences.

37:47 No. I mean, I'm not saying you should do anything, but no, no, no, he shouldn't do anything. But I like the fact that that that the crowd is you weren't you weren't to be there, and you protect them. And we do appreciate that because you all have a little bit of an ownership with them as well, because you've had so many connections with them. We've seen it and we appreciate it definitely, and thank you all for doing that because that means that you care. And we're trying to put on a great event and an up great product. We just want people to come and have fun and enjoy themselves. But yes, they're going to have the really scared big guy that's trying to be tough, and you know what, we just brush it off and our actors, our professionals and they know what they're doing. And what I will say too is that is the talent is the heart of fright Fest. Without a tell, there's no question. So we do everything in our power on the management team to make sure that they're having not only a safe work environment, but you know, an encouraging and and just you know fun work environment as well. So us on the management team, we're out there every night, all night. I could show you my Apple Watch statistics on the amount of laughs I do around that part. But yeah, so it's it's always good. Okay. I am very excited to announce all of you today that making its appearance in maze form at frid Fest twenty twenty three is the conjuror. That's good. Mark

39:23 said not to leave to the couple of people who were leaving. We have some exciting stuff to talk about, so we Yeah, I wanted to break through the Q and A first there because we knew would be inundated with questions if we dropped some this knowledge on you guys first. But we'll be at our booth after this to talk through some things if y'all have any questions and stuff. But we're very excited to be partnering with Warner Brothers and bringing this amazing, amazing movie to life at frid Fest twenty twenty three. So oh, it's our thirtieth anniversary, rights our birthday, and all of you are hardcore fans and we appreciate and love all of you guys. So for twenty twenty three, we are going to give you a gift. So for twenty twenty three, ladies and gentlemen, in May's form, we are bringing you saw Ted two Fright Fast, so not one but two ips come into Magic Mountain this year. Once again, super excited to be partnering the lions Gate on this project, and this is going to be one you won't want to miss. So we are we are entering our thirty years. We wanted to

40:57 celebrate correctly. We are going I'm Big at Fright Fast twenty twenty three. So as I mentioned everybody, that's that we'll be down at our booth after this. That that does wrap up all the surprises so far, so more nights than ever, more mazes than ever, eight mazes this year at six Flags Fright Fast, So come see us. We're excited to see you there. That's it. Welcome to fright Fest twenty twenty three. Everybody, Thank You, Thank You, thank You, Thank you, Everybody, Thank You.

41:42 Today's episode was produced and edited by me Philip Hernandez, with post production by David Swope and original music composed by Chris Thomas. We're counting down to Halloween with daily podcasts, at videos, and events in our sixty one day haunta Than. Follow along at the link on our show notes. Our hanta Thon is made possible through je support from Gantem Light and Controls. Gantum illuminates attractions worldwide with the world's smallest intelligent spotlights. See what you're missing with a free demo. Sign up at gantum dot com slash Deemo. That's gantum dot com slash demo. Our Hauntathon team includes Daryl Plunky, Emily Luis Rua, Megan Spells, Gavin Burns and Omni Adventures, and our content partners for this year include Attractions Magazine, Creepy Kingdom, Freaks of HHN, hant Topic Radio, Kevin Heimbach News TV, omni Adventures, Scare Track, Sharp Productions, That Halloween Podcast, The Horror of Being, Emily, The Scare Factor, and This Weekend with Nick Paliochini. The best way you can support us this Halloween season is by sharing our Hauta Doon with someone you think will enjoy it, and to follow along to our hautathon, sign up for our weekly newsletter at Hanta Attraction Network dot com. We'll catch you back here tomorrow and every day until Halloween. Until next time, say scary. This is a Haunted Attraction Network production