Looking to set up a camp with a Nightmare theme need help.

[Art glass]

I was wondering if there were any others interested in helping with a nightmare them camp?
The bell just rang and your late for that test and you standing in the hallway in your underwear.
You just found out you do eat red meat and vote Republican.
Its in the closet and its going to get you.
I can bring a structure to set up a haunted house in and some props but need more help.
Was also thinking of maybe bringing the scars/nightmares out to the people, Dress up in our creepiest
And roam the night bring fright and a good laugh.
I’ve never tried to do a them camp before and could use any suggestions.
Romeo Freakenstein.

[Dr. Pyro]

I don't mean to sound overly critical, but it's abundantly clear you've never done a theme camp. It has to be able to attract people, have a sense of being, and be someplace that the denizens of Black Rock City would actually want to visit. Nightmare Camp? Are you out of your mind? If I wanted to be in a nightmare, I would have stayed at home! Offer something that would actually get people interested and anxious to go there. Budweiser instead of Anchor Steam; white zinfandel instead of cabernet savignon, being raped by homosexuals dressed as clowns rather than having a dream of an erotic three-some with silicon-enhanced bimbos. Don't take this the wrong way, but most of us go to Black Rock City to get away from the nightmares of everyday life, not to relive them. Hell, if that were the case, like I said, I'd stay at home. Come by and visit Barbie Death Camp & Wine Bistro in Wheeeee!ville, and let's chat.

[Janka]

I beg to differ - I found the idea of a nightmare camp quite interesting. Sometimes visiting what we fear for a short time can be entertainment and/or art - people do watch horror movies, too, right? Things do not always need to be fun and relaxing to be interesting experiences.

Not that I don't love Barbie Death Camp & Wine Bistro, and many other fun and relaxing things, too. Just I think a Nightmare Camp could be done with taste and cool.

That said, I think it would require quite a lot of work and vision, and probably also experience in theme camps. Not my thing. :)

[Art glass]

The evenings at Burning Man will be the purview of dreams and part of dreams are our nightmares.
I’m not looking to create something to extreme just something fun to experience.
Something along the lines of a haunted house/ fun house, something that people could walk through and would give them the fun thrill.
It would be like a dream you go into it and experience it, and leaving the haunted house would be like waking. And all the time you’d know it was only a dream.
PS; I do have an extensive background in building and running haunted houses for all ages.

[Janka]

PS; I do have an extensive background in building and running haunted houses for all ages.

Sounds way cool, I hope you can realize it. (Sorry for offering just congratulations and "you go do it", but it is not really possible for me to offer much else. I could probably show up on Mon or Tue and help set up, if I found your camp, and if someone tells me what to do on a "hold this here", "nail these two pieces of wood together" level, but I cannot promise even that 100 %. And I'd come by and see it when it's done, of course. :))

[Will]

I would so love to help you with building a haunted house on the playa. I've volunteered at a children's haunted house, and there's nothing quite like it. The kids were scared at their level to handle it, and the parents were targets. Rule one, chainsaws are stupid. They require no skill. BZZZ! Look! I have a chainsaw! PH3@R M3! A good old-fashioned "BOO" delivered within 6 inches of an ear is far more effective.

Sadly, I will be in Ohio during the burn. But my thoughts will be with you all.

[Shinxy]

I think it probably depends on how you use the chainsaw. A chiansaw six inches from an ear is probably more effective than a boo!

I would so love to help you with building a haunted house on the playa. I've volunteered at a children's haunted house, and there's nothing quite like it. The kids were scared at their level to handle it, and the parents were targets. Rule one, chainsaws are stupid. They require no skill. BZZZ! Look! I have a chainsaw! PH3@R M3! A good old-fashioned "BOO" delivered within 6 inches of an ear is far more effective.

Sadly, I will be in Ohio during the burn. But my thoughts will be with you all.

[Will]

The thing is, you can't sneak up on someone with a chainsaw. It's always "BZZZ! Hey look, a chainsaw is coming." The quieter you are, the closer you can get, and people freak when you suddenly appear well within their personal space. You can't start a chainsaw that close to a person and remain undetected.

[Shinxy]

I don't think being undetected is a big deal. It's more like "haha, ok, chainsaw, jason mask, lame. oh shit, he's coming right for me!" and then "Ima gonna saw off yer earrrr, hoss!" taking big swings and chasing them through the hall of mirrors. That's what I'm all about.

[DNAinVEGAS]

Uh, It's already being done in a BIG way. "Carn'Evil" on the Esplanade is a 4800 sq. ft. nightmare of pure terror. Scariest haunted Attraction ever. Nothing says you can't do one also though.

Good Luck.

[Will]

In my experience, it's closer to. "Damn, he's coming my way. Keep going dude, that thing stinks." Of course, if you're in a hall of mirrors, then people would see me sneaking up from behind.

Blowing on the victim's ear until they look around is also very effective.

But these things attack different parts of the mind. You're after people who are afraid of thunderstorms. I'm after people who are afraid of spiders. And we both need to make the experience personal before a person is scared. My point is I'm removing as much time as possible for a person to become prepared for the scare. Less time to get ready allows for a larger reaction.

Heh, there was one lady who turned and saw me, shrieked, ran, grabbed her husband and bodily threw him between me and her.

[Will]

Uh, It's already being done in a BIG way. "Carn'Evil" on the Esplanade is a 4800 sq. ft. nightmare of pure terror. Scariest haunted Attraction ever. Nothing says you can't do one also though.

Good Luck.

That may be different. They're going for monsters on the outside, and adult experiences with monsters on the inside. Art hasn't detailed the specifics he wants.

[clairedad]

I think this idea is very interesting, but not as a start here, walk through, end here kind of attraction. I think it would make for a better bar or lounge type of hangout with more inner psychological nightmares being used to set the theme and decor of the place. Kind of like a German expressionist theme camp. Everything could be built dark and distorted with lots of creepy ambience. It would be a camp that people could visit to purge or share some of their nightmares either visually with some kind of painting/drawing or vocally with a spoken word performance of a story or poetry. Or perhaps musically! Just some thoughts. I certainly think this would be easier to pull off and require fewer people to run than a full scale haunted house.

[Nightterror]

A nightmare theme camp is not a haunted house. And instead why not make it a Night Terror theme camp. It's the gift that keeps on giving. You can introduce sleep paralysis, night sweats, and Post Truamatic Stress Disorder while you're at it.

The goal would be to make the person scream with pure fear while making sure they don't know where they and they don't know if they are awake or not. You will know if you accomplished your goal if they are too afraid to come back and try it again.

Seriously - I invision a nightmare camp or Night Terror camp not like a haunted house that you walk through and get spooked but more as a sleeping theme. Have a small room with a bed everything light and happy and turn out the lights and in the corner is some scary shit that you can't see but you can hear it. You know its there because you can feel it in your gut. You can smell it. You can't get away from it and you know without a doubt that it is going to hurt you - permanently - physically and mentally. You won't remember exactly what happened but you will know it was bad. Bad enough to not want to go back.

Just one opinion.
NT

[Nightterror]

Theme camp name

PARASOMNIAS

[blyslv]

For some of us, the thought of 1000s of plastic vixens being marched to their death by nuetered GI Joes is more nightmare then they'll ever be able to handle.

I too must say go for it with a nightmare camp, but cannot offer to help.

[Will]

I think this idea is very interesting, but not as a start here, walk through, end here kind of attraction. I think it would make for a better bar or lounge type of hangout with more inner psychological nightmares being used to set the theme and decor of the place.

Hmm. Interesting idea. It's more fun to let the spooks roam about anyway. And the chainsaw/boo could be used together. The chainsaw draws their attention while someone sneaks up behind them. Damn, I've got to find a house around here this fall. :evil:

[samdu]

i like the bar/lounge idea. serve drinks to people, but sneak teeth into the glass when they're not looking. (i have a recurring nightmare about my teeth falling out) have mirrors sitting around that warp out of true on occasion, maybe done with mylar? make the floors just a little warped so that when you walk on them, you're thrown just a little off balance. jimmy the chairs so that they randomly tilt backward, giving the sitter that sense of instant vertigo. an evil clown, sitting in a corner all by himself, smiling and drooling, quietly chuckling and rocking back and forth. something moving fast and low, seen out of the corner of the eye, what was that? did you see it?

some ideas.

[Janka]

(i have a recurring nightmare about my teeth falling out)

Ah, are we throwing around ideas now? Cool.

Personally, I liked the traditional haunted house better than a lounge/bar. You could have a lounge/bar where people would gather after going through the house, though, and maybe encourage them to share their real nightmares there? A stand on which you tell about yours, or whatever.

I have one where I suddenly find that I am dating or even married to a complete stranger, or a familiar but wrong person, and cannot find my actual lifemate, or remember what happened to him.

I also have an absurd fear of mirrors in the dark. Mirrors in the daylight are quite ok, but mirrors when the light is low are a horror. I do not know why. I always have this irrational conviction that if I look into a mirror in the dark, I won't see what is really in the room, but Something Else That Is Really, Really Bad. (I have looked once or twice and nothing happened. But I still cannot do it most of the time.)

[robotland]

I'm thrilled that someone else is considering a spook house....and surprised that nobody's mentioned Flight To Mars! The setup they had was superior even to many carnival midway attractions!
I made a haunted house for our Hallowe'en party last year, starting with partitions hung from a 10x10' EZ-Up canopy. Ended up getting carried away and filling the whole garage! For the really scary parts I ended up having to use solid wood construction, but a disorienting maze portion was made from hanging rubberized fabric sections (I got a roll of auto upholstery vinyl for free from a thrift store!) that were 2' wide and hung from furring strips and conduit. Linked with duct tape and zipstrips. You can cram a surprising amount of twisty corridor into a tiny space, so much so that I've thought about haunting the bottom dome of the Snowman with a maze. (Then I looked at the calendar.)

[Will]

Usable ideas? Heh, I've got some of those too.
* Take one cooler filled with pop cans. As you empty them, put them in a sturdy bag. When full, tie it shut with a rope so that you can fling it against the ground making a great clanking noise.
* Glue invisible fishing line to items. Use enough to circle the surface once and then some. Someone under the table/shelf/bar pulls on the string. The item moves to the left. Pull on the other end to go the other way.
* Buy some crappy encyclopedias from a thrift store. Get paint sticks from the paint store. Pick one or two books. Open them up. Take a knife and shallowly trace the paint sticks on the page. Remove the extra paper. Place the sticks in the new holes and close the book. Put some decent screws through the cover and sticks. Line them up on a shelf. With this, you can either put the ends of the sticks through a wall for manual pulling, or add strings so that you can move the books from afar.
* Throw snap-pops at people's feet when they least expect it.
* Sprinkle chemicals to fire. Magnisium burns white. Iron burns red. Copper sulfate burns green. It's not a good idea to do this before people cook with this fire.
* Take a squirt bottle. Fake a sneeze. When you go "ACHOO" spritze someone in front of you.

[synchronicity]

Take an MRE peanut butter pack. Act a bit wasted. Go into a porta potti.
While inside, squeeze it into your hand. (Create a few "appropriate" stains on your clothes/self in the process ) Walk out dabbing at it with toilet paper. Ask loudly for help. After gaining appropriate attention, lick hand. If played properly, you should be able to get at least one person to puke.