1. How To Make A Haunted Hayride Created: March 7 th, 2010 By: Taylor Cooper

2. Where should I have my hayride? Have your hayride in the woods. NOT ON PUBLIC ROADS. Public roads are a safety danger and illegal. If you do not have any heavy wooded areas, ask a local farmer to use his land for your new hayride, but only if it is a small hayride for a few people that you know, NOT THE PUBLIC. If you are wanting a commercial hayride that is open to the public, you will want your own land and have good insurance on the land.

3. What should I use to pull my hayride trailers? If you have a tractor that will pull your trailers, you should use it. If you don’t have a tractor or can not get access to one, use a regular truck. A regular utility truck might have more of a chance to get stuck or not have to power to pull the tractor with your guest.

4. Who should ride my hayride? You can decide whom you want to ride your hayride. Just know that if you open to the public, you need insurance in case of any incident. If you only let people you know ride your hayride, you have more of a chance of the guest not to file a law suit on a incident that may happen, because you will know them personally. Be sure to know how to handle your crowd and be in control of them. Don’t let your crowd get out of hand.

5. Crowd control is a MUST. If you are only opening your haunted hayride to family and friends, you will not need very much security. If you are opening your haunted hayride to the public, you will want to hire security officers. Use wristbands to determine if someone has permission or has paid to ride the hayride. Different color wristbands can have different meanings.

6. Set your RULES. No matter who your audience is you, must have a set of rules for your hayride. You can research some good hayride rules. Tell your guest the rules of the ride before you start your hayride. You can also get them posted on a poster board to show your guest.

7. Loading and Unloading Be sure to have proper management for loading your guest onto the wagon and unloading your guest off the wagon. You can use a special manager to control all the loading and unloading. Use ramps for easy loading and unloading.

8. Trail Grooming and Inspection Groom and inspect your trail for any unwanted limbs. Try to avoid any mud holes or large wet places. Cut back lower limbs that may scratch your guests’ heads. Mud holes may risk the chance of the truck or tractor getting stuck or spinning mud on the guests’.

9. Communications Communication is a must in any size hayride. You can use some cheap $20.00 two way radios. Use them to communicate with scenes, wagon driver, or people back at the loading dock. You can also be able to communicate if there is an emergency during the hayride.

10. Actor Training & Safety Be sure to train all of your actors and management staff. It is very hard to have to work with actors that don’t know where to be or what to do when they get there. All actors and management staff should be safe at all times. Never put staff member in danger. Get all actors to sign a release form to say that you are not responsible for any injuries that may happen before, during, or after the hayride.

11. Lights Use old glass jars, like old pickle jars, and put a little tea light candle in them to give your hayride a little light. This looks very scary during the middle of the night.

12. Live Scares The best scare is live actors. The use of props will add to your effect, but nothing is like real live actors. Live actors know when to scare and can move towards, away or any motion that may scare the guests’. If something goes wrong, the live actors will be able to help like if something goes wrong with the wagon.

13. Elevated Scares Any thing that will be higher than the guest will make a better scare. Guests’ will feel like they are too small to do anything and that they are powerless. You could create tree houses or human zip lines. Safety is a must while doing overhead scares. Each night of your attraction check to make sure that the elevated scares are still intact and safe. One of the best ways to scare.

14. Thanks! Thanks to Google Images and Microsoft for some of the pictures that you just saw. Thanks for watching my slideshow for how to make a haunted hayride. I hope you learned something. Feel free to print and use this document for personal use only. Taylor Cooper March 7 th, 2010