I worked a haunted park for 4 years. My particular haunt gets especially busy the weekend of the Texas/OU game, and we serve alcohol on the grounds. One year I worked there, Texas lost the game, and my manager moved me from my usual location in an open hallway to a blocked off area with no visible entrance, to protect me from any drunken assholes who were pissed off about the game and wanted to take it out on the haunt actors. She was worried that I would be an especially vulnerable target, since I was relatively small and delicate looking.
Another year, one of my two scares was to pop out of a curtain in a hallway. I had an extremely drunk woman scream bloody murder, reach out and grab my throat, and squeeze for a second before seeming to realize what she was doing. At which point she let go of my throat to pull me into a bone-crushing hug, apologize (and say she loved me? she was very very extremely drunk) and then basically melt into a puddle on the floor. I had to get security to take her out of the house and out of the park.
Now, weāre a relatively well-run park. The attraction has very professional security, the houses are designed so that itās easier for actors to maintain distance/harder for customers to get into actor spaces, and traffic moves quickly enough most of the time that nobody really has a chance to get violent outside of the usual āI accidentally punched on instinct,ā which isnāt great, but is understandable (which is why we are supposed to keep our distance). We were also trained very specifically to keep an eye on body language to tell A, which customers were probably overwhelmed, and B, which customers were liable to get violent. The times Iāve gone there since I stopped working it, I actually frequently donāt get targeted for scares, despite being a small delicate looking girl, because my āIām a blind person who canāt see, must feel things in front of meā posture get registered as āI can and will throw hands if you scare meā. Most of the time, itās a very, very safe place to work, insofar as haunted houses go at least.
We had a woman with dwarfism who worked for the park who had to stop working in the actual houses because one year while working the maze, she scared someone who apparently had a phobia of small people. He backtracked in the maze until he found her again and beat the shit out of her. She had to be airlifted out of the haunt and taken to the hospital. When she said she wasnāt going to stop working the haunt because fuck that guy, they overseers were nervous about it, so she agreed to become one of the characters that wandered the grounds so that she was always in an open space with a lot of witnesses and in easy reach of security.
The other people were just being irresponsible. Most of the time, itās just people being irresponsible. If youāre at a haunt, definitely do try to be responsible. Donāt be those people. Donāt drink so much that youāre not really in control, if you notice your instinct is to punch maybe hold onto something or put your hands in your pockets, remember that these people are actors who you paid to provide a service and donāt punish them for providing it.
But haunt actors, be aware (aware, AWARE- sorry that was part of the training)ā¦ the others were being irresponsible. But that guy who hunted down my co-worker, and the guys that my first manager was trying to protect me from, those guys are just fucking assholes, and if your haunt even has security, they wonāt know not to let them in. So always make sure youāre being careful and not giving them the opening to hurt you if you can avoid it.
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