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IAHA Update
Fire at the Haunted Castle
IAHA Update
The
International Association of Haunted Attractions (IAHA) announces the
election results from the Chicago Halloween and Party Show. The new
Board of Directors resulted as follows:
2003-4 IAHA Board of Directors
President: Liz Foral
Vice President: Jim Upchurch
Treasurer: Cliff Martin
Secretary: Karen Murphy
Randy Bates
Ed Gannon
Oliver Holler
Drew Hunter
David Schwend
Stuart Smith
Dave Treisch
Bob Turner
Randy Young
The first annual IAHA social at the Las Vegas Annual Halloween and
Party Show held April 28th at the Denny and Lee Magic Studio Theater
was a big success. IAHA members had a wonderful experience at “Terrors
of the Unknown,” an old-fashioned Ghost Show, featuring Dr. Grocki,
a.k.a. illusionist and Caesars Palace headliner Scott Alexander, his
student of macabre medical sciences, Mortimer, and international
touring magician Keith Stickley. In attendance to share in this
nostalgia was Phillip Morris of Morris Costumes, an old Ghost Show host
himself who was given an award for his service to the Haunting
industry. It was truly another great IAHA event, and a big thank you to
Karen Murphy and Rich Strelak for coordinating the function.
The IAHA would like to thank Bret Bury, Nancy Miller, Kevin Klemm,
Roger Damptz, Richard Boismier, Rich Strelak, Jim Upchurch, Karen
Murphy, and Allan Erush, who assisted with manning, setting up and
tearing down the trade show booth. The booth participants were full of
enthusiasm and proceeded to represent our association with class. In
addition, the IAHA boosted its membership by 8% at the trade show.
After waving the fees, attendance at the second annual TransWorld Vegas
Haunted Seminars was strong. Topics included starting a Haunted
Attraction, building codes, make up tips, actor “handling,” and
marketing. Many of the speakers were IAHA members, including Robin
Downward, Liz Foral, Dennis Gorg, Leonard Pickel, Rick Strelak, and
Bobbie Weiner. About 30% of those attending the seminars were opening a
new Haunt this year. These seminars were a great way to get the
information they needed to survive in this exciting but challenging
industry, as well as introduce them to the IAHA.
A Vendor Committee has been established by the IAHA to address the
concerns of companies making or selling props and Haunt services.
Acting as liaisons for our vendor base, co-chairpersons Rich Strelak
and Ed Gannon will provide information on the needs of Haunting vendors
to the IAHA Board.
A strong new alliance has been formed between the IAHA and the
International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA).
This step into the world of amusement and theme parks is a bold move to
take our rightful place beside the rest of the entertainment industry,
and gives us the opportunity to enhance our educational opportunities
within IAHA. This alliance will include increased presence for IAHA,
its members, and the haunting industry at the IAAPA tradeshow.
IAAPA is a strong model for our association to follow and the benefits
for IAHA members will be in the form of industry education, safety,
networking, products, and government lobbying. The IAAPA Annual
Conference and Trade Show, November 19-22, 2003, in Orlando, Florida,
features a wide variety of vendors who are an asset to the Haunting
industry in the way of materials, safety equipment, concessions, and a
vast selection of sources for building and running a Haunted
Attraction. At the trade show there are companies who provide fire
retardant sprays and materials, water fog and misting products, dollar
bill counters, artificial rock producers, themed events producers,
lighting manufacturers and distributors, ad agencies, shirt
manufacturers and distributors, artificial snow makers, foam machine
manufacturers, stilt makers, make-up suppliers, printers, advertising
balloon suppliers, search light manufacturers and dealers, artists, and
painters.
In return, IAHA will provide IAAPA with the knowledge base of the
Haunting industry and significant educational value from the experience
Haunters have gained over many years of Haunting. Haunt vendors who
join IAAPA will be able to expand their client base significantly by
displaying their products and services to a huge new market of smaller
amusement parks and family venues. In addition, IAAPA is less expensive
for vendors to display than TransWorld. The rental cost on space is
less, the support services are less costly, and the rooms are much more
reasonable. IAHA members will receive a significant registration
discount to attend this year’s tradeshow. IAAPA has created a
designated Halloween section and Dark Zone on their trade show floor
for Haunting vendors at this year’s tradeshow.
IAHA is your association and is looking for strong input from the
membership as to what they feel the association should be doing to make
the Haunt industry grow. The IAHA exists to assist and advance the
Haunted Attraction industry through communication, education and
information. It is a volunteer organization and needs your support and
participation to help form the successful future of the Haunting
industry.
IAHA would like to thank its
members for their continued support, providing the strength, the
experience and the voice to “Scream as one.” For more information on
the IAHA, visit their web site at www.iahaweb.com.
Fire at the Haunted Castle
Joe Costal
It was 6:40 p.m., May 11, 1984. Kathy Ziprik had just gotten home from
her job as assistant public relations director for Six Flags Great
Adventure, a 1,700-acre theme park in Jackson, New Jersey. The phone
rang. On the other end was the park’s on-duty, senior security officer.
She was glad he called. Since Kathy had started her job at Great
Adventure a few months prior, she worked hard to get employees to
follow the correct chain of command. He was right to call her. There
was a small fire at the Haunted Castle attraction. Nothing too serious,
he just wanted her to know. It was her job to know. He did not think
she needed to come back to the park, but Kathy wanted to anyway. It was
her job, and besides, her boss was away. She wanted to make doubly sure
everything would be all right. She hung up with the officer, and began
to get dressed. Kathy never liked the Haunted Castle; frankly it gave
her the creeps. Five minutes later, the phone rang again, this time it
was a different park security officer. His question would ring in
Kathy’s ears for the rest of her life. “There’s a fire at the Haunted
Castle, where can the ABC News helicopter land?”
Assistant marketing director Bernadette Kopacz deserved to let her hair
down. She had been working non-stop on a two-year drive to rally Great
Adventure attendance. 1983 had been a banner year; actually, it was the
park’s busiest ever. Revenue was up $13 million dollars since 1982, and
attendance rates made Great Adventure the fourth most attended in the
country, behind Walt Disney World, Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farms.
Great Adventure was quickly becoming the crown jewel of the Six Flags
chain. They were the highest grossing park outside of Florida and
California. Her marketing team had worked hard to gain that
distinction, and on May 11, 1984, their work was to be recognized by
top management at a dinner party. They were ready to celebrate and
rally their troops for continued success. 1984 was shaping up quite the
way ‘83 had. They were enjoying their highest-grossing season opening
in park history. Everyone was on top of the world that night. Briefly.
When top-level managers were missing from the party, word of a fire at
the Haunted Castle hit the marketing department. That was followed by
another word: casualties. No one felt much like partying anymore. When
Bernadette went home, the local radio stations blared with news of
deaths at GA. She was shocked. For the next few days, she would hear
more information about the fire from the radio than from her own
company.
The intensity of what faced these two managers is very real, described
by both as the lowest point in their careers. As Haunters, we make our
living in the art of fear. But does our passion for creating artificial
horror mean we need not spend our lives in real fear of actual tragedy?
At Great Adventure on May 11, 1984, the lines of horror became
distortedly skewed, as the horror of the Haunted Castle became all too
real for eight area teenagers.
According to official Jackson Township fire records, a cigarette
lighter inadvertently engulfed the Haunted Castle in flames between 6
and 7 p.m. on May 11, 1984. Eight teenagers, most on field trips from
various schools in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area, died.
Though eventually absolved of any wrongdoing, Bally’s Manufacturing and
Six Flags Corporation, the parks’ parent companies, became hopelessly
tangled in years of lawsuits and horrendous press. It would be nearly a
decade before the park would shake what locals refer to as the “Haunted
Castle jinx,” costing the amusement giant millions in revenue…and its
credibility. Eight separate families still suffer the unthinkable loss
of their sons and daughters.
Some managers will go their whole careers without ever experiencing the
nauseating pain, anxiety and downright horror that would fill the days
and nights of Great Adventure managers in 1984. An acute fable is
hidden beneath the headlines of GA’s Haunted Castle fire. Like most
fables, this one is filled with devastating twists, ironic turns of
fate and one underlying lesson. It is a lesson that may have once again
been forgotten by present-day haunted amusement managers basking in
high autumn attendance rates. As these accounts of May 11, 1984 teach
us, whether or not a manager ever fully realizes the scope of such a
tragedy is of little importance. What is of tremendous importance is
that they prepare for it with employee training and careful crisis
management.
The Haunted Castle was considered a “backburner attraction.” As one
former employee described to me, “(The Great Adventure management)
never gave (the Castle) much thought. It was buried in the back of the
park, and it didn’t have a coaster attached to it.” Management and
marketing initiatives centered on premiere attractions, especially
newer, cutting-edge technology. Despite this stance, the Castle was the
park’s largest single-show attraction since it opened in 1979. When at
full capacity, which it was not during the fire, the Castle could host
thousands of daily visitors. Years of “not giving the Haunted Castle
much thought” came back to haunt GA. On May 11, 1984, the Haunted
Castle quickly and permanently became one of the park’s premiere
attractions.
The Haunted “Castle” was actually a maze of 17 aluminum trailers
connected behind a medieval façade. “Rooms” filled with costumed
employees jumping out of dark corners to frighten visitors amid spooky
exhibits filled with coffins, hanging spider webs and giant skeletons,
were actually separate trailers attached by a central control room.
“You don’t know where you are; it can be very disorienting in there,”
said a former visitor. “Sometimes it’s totally black.”
Originally created by George Mahana, owner of the now defunct Toms
River Haunted House Company in 1978, Great Adventure leased the Castle
as a temporary October attraction in 1979, not unlike the park’s
current Fright Fest attractions. The Haunted Castle, not originally
designed to be a permanent attraction, was to be returned to Mahana
when the park closed for that season. However, instant popularity and
positive patron reaction persuaded managers to sign a longer lease.
With the new lease came a single renovation. Mahana’s company
“mirrored” the Castle, doubling its size to increase throughput, and
permanently added it to the park’s list of attractions.
As the Asbury Park Press reported: “GA officials clamped a lid of
secrecy on the tragedy, providing few details until late Friday [the
11th] night, when they finally acknowledged that people had died in the
blaze. No further announcements were made until 3 a.m.” During an early
morning news conference at the park, Ocean County Prosecutor Edward
Turnbach pointed out the possibility that the fire did not alarm
victims because they “probably thought it was part of the amusement.”
To this day, though sixteen years have gone by, the New York/New Jersey
public at large not only recalls the events of May 11, 1984, but also
widely blames Great Adventure for the accident. According to a 1993
Public Relations Society of America report, the park was still
struggling to regain the Philadelphia area attendance rate it enjoyed
prior to the fire. The valuable lesson here is that patron memories
linger longer than actual headlines, even when such memories are
untrue. “I remember how they chained the doors closed and locked all
those people in the fire,” said Mike Gatis, one Rowan University
student and New Jersey native. Mike’s sentiments were in the minority
of memories shared in a random, unstratified survey of the tragedy.
Pasteur George Riddel, principal and founder of the Victory Christian
School in Williamstown, NJ, still refuses to attend the park, and
encourages others to boycott it as well. Members of his parish travel
twice as far to enjoy amusements at Pennsylvania’s Hershey and Dorney
parks. His main gripe with the park is not that he considers it unsafe,
but that Great Adventure never apologized or displayed remorse for the
death of 15-year-old Tina Genovese, one of the eight victims.
Rich Hanley, lifetime haunter, remembers being boycotted at a temporary
1987 Haunted Attraction in Toms River, New Jersey, ten minutes east of
the Great Adventure park. He recalls parent and church groups coming
out in great number to denounce his work, citing the Great Adventure
tragedy. The burden of blame the public places on Great Adventure would
not be so significant, if it were not so unwarranted.
After a yearlong criminal trial, the park’s managers were absolved of
all wrongdoing. Jurors left the courtroom pointing harsher fingers at
the Township of Jackson, which repeatedly allowed the attraction to
slip through cracks in the fire code. Jackson considered the Haunted
Castle a “temporary structure,” even though it had been at the park for
five years. This designation was based solely on the fact that the
attraction was on wheels. According to newspaper accounts, Ocean County
Prosecutor Edward Turnbach tried diligently to prove that the fire code
enforcer was persuaded to keep the attraction designated “temporary” by
free park passes. Regardless, the once strongly anti-GA media depicted
a different scenario after the trial. The public-at-large was eager to
point fingers at Jackson township officials for the functional
disregard that led to the disaster.
To this day, no one is completely sure how the fire started. Official
police reports describe an unidentified boy using a cigarette lighter
to see in the dark. The boy then inadvertently set an exposed foam
bumper on fire, but the identity of the boy remains a mystery. He never
came forward and was never found. According to newspaper reports,
another boy, claiming to have “witnessed” the fire’s start, had a
history of arson. However, he never cracked under the pressure of the
defense lawyers, and it could not be determined whether he, or his
unidentified companion, accidentally, or even purposefully, set the
fire.
Another forgotten truth is that the deceased teenagers were not simply
walking through the attraction, but instead playing a game in which
they attempted to hide among Castle exhibits and scare other patrons.
Their “game” may have put them at a specific disadvantage in escaping
the fire. As relayed in court records by the only survivor in that
group, the nine teenagers, eight of whom died, entered the Haunted
Castle at approximately 6:20 p.m. According to Ocean County fire
records, the attraction should have taken anywhere between 5.5 and 8
minutes to complete. The group of teenagers could have feasibly been
completely through the attraction when the fire began at approximately
6:30 p.m.
Though the eight teenagers met a sad, untimely death, the Haunted
Castle victim toll may have been doubled if not for the heroic rescue
of at least six other patrons by the untrained and unidentified
employees. The Asbury Park Press reported at least four patrons who
were led out by an employee dressed like Count Dracula. The unknown
employee ran back into the attraction after the fire had started.
Though he risked his own life, saving officially countless others, he
received no press time during the media circus that followed the
tragedy, and no known accolades from the park, the town or the state.
Despite these astonishing facts, mysterious boys, disregarded
government regulations and heroic employees remain forgotten variables
in the fire’s equation.
Let it not be lost that the Castle fire was a terrible and needless
tragedy. The park should have never postponed sprinklers and other fire
and safety precautions, which were required by code even then. 1984 was
to be the Castle’s last season as a temporary attraction. Great
Adventure had contacted a Philadelphia Haunted House firm and had plans
to erect a new permanent Haunted Attraction in a stone structure.
Management should have heeded the countless employee warnings. Castle
employees staged a walkout in 1983 because of what they described as
deteriorating conditions. Great Adventure refused to acknowledge what
former employees described as a myriad of safety and health problems
with the attraction. In a 1983 safety report, one employee was reported
as writing, “forget it, too numerous to mention.”
Countless lessons were learned from the Great Adventure fire; lessons
affecting the manufacturing and safety end of the industry. The NJ fire
standards for dark rides, or as cited in state fire codes as “any
structure that intentionally disorients,” became a beacon nationally.
As other states scrambled to adopt similar restrictions to ensure a
Great Adventure disaster did not happen in their parks, New Jersey,
once the Haunted Attraction capital of the United States, watched as
one by one its heritage faded away.
The Gateway to Hell, also created by Mahana’s company and identical to
the GA Haunted Castle, closed permanently from the Casino Pier
amusement park in Seaside Park, NJ. Bucking a sad trend, Seaside
considered the attraction too high a liability. Though increasing
municipal dissatisfaction also played a large role, expenses from
increased safety and insurance provisions played a hand in closing the
now legendary Brigantine Castle, which sat at the foot of an amusement
on an island that bears its name, outside of Atlantic City, NJ (the
Brigantine Historical Society showcases a tribute to the attraction).
Even the Haunted Mansion in Long Branch, NJ, which spun itself positive
media attention during the GA fire (owners and managers conducted
several interviews and walkthroughs of their attraction with various
Ocean County media. The purpose was to highlight how safety precautions
and communication network would have prevented tragedy if a similar
fire had broken out in their attraction). Macabre public interest
resulting from the tragedy actually led to a banner business year at
the Haunted Mansion (informal newspapers surveys conducted outside GA
throughout the balance of 1984 showed a majority of people would have
been more apt to “check out” the Castle due to interest peaked by the
tragedy). Ownership of the Long Branch attraction changed hands several
times throughout the 80’s, but ultimately, the structure burned with
the entire Long Branch Fishing Pier in 1987.
With a 2001 fire claiming Dracula’s Castle, it became the last of
Jersey’s notorious walk-through attractions to meet an untimely
destruction by fire, local government scrutiny, or an owner’s inability
to keep up with the escalating costs associated with the state’s new
fire and safety requirements.
Lessons that come harder learned are those dealing with mismanagement.
Great Adventure went from the fourth most attended park in the country
to almost closing its doors in 1987. A string of fatal accidents, riots
and other weird occurrences ensued. Many, including corporate insiders,
believed the park was jinxed. Even those that felt the park could
overcome the jinx were beginning to believe the park would never regain
its credibility. Only a huge management overhaul, as well as big bucks
pumped into external public relations and marketing consulting,
convinced the Six Flags Corporation to keep the park open. During the
late 80’s, big money and the corporation’s top guns eventually turned
the park around. In 1987 the park changed its logo (from the trademark
rainbow and stars to a heart anchored behind the words “We Care”),
banned alcohol and hard rock concerts, tripled security and plastered
its new, proactive, customer-service centered President Ray Williams
all over all regional papers and magazines. Great Adventure has pulled
itself back into the top of the national theme park scene, with a
refreshed sense of both safety and marketing. But, in taking a look
back at its tragic history, it is important to remember not only the
safety lessons learned from the Haunted Castle fire, but also what it
taught us about management.
Disney’s ability to weather such publicity firestorms with a minimal
effect on their bottom-line baffles other industry professionals. The
Disney mystique has nothing to do with magical fairies, but rather just
heavy branding that originated with perfectly orchestrated crisis
management. The ability to weather such bad press doesn’t take a
superhuman effort from superhuman employees. It just takes a super
crisis plan.
Joe Costal grew up dodging “ghouls” during family outings to the Long
Branch Fishing Pier. He now uses his public relations experience to
help “ghouls” dodge bad press. This article is an excerpt from Joe’s
masters’ thesis “Amusement Park Crisis Management.” With several
national writing and speaking credits, Joe also teaches communications
at Richard Stockton College. He can be reached at joecostal@yahoo.com.
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