Volume 2, No. 20. October 25, 2002
Media
scare
Name the most frightening
fiend that haunts your nightmares. A journalist perhaps? If you are a park operator
or publicist who fears that a member of the media may be lurking around the
corner, do not visit Cedar Point for its HalloWeekends.
The Sandusky, Ohio, park has invited working reporters, writers, anchors and
on-air hosts to become “screamsters,” the term used for the walking
monsters and other scaremongers who roam the Fright Zone during Cedar Point’s
annual Halloween celebration. Cedar Point’s publicity team got the idea
from members of the media themselves who requested a chance to be made up as
monsters. Noting the power of participatory journalism—and the usually
positive stories that come out of it—Cedar Point sent out a news release
with a general invitation to all working press. About 20 signed up for the opportunity.
The journalists are placed in the hands of John Taylor, manager of graphic services
and the man who not only designs and builds HalloWeekends’ haunts but oversees
the make-up team. After his group of makeup artists finish the 40 actors who
work the fog-shrouded Frontiertown midway, he works on the journalists. The
reporters are fitted with a prosthetic mask, usually already painted. They are
then dressed in flannel and a vest in keeping with the Frontiertown theme and
covered in “scare cloth” that resembles rotting matter. Handed a shaker
can, the reporters head out to the midway to startle Cedar Point guests for
the Friday and Saturday night, 8 pm to midnight (20,00 to 24,00) events.
“We usually have them buddied up, give them a regular talent to help them
along,” Taylor said. “It’s funny to see how tired they are when
they come back. Once you start chasing people down the trail, you can’t
stop. They do get pretty wild, and you have to tone some of them down.”
They leave the park with their mask as a souvenir—“It’s real
personal because it’s got your sweat all over it,” Taylor said—and
a photo to keep and one to be placed on Taylor’s “Wall of Shame”
in the makeup room, where all his actors’ monster portraits are displayed.
The reporters also leave with a fuller appreciation of the work that goes into
staging HalloWeekends. “Especially the makeup stuff,” Taylor said,
“and how physical it actually is to go out there and do this stuff. They
come back dog tired.”
Cedar Point Public Relations Manager Janice Witherow said the general invitation
has paid off for the park’s sixth annual HalloWeekends. “We’ve
had more coverage this year than we’ve ever had, including our first season,”
she said.
©2002, Minton Enterprises
LLC
All rights reserved