Petrified

A One-Night Only Event...

Over 100 students designed, set up, and acted in this incredible haunted walk through attraction. The maze was part of Haunted Hoedown, an annual Halloween event put on by UCSD's Events Office. This was the second year our club, The Themed Entertainment Association at UCSD, designed and produced the maze as part of the event. This year, we brought in over 1700 students to Haunted Hoedown and the maze itself had over an hour wait the whole night. As students stepped inside the auditorium, they were transported to a dark, cursed forest with towering trees and a misty moon. Missing posters warned them of the dangers that lurked ahead. After a terrifying walk through the forest, guest entered a cabin full of even more surprises.The maze featured many technological effects and large sets, including a 6 foot animatronic spider, a 16 foot wide cabin facade, 12 foot tall trees, a drop portrait, and more. Scroll down to look inside the maze and see the months of work that led to it.

... With Nine Months of Work Behind It

Work on the maze began in February 2019. The University Events Office gave us full creative control and supplied the budget as part of their event. It was up our team of maze leads - two project managers and ten subcommittee leads - to come up with a concept, find a location, design it, build it, and finally make the event night a success. Our maze the previous year had done well and we wanted to make sure that this year would be even bigger and better.Every single one of our leads dedicated hours and days over summer working away to ensure the quality and quantity of the event. We built trees, rocks, scare actor prosthetics, and placed hundreds of terrifying props throughout the maze. We recruited over 70 students to volunteer and scare act the night of the event.

My Role

Project Director (co-lead position alongside Miranda May)

Tools & Skills

  • Project Management

  • AutoCAD

Experience

  • Fostered the creative design of the maze (including my own input!).

  • Facilitated the collaboration between our six main subcommittees, including everything from makeup and AV to layout and budget, to turn creative ideas into scary realities.

  • Helped organize the layout and then designed it in AutoCAD.

  • Organized the setup, building, event night, and strike of the maze, which included our numerous students as well as campus events crew, contracted companies, fire marshals, and more.

Look more into the Petrified experience below!