HURRY! HURRY! STEP RIGHT UP!
And run for your lives! The Circus is Canceled! The clowns are loose! They’re going to kill us all! Get out while you still can!
Though posted within our Reviews section, this entry will not include a Key Rating. As a team, we at Escape Authority feel the correct thing to do is disclose that I was the Designer of this attraction on behalf of Chris + Creative. While I am excited to share its final results with you, our readers, I cannot officially endorse it in order to remain neutral to other games we have and will continue to review around the world.
Each Halloween, I build an elaborate haunted attraction at my home for the neighborhood kids to enjoy while Trick-or-Treating. I call it “Peachstone Scream!“. For me, there’s only one rule: Each year must be bigger than the last.
In 2015, things took a turn from over-the-top décor to a full-fledged haunt for the first time. A long, enclosed passage lead from the driveway to the front door, full of several tricks (and effects) which more than made kids earn their treats that year. Appropriately, this big re-imagining of our neighborhood fun was under the demented Big Top dubbed The Circus of SLaughter.
The next logical step came in 2016, with detailed full scale facades and, for the first time, a bonafide escape game hidden within an 8′ x 8′ room literally erected on my front lawn. Featuring an entirely unique theme, The Krampus Beast came to town, and as one might expect when such a thing occurs, Christmas is Canceled.
Trick-or-Treating in our little community has become a scheduled event over multiple different nights, where each neighbor reserves a time slot to visit for their own hour long theatrical experience. For 2017, during its encore performance, The Circus is Canceled expands into a full-fledged escape game, mixing traditional haunted house surprises with challenging puzzles and scripted, intimate, immersive theater, complete with a cast of 8-10 talented actors to truly transport you into this chaotic carnival spanning more than 1,500 square feet, both outside and inside the entire first floor of my house!
COME ONE, COME ALL – to the nearest available exit! The Circus is Canceled! Run! They’re coming for you next!
As the air turns cool and leaves begin to fall, the grandest of all annual traditions rolls back into town. The Circus of Laughter has set its tattered tent back up at the dead end of Peachstone Lane, and the sights and sounds lucking within are sure to make you grin! By popular demand, it’s an encore performance of the Greatest Show on Earth!
It’s a nostalgic journey back under the Big Top, to once again experience your favorite thrills, chills, freaks, and clowns exactly as you remember them*? Yes, everything is as you remember, until it isn’t. Intentionally staged with exactly the same opening scenes to lull circus-goers in deeper with a false sense of confidence, all attention turns to the center ring for a world of surprises more than ten times the duration it once was in the Circus of SLaughter. This year, NO one Here Or Anywhere can stop them.
The Greatest show on earth….. IS A TRAP! Get out while you can! You’re all in serious danger!
That’s because this Circus is run by a band of pranksters, a sarcastic bear, a baneful bunny, and an over-sized monkey that eats children. And naturally, they follow the beck and cackling call of their infamous Ringmaster, Kernel the Clown. (For your own safety, don’t ever call him ‘half-popped!’)
So, what exactly is Kernel’s story? Well, you see kids, sometimes stories are the real joke. Sometimes it’s not about a plan. Sometimes it’s just about watching the world burn. And to spark the flames, the perfect punchline is a whole lot of senseless violence.
After all, you know what they say; you can’t spell “SLAUGHTER” without “LAUGHTER!”
A rickety old ticket booth sits on the corner of the abandoned field, its marquee once dotted with bright lights now sparks and occasionally flashes blood red, casting an eerie glow across the crisp night air. Behind it, the infamous Circus of Laughter looms tall into the overgrown trees. Its 25′ wide fabric faded is crudely patched with mismatching colors. Once no doubt a symbol of child-like innocence, this Circus of SLaughter now hides countless secrets and even more atrocities.
Despite recently being set up in preparation for its All Hallow’s Eve encore performance, the entrance to the big top lays boarded up, ominously marked with a well-worn KEEP OUT sign. For good measure, the boarded path is further blocked by a knotted net of ropes.
Clown-faced jack-o-lanterns surround the tent, their knowing eyes glowing in an ever-changing rainbow of colors. They’d be almost enchanting were it not for the billowing fog and wild brush attempting to overtake them.
Inside the Big Top, things are just as they were during its debut year. Shredded red and white striped fabric obstructs the path, framing perfect hiding places for tricksters seeking their own Halloween treats. Rubber chickens and old clown shoes hang at face height, bopping those foolish enough to explore against the warnings of local authorities.
Physical effects bring the show to another level, with fog and several different scents like popcorn, cotton candy and circus animals at key moments to enhance their environments, all while a custom-mixed soundtrack of twisted circus songs echoes throughout the other-worldly spaces.
Deeper within the tent, things take a twisted turn, as walls slant in conflicting angles, creating cramped and disorienting passages leading to what appears to be a door hidden behind the sheets. A sign instructs fool-hardy urban explorers to knock a very specific seven times. Once they do, the real show begins, and once it does, this Big Top turns into a BIG TRAP.
The show begins at the Ticket Both, where audiences are read the rules of this evening’s encore performance. Staffed by The Bitch, circus-goers quickly realize she’s the very antithesis of customer service as she rudely chastises them, stopping only to chomp on a large, dripping pickle.
From there, they’re sent to the Face Painting Station™ (where participation is mandatory.) Each member of the crowd gathers under the “professionally” “made” “sign” to be given a fashionable makeover, in a color uniquely suited to their personality that is guaranteed to make them “pretty again.”
The warm-up act leaves circus-goers to the fool-hardy task of actually breaking into the Big Top. Ropes winding around the boarded up passage hold the key to entry, but the real secret is what a mistake they’re making. A mischievous monkey taunts audiences from within the tent, setting the stage for the bizarre show about to unfold, while waiting to celebrate the arrival of his new friends – with balloons, of course! Everyone loves balloons.
Finding the key to the door sealing the tent may just be the biggest mistake of all. Audiences are immediately captured by clowns and separated into two gently used animal cages, one labeled “LIONS” and the other “MONKEYS.” It’s no secret why the latter sits empty. Trapped and separated, circus goers will need to share objects with each other – if they can manage to even communicate through the clothesline full of clown costumes between them.
Getting out of that predicament may seem like monkey business, but it grants all the tools needed to open a clearly labeled ESCAPE TUNNEL. (Surely the word “NO” carved above the other two is nothing to be concerned with.) Crawling in, and up through the narrow, darkened passage, the old flashlights used to explore the tent begin to flicker. But a moment of hope glimmers just ahead – quite literally light at the end of the tunnel!
The elevated tunnel’s end leads to a vertical drop off, causing escapees to land face first into Teddy’s Ball Pit. But this isn’t any ball pit; it’s home to a sarcastic and self-loathing bear and several of his stuffed friends. There’s also a healthy amount of severed body parts mixed in throughout the balls. Well, not healthy for their former owners, anyway. Don’t worry – one ball has a key to the exit door kept safely inside! It’s a red one.
Those who make it past Teddy’s stuffed grasp find themselves one door closer to their hopeful freedom. But which door? There’s about a dozen of them circling the small, cramped space, and all of them are locked – including, now too, the one they just entered from. A colorful locked chest sits stacked atop crates clearly labeled “DO NOT STACK.” Sealed with a combination padlock, hope again appears lost – but you know what they say; the answer, much like beauty, was inside you all along!
Opening the peculiarly labeled “Forbidden Chest of Mystery” leads to… nothing. Another cruel joke by Kernel and his clown cronies, perhaps? Or is it? Suddenly, the flashlights flicker again and die, casting circus-goers into total darkness. Strangely, they begin to physically vibrate and shake, before brightly shining back to life, now with a UV glow powerful enough to illuminate previously invisible graffiti of laughter all over the walls, and covering each of the numbered doors.
After all, the world needs more laughter. And sometimes, laughter is the answer.
One good laugh leads to another, and another, and another. In sort of a good news, bad news situation, that laughter was indeed the key to opening a door to the exit. Unfortunately, behind it was another, smaller locked door. And behind it, you guessed it – another, even smaller, equally locked door. But behind that one? No. Not another door. Don’t make assumptions. Behind the smallest door is a brick wall. And a doorbell?
Cautiously ringing it causes the brick wall to swing inward, exposing a pitch black void, broken only by the sudden appears of the murderous Miss Bunny. And she’s ready to play. Sneaking past her, audiences find themselves in a totally dark maze, illuminated sporadically by random strobing lights. More doors line the walls, now crooked and mounted at unnatural angles. Some even loom above from the ceiling. Clown dummies line each twist and turn, making it impossible to determine in the flashes of light which are harmless and which are, well, very much the opposite.
Pushing through the narrow, twisting path in the dark, walls seem to move in and out. At times, they’re open and spacious, and at others as narrow as just 18″ from left to right. Claustrophobia gives way to confusion as the winding passage leads right back to where it began, to the giddy delight of Miss Bunny. Giggling, she instructs audiences to go through again – but again, they end up back where they started.
“Again! Again!” shouts Miss Bunny. Seemingly bearing the brunt of a cruel joke before their impending demise, audiences have no choice but to follow suit. This time though, the same path leads somewhere different. It’s almost as though the walls themselves have moved to physically reconfigure the space.
Although out of the maze, circus-goers come to yet another dead end, somehow even more unnerving than anything they’ve yet encountered. A run-down hall of mirrors surrounds them – and worse yet, the path leading them into it has reshaped itself once more, sealing them inside. A plaque with a simple message, “SAY THE MAGIC WORD” hangs in front of one of the mirrors. Multi-colored clown heads are scattered around the room, but perhaps much more threatening is the moving one that occasionally appears and quickly fades away inside several of the mirrors surrounding the chamber.
Saying that magic word opens a portal to freedom through one of those magic mirrors, but audiences are not out of the woods yet. Quite the opposite, they’re left to wander their way outside, through an overgrown forest shrouded by fog, lit only by the shimmering moonlight above. If circus-goes find their way through the woods, and manage to evade the devious bush people that call them home, their freedom awaits just on the other side of the old junkyard, adjacent to Peachstone Lane.
But is any one of us ever truly free? Now that’s the biggest joke of all.
The Circus is Canceled is an ambitious re-imagining of an annual tradition. This is a home haunt to the extreme, transformed into a full-fledged, hour-long escape game and immersed into reality by a storyworld populated by multiple live actors. And after all, this is Halloween – so naturally it ends with a bounty of candy, this year delivered in either a themed popcorn or cotton candy container straight from the Circus concession stand.
Peachstone Scream! has become, what I refer to as, the curse of a Creative Director. This over-the-top undertaking begins construction between July and August of each year, and takes several full months to bring to life. For me personally, it’s a creative outlet, not just for my game designs, but a rare opportunity to get to personally perform once again.
This annual tradition also serves as a playground to test proofs of concept for new games created for professional clients around the country. (In fact, one of them has already purchased an alternate version of this circus-themed game!)
For our neighbors, it becomes an annual highlight. Many ask repeatedly throughout the early autumn weeks what that year’s theme will be, although we always keep the secret until “The day summer is canceled;” the first day of fall. By early September, there may as well be a stop sign in front of my house, because every car that drives past slows to a stop, taking in what new bits have been added in the day prior, many of them snapping photos as they go. It’s remarkable, but on Peachstone Lane, no one thinks anything of a custom made, giant house-sized circus tent that quite literally covers my entire garage.
Although timed reservations are available to all of our neighbors – free of charge – for several nights leading up to the big day, on Halloween itself, Peachstone Scream! becomes first-come, first-severed. It never ceases to amaze me that the attraction garners wait times of over an hour every single year, with a queue that often stretches down the sidewalk and around the corner!
Despite swearing every year will be the last, it never is. They always come back, taking new forms and offering new threats to this otherwise peaceful little community. Perhaps the land beneath Peachstone Lane is cursed? I certainly feel like I might be when the whole process begins anew each July!
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Creator: Chris +
Number of Games: 24
GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:
Duration: 60 minutes
Designed Capacity: Can be scaled to suit each installation; recommended 4-6 people
More Photos: -> click here <-
Chris + exclusively owns the intellectual property rights to The Circus is Canceled attraction.
To inquire about its availability for your venue, email Chris@Chris.plus.
*Montu, Escape Authority’s VP, Dog Business™ requests we acknowledge that acting is not technically part of his job description.