Dr. Giggles House of Pain’s “Carnevil of Fears” frightened all of Chestermere for seven days leading up to Halloween night in support of the Chestermere Food Bank.
Roughly 1,600 visitors walked through the “Carnevil of Fears” which raised 2156 lbs of food, and roughly $1,800 in cash donations for the Chestermere Food Bank, Mike Koroll said.
“It was fantastic, I didn’t hear anything negative, everybody absolutely loved it,” Koroll said.
He added, “It was a very successful haunted house this year.”
For Koroll ensuring the haunted house is scary is always a concern.
“People don’t want to see less scary. From what I heard everyone said it was the best haunted house yet, and the scariest haunted house,” Koroll said.
He added, “We feel like we knocked it out of the park.”
New to Dr. Giggles House of Pain was a block party.
There were a variety of food trucks parked outside of the haunted house, and Koroll’s street was blocked off to ensure the safety of everyone waiting anxiously to get spooked or running away from the “Carnevil of Fears.”
“I talked with all of the food trucks after because that was a concern of mine too, to make sure we had the right amount of food trucks out there,” Koroll said.
He added, “They were coming out for several reasons, a little bit of networking, a little bit of community, and little bit of profit, I think they certainly hit all of their marks, and they were happy. It won’t be a problem continuing to get food trucks out there from year to year.”
Although Koroll and his neighbours spent nearly a month building the “Carnevil of Fears” and ensuring it would frighten anyone who walked through, they aren’t feeling burnt out, they are feeling even more excited for what’s to come next year and are getting ready to begin fundraising.
“As we’re getting better we need a little bit more time to tinker on stuff throughout the year, just little side projects in the garage,” Koroll said.
There were a few pieces in the haunted house that Koroll and his neighbours began building earlier, such as corpses, which they could have put off until closer to opening night, but instead took a week to build and then didn’t have to worry about them again.
“If you got key pieces that are going to be pretty important in your scenes you got to get that stuff done. We got cracking on stuff when we needed to,” Koroll said.
Now that Halloween night has passed, and the tear down of Dr. Giggles House of Pain has begun Koroll isn’t feeling too exhausted, because there were many people helping him throughout October.
“More people than ever came to help decorate.
“I was trying to get a little better at the event planning, as we were putting scenes together I was making sure we were advancing the scenes to a point where I knew there were jobs for everybody to do.
“If it was a complicated building job, then I had jobs for the building guys, if it was decorating or putting up posters I had those jobs lined up.
“It’s important when you have lots of volunteers that you have work that you can delegate out, so it’s done in a timely fashion,” Koroll said.
This year, about 12 people helped set up walls, and decorate the haunted house, and 25 people acted in the scenes.
“We had new recruitment as far as the acting went, and then they came and helped with other stuff as well, which was really nice.
“It was really great, you want people to get excited to come and act, but it’s really nice when they come out and lend a hand as well, that’s a real important part of it, we all get in there and roll our sleeves up and get it done,” Koroll said.
“There was a surprise around every corner,” said Dave Mercer who has walked through Dr. Giggles House of Pain multiple times.
“It got way better, it was bloody last year, this time it was more dark and sinister,” Mercer said.
“This one was awesome, I really liked it,” said Daniel Knowler who donated the exit signs for the haunted house.
“There were a lot of scary parts, it was really well put together,” he added.
This year, the cash that was donated to the Chestermere Food Bank will be used to sponsor families for Christmas Koroll said.
With the cash donated Koroll will purchase a holiday meal for a family, along with presents which are on the children’s wish list.
“I want to voice my appreciation for everybody involved in Dr. Giggles and helping make it such a huge success.
“This is what Dr. Giggle is about, it’s about building community, and having a good time with the community, building something we can be proud of and sharing it,” Koroll said.
