2022 Year in Review
Jan 14, 2023
Thank you guests and volunteers for another great year!
Quest Night was a great success. Most nights were sold out, and guests had fun in this immersive medieval gaming experience. Guests talked with a dragon, fought a necromancer, foiled an assassination attempt on the queen and told and listened to stories in the Tavern among many other experiences.
We didn’t have time to rest, as this past year we tore down half of our haunt and built 12 new rooms for our haunt, Curse of the Blood Demon. While the creative team worked on the storyline, a large number of volunteers, under the leadership of Jarrett Crippen (build director), worked many hours to rebuild our rooms before the haunt. Brooke Garrett (volunteer director) recruited many large community groups to work with our Scare volunteers to make this great undertaking happen. After a large demolition, land was cleared, a couple of buildings moved, and a dozen more were built in a new configuration. It was an amazing feat!
In July we had our annual Haunt Kickoff to start our 15th show season. Attendees learned the storyline for Curse of the Blood Demon, met our managers and found out what SCARE is about. Many new volunteers attended, and we loved having many new folks join our SCARE family. We also awarded our new, annual, scholarships for the first time. James Manley, Alison Cordero, Joe Villarreal, and Corban Melder were awarded scholarship funds to help pay for their continuing education.
The next weekend, work began on costumes, set designs, scripts etc. to get ready for our guests in October. It does take a village. “Curse of the Blood Demon” sold out quickly and we had a great time scaring our guests and covering them with blood. Our Boneyard crew had fun terrifying guests with Killer Video Rewind and it was great to get feedback from our guests!
In December, we had our official haunt wrap party. We recognized the wonderful work of our volunteers, giving trophies to some, we gave appreciation plaques to our sponsors, and honored Jarrett Crippen for 15 years as our SCARE director. Volunteers designed and created a great art piece representing many different volunteers through the years. Thanks to the hard work of so many amazing volunteers, we also gave our biggest donation ever to the Breast Cancer Resource Center – $50,000. The Board also voted to award $1,500 to the Schoolhouse Foundation to support Manor ISD programs. We also added a new program, 5 by $500. We asked our volunteers to nominate local charities to receive $500 donations from SCARE. The following charities were chosen: OutYouth, Austin Creative Reuse, Restoration Ranch, Central Texas Dachshund Rescue, and Chorus Austin.
2023 will bring some changes. Jarrett will still be our Quest Night, and build director, but he has passed the role of Haunt Director to Keith Ewing. Keith has several years of experience with haunts, ranging from Britannia Manor, to Haunted Trails, to Ragnarok, and he has been active with SCARE for many years. Brainstorming for our 2023 haunt has already begun and we look forward to another great year.