Elevator Drop

Last year one of the main effects was the elevator in our haunt. At the very end we would drop them down about 6 inches or so with a pallet jack... and since we were able to get it for free it turned out to be a great deal. But of course if you want to buy one they go up in the hundreds...

Any complaints ? How fast a drop? was it worth the hastle?

In 2005 at the haunt i worked at they had an elevator that just turned to the side and magically you were in a cave. it was a pretty cool effect... we had tube lights inside the walls and the walls were just made of boards with spaces between them and the tube lights "chased" and it made it look like it was going down... it was a pretty sweet effect and we got tons of compliments!
I, myself, would leave out the last drop as many have mentioned with the potental problems... if you take your time with making it look the best you can I'm sure people will love it without the drop.
Hope you get stuff figured out anyway!
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The Haunter said:

Any complaints ? How fast a drop? was it worth the hastle?

Click to expand...

No complaints at all... infact most people at the end of the haunt complemented us on the elevator effect. The drop was very fast... once you pull the handle their weight brings them down... and YES it was definetely worth it (especially since we got it for free).

I did an elevator last year and just put the base on a set of discarded chevy valve springs. I then dropped a 20 lbs weight on it to get the whole theng to shake. Simple, not dangerous (I put the weight in a re-enforced area were it couldn't break free and crash through the ceiling). I would have loved to use pnumatics. I personally wouldn't drop anyone more than three inches and make sure the landing is really, really soft..