Application Note: Haunted House

NORTHSTARSHOW SYSTEMS

Application Note: Haunted House

Designing a 12-room haunted house with Northstar

Scenario

A walk-through haunted attraction with 12 themed rooms, an average of 8 effects per room, and a maximum guest throughput of 4 groups per minute. Total effects: ~100. Operator station in a control booth with view to the entry queue.

Recommended Hardware

Show Logic Pattern

Each room follows the same structure:

• PIR sensor at the entry triggers an event-input cue.
• Cue plays an ambient audio cue (action-play-audio on the room's Audio Node).
• Cue pulses one or more relays for fog, strobes, or animatronics.
• Cue waits an appropriate duration, then triggers a jump-scare effect.
• A second PIR at the exit fires the next room's entry cue (or simply resets state).

Operator-Driven Cues

• Show Start (Bridge green button) — fires opening ambient + first room queue music
• Show Reset (Bridge yellow button) — clears all active cues, returns relays to safe state
• Manual scare (Cuemaster Cues tab) — for operator-targeted scares during quiet moments

Considerations

• Plan for guest unpredictability — design cues to be safe if triggered twice in quick succession
• Use action-stop-all sparingly — it cancels every running cue, including ambient audio
• Wire mushroom E-Stops at the operator booth and any high-risk effect (e.g., pneumatic drops)
• Test every effect via the Maintenance HMI Actuator Test panel before opening night

Related Documents

• NSSS-DOC-0014Scaling Guide
• NSSS-DOC-0040Cuemaster Operator Manual

Revision History