MCM & HHN: A History

I've gone to Halloween Horror Nights annually since 2000. Since 2003, I've had the benefit of going as many times as I wanted each year thanks to being a third party Universal Team Member. There's quite a few times before 2007 that I can't recall what house I went through or what my favorite scarezone was. We can probably thank Cigarz for that. But when I got my first recording device in late 2006, I started documenting the event each year.

As many of you know, I had a YouTube channel before Magic City Mayhem. It was a bunch of videos of me doing stupid stuff with my friends. You know, same old same old. Jumping into bushes and filming arguments with parking garage attendants. Usual stuff. I also sprinkled in the occasional theme park video. One of the first theme park videos, and the first Halloween Horror Nights video I ever uploaded was from HHN 17. It was the year of Carnival of Carnage. Jack the clown summoned some of Hollywood's most feared killers and brought them to Universal Orlando for the event. Among them was Leatherface and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There was a scarezone dedicated to this, and a good friend of mine happened to be in the cast. For a long time this video was my most viewed video ever, and was one of the reasons why I started a channel entirely dedicated to theme park videos. Check this video out from 2007:
In 2008, HHN brought us Reflections of Fear. This was the year of Bloody Mary. Magic City Mayhem was just getting started and I didn't film much at the event that year. Only two videos made it on to the channel. They were of the zombies that were in front of the Men In Black ride, and a scarezone called Asylum in Wonderland. One of the scareactors "mistook" my video camera for a cell phone and some other cool visuals happen in this video. The video got hundreds of views in just a short time and made me realize Horror Nights is a gold mine! I was going to remember this for next year. Here is a video from HHN 18:

2009 was our "breakout" year in HHN coverage. I uploaded numerous videos leading up to the event. It was HHN19: "Ripped from the Silver Screen". The year of The Usher. Combining these HHN videos with the videos we shot at Disneyland, and the beginning of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter construction, we started to gain a really big following. I was told scareactors were burning DVDs of my videos and playing them in the break room before their sets. Here's two of my favorites from that year. One shows a virtual side by side comparison of the props during the day in normal parks hours and at night and in use by the scareactors of HHN. The second video shows our good friend Monky! Back with his trusty chainsaw:
In 2010 for HHN 20, I tried my best to replicate the coverage I did for 19. I made a couple preview videos showing what might be coming to the streets, and I also did videos of the actual event showcasing scarezones and the icon itself. Views were strong and along with the opening of the WWoHP, 2010 was a great year! Here's two videos from that year. A look at "Fear", the icon. And Saws and Steam. And guess who is in that one? Monky!
It started to feel very routine in 2011. I did the preview videos showing what the props to the scarezones looked like during the day. Also uploaded videos of scarezones during the event and at night as well. My video of the icon for HHN 21, Lady Luck, remains to be the most viewed video from that year:

But then something happened.

We only attended employee preview night of HHN 22. The very next day we had an appointment with the doctor and found out we were having a baby! Thus brought almost all of Magic City Mayhem's productions to a screeching halt.

Harry was born in May, and by the time HHN 23 rolled around, we were kind of able to get back out to the event again. Kind of. Lauren and I went together once and it was our first official date night since Harry was born. So no cameras. No MCM business. I was able to go into the event several times after either while on break from work or immediately after work. I took a lot of pictures and it's because of these, helped get our followship on Instagram off the ground. It would be our second year in a row without video coverage, but with a few photos being shared by Universal and Horror Nights themselves on Instagram, we represented very well. Here are some of my favorite photos I took from 2013:


And this brings us to today. Halloween Horror Nights 24. Videos of props on the streets have been shot and uploaded, and our Twitter coverage of HHN prep was unmatched this year. Magic City Mayhem is slowly getting back to where we were before when it came to theme park coverage including HHN, and new attraction builds. More videos will be uploaded to YouTube. More photos will be posted to Instagram . And more blogs will be uploaded here. There are several videos from past HHNs that I didn't share with you today. Maybe another time. But these are a couple of my favorites so far from this year! I can't wait to bring you so much more!
     

Enjoy it! See ya next time!

mikey