Why does one include a disclaimer in something like a Haunted Attraction?
First and foremost, our attractions are works of pure fiction. The characters, stories, locations and situations are all imaginary, created solely to portray a cohesive story and theme for the attractions to build on. As with all works of pure fiction, they list some sort of disclaimer. This is so that in the rare case that there is an actual person with the same name, or someone knows of a similar incident that coincidentally resembles the fictitious story, we are stating here that they have nothing to do with OUR story or characters.
Many times, writers or content creators will base characters on people they know, use locations that they are familiar with or maybe base a story on a local legend they know or may have heard of. When used with permission, we may name a character after a person we know or someone that had something to do with the attraction or its history as a way to honor them.
When used in this manner, these names or characters are what we call “Easter Eggs”. Like the “Hidden Mickey’s” we see at Disney properties, most people will not even see or know of this secret information. But to those that do know, it becomes a source of pride and maybe even a bit of an inside joke!
It may be simple, like naming a character after a friend or family member. Maybe we use your name as one of the doctors in the Asylum, or we use your name as the name one of the wineries in the Hotel’s wine cellar. (These are all REAL examples!) We have also named characters after friends or family that are no longer with us as a constant reminder to us so that they live on and stay with us.
Then there are more legal ramifications to using a disclaimer. Meadview Asylum has a totally fictitious storyline. Its setting is used because an asylum is one of the most impressive horror themes used in storytelling. It’s scary because it shows how we are all just a mental snap away from being the victim to being the villain. But a disclaimer shows that we recognize the fact that mental health issues are real. We never make light of mental health. We work with the charity Paradise Ranch Foundation. They work with veterans with PTSD and children with autism through the use of horse and animal therapy. We support mental health.
The storyline at our asylum is a fictious creation that has used criminal insanity as its basis. But now the storyline has morphed into a coverup for some other nefarious dealings in our fictitious world!
But what about Hotel Feoray? How real is it? Well to start, the name itself was totally made up. It was created so that it sounded close to the word FEAR! There may not even be ANY family actually named Feoray. At least according to several Google searches!
Some of the names we use are associated with real people. The character Adrianne was named after a friend’s then unborn daughter. That daughter is now grown, has graduated college and is a professional soccer player in Australia! But as a teenager she had a blast taking her friends to the attraction and having them ask who the character was named after!
In the very beginning, the internet was just developing. Everyone was talking about how businesses needed a “website”! Always wanting to be on the cutting edge, we created a website: www.LasVegasHaunts.com , so that it could include both attractions. We created the initial rendition of the back story of Meadview Asylum and Hotel Feoray to use on this “website”? We not only wrote and posted the story on our site, but we hired a voice actor to read the stories of Meadview and Hotel Feoray! He had a GREAT voice as he was also one of the Blues Brothers performing at Universal Hollywood. Unfortunately, he did not get the correct pronunciation key, so while we wrote it as Meadview (as in a view of Lake Mead), he pronounced it MEDview!!! Oh well, potato…patato, at least you could HEAR our stories!
In the first off season after we posted the backstory, we received a call from a production company in London, England. This was before the first Ghost Hunter style TV programs came to the US from England. They wanted to fly a production crew to Las Vegas to film inside Meadview hoping to record paranormal activities!!! The production had already procured the funding to travel to the US and film here in Vegas. We had to explain that we are a Halloween Attraction. We are not a brick-and-mortar building. We are actually built in tractor trailers! They were confused.
“But what about Dr. Vander?” the production manager asked, “…we read it on your website!”. I had to explain, “We made it up! It’s just a story!” Fortunately, we did have connections in the industry, so we called Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia and hooked them up! One of the very first Ghost Hunter TV programs ever filmed in the US was supposed to be Meadview Asylum in Las Vegas! How is THAT for an Easter Egg?
But recently we have had another need to remind people that everything we create is pure fiction. As comical as it is to have a ghost hunter want to investigate a haunted house in a couple trailers in the Las Vegas desert, believe it or not, we now have to deal with issues about Hotel Feoray!
Maybe our story telling has become TOO real. We are now receiving requests on a regular basis from people trying to book a room at Hotel Feoray! Most are from conventioneers coming to Vegas, maybe they are looking for an unusual alternative to the Strip, we’re not sure. Perhaps people are searching for an unusual hotel in Las Vegas and we pop up! It is almost becoming a weekly occurrence! We just received an irate email from a gentleman demanding to talk to a supervisor because his room requests have gone unanswered!! We searched and found his first emails… filtered straight to SPAM! How embarrassing is it to receive an email explaining that you are trying to book a room in a Halloween Attraction?
So hence the need to add a detailed disclaimer to our site. It is a real testament to how good our story telling has become, how detailed and believable our backstory is. While it all seems so very real, we do NOT have any medical positions available at Meadview, (not a real hospital) but technically I guess we could rent you a room for the night in Hotel Feoray! I just don’t think you’ll get much sleep. And THAT is a disclaimer!
