# Haunted Venue?



## tyler.martin (Oct 9, 2012)

so this has nothing to do with Halloween, and I'm not at all superstitious, but does anybody have a resident ghost, spirit or other other worldly visitor to your venue? 

The current venue I am at supposedly is, but I've never seen/felt anything, but heard lots of strange noises when I'm in the space alone. Our head Stage Carp, has pictures of a white blob floating on the ladder to our loading rail when it was just him and our TD in the venue, nobody else could have been on the ladders as they get locked at the top and bottom. 

One of the venues I used to work in was a rural church built in the early 20's and the original pastor for this church died when the floor boards gave out and the piano fell on him. the building was condemned shortly after and sat unused for 30 years until the theatre group bought it. The same piano is sitting in the green room! I met this ghost many times, either with the lights shutting off, someone calling my name, one day sound cues were playing back somehow even though our Mac was off. 

Anybody else?


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## avkid (Oct 9, 2012)

Yes and it's been proven(?) on national television.
Bay Area Hysteria/Jersey Shore Haunting | Episodes | Fact or Faked Paranormal Files | Syfy


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## josh88 (Oct 9, 2012)

I'm in the middle I don't believe for sure but I'm not a skeptic. I've had a lot of strange stuff happen over the years. Some perfectly explainable and some that I have no idea how to explain. Until I sit down, see and talk to something and have a conversation I won't ever go 100% either way.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## avkid (Oct 9, 2012)

Checking the whole building and locking from the inside only to hear doors slamming upstairs did it for me.


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## Les (Oct 9, 2012)

josh88 said:


> I'm in the middle I don't believe for sure but I'm not a skeptic. I've had a lot of strange stuff happen over the years. Some perfectly explainable and some that I have no idea how to explain. Until I sit down, see and talk to something and have a conversation I won't ever go 100% either way.



Same here.


avkid said:


> Checking the whole building and locking from the inside only to hear doors slamming upstairs did it for me.



Same here in a 1948 nicely converted single-screen movie house. It is the community theatre for Denton Tx, and I have volunteered there since I was in 9th grade. At the time of my "experience", I had just graduated high school and spent a couple of years as a part-time set builder/building manager/everything else-er. I had been the only one locked in the building for hours. As I was doing a final round turning off lights, I was in the scene shop and someone said "HEY" in a deep tone. The sound was weird -- almost omnidirectional. Usually you can detect where it is coming from but I couldn't. The scene shop was two levels high with open-rail walkways on the upper level to each side (one led from above the stage left wing to the upstairs dressing room and the other from above the stage left wing to the dimmer room). Those walkways are notoriously dark, so it could have come from anywhere. 

Let's just say I _finished up really fast_, set the alarm and left. I was surprised to hear that none of the motion detectors or magnetic alarms were tripped when I returned the next day. 

Several other people have had creepy things happen, and this wasn't the first time I had gotten a weird feeling about the place -- this was just 'more confirmation' . 

Here are a few pictures:



The scene shop is directly behind the stage. 
The railing visible on the side is one of those "open walkways"
that leads from the booth (former balcony from its movie house days),
through the house and wings to a staircase in the scene shop.
There is an identical one House Right as well, but instead of it 
leading to a staircase in the scene shop after passing the 
dimmer room, it turns and goes to the 2nd floor dressing room. 




I haven't worked in the theatre since I was asked to light a memorial service for a fellow 
theatre-lover and classmate who passed away a little over a year ago. I hope to do a 
show soon, but it's all volunteer, and it's hard to find the time/energy.




Movie house in its heyday.


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## wiscolighting (Oct 9, 2012)

When I was in high school our TD's office was the past TD's offices for decades. About 3-4 TDs prior to him was one who went sat down in his office and had a heart attack... never liked hanging around that area of the theatre alone... I have never completely believed in the whole ghost thing but have certainly thought about it when I was sitting around in late rehearsals as one of the last people in the building... I have seen some things that have made me believe a bit more... but I can tell you I have made up a lot more than what I have seen purely for the purpose of scaring people. Nothing more funny than telling a bunch of ghost stories and then telling a Freshman "techie" to go up to FOH lighting position and grab that GamChecker you forgot... while a couple of your buddies head up before them and find a nice area to hide...


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## chausman (Oct 9, 2012)

I'm with Josh. Most theaters I'm in are either very old, very busy, or both. Strange noises are too common. I can never be sure who is doing what, when. That's almost always the best explanation for things.


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## Les (Oct 10, 2012)

chausman said:


> I'm with Josh. Most theaters I'm in are either very old, very busy, or both. Strange noises are too common. I can never be sure who is doing what, when. That's almost always the best explanation for things.



Except when you know you're alone in the entire building and you already know all the "normal" noises. 

ooooWHEEEEoooooo


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## traxman25 (Oct 10, 2012)

The last show I did was my first in this particular venue. This theater is in an old factory and the story goes there was a girl who died in the factory in the early 1900's. Several people told me they saw here standing next to me in the dark booth while I was programming. I never saw her myself, and she was nice to me but there were certainly times late at night, all by myself, that I could feel a presence. 

Then there's Top Hat Tom here at the University. He picks his "victims" wisely. He mostly likes to mess with the scrollers for me. Or maybe that's just the scrollers that I'd love to burn in a smelting oven anyway! Tom has been nice to me, others he has certainly messed with a lot.


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## rsmentele (Oct 10, 2012)

At my previous job I worked in an old WWII era National Guard Armory. It was the home to the 192nd tank battalion, which was sent to the Philippians and was involved in the Bataan Death March. I have far too many ghostly stories, but to generalize a couple. When the sound designer was working in the basement alone one night he heard a crowd of voices and commotion in the former drill hall (now the theater space) upstairs, the noises continued as he walked upstairs from backstage, and once he opened the curtain to look in the hall the noises stopped and of course the room was dark. He went down stairs and the noises continued, he checked upstairs again, and the noises stopped once he opened the curtain. He left promptly for the night after that. 

Also wait staff (this was a restaurant/dinner theater) has numerous stories, one of them being that while upstairs one night they felt and heard heavy breathing on the back of their neck, when they turned around, nothing was there. When they told me this story I responded with 'maybe the ghost was an asthmatic' they didn't catch the humor.

One of the best stories was while myself and 3 of the other techs in the venue were taking a dinner break late on night (we were the only ones in the building) we were sitting at a table in the audience area and I heard footsteps across the wood floor walk past us. I payed no attention to it thinking it was my imagination. A few minutes later one of the techs asked if any of us herd footsteps, and we all had, and just didn't say anything about it, thinking it was nothing.

I think these things come with the territory...


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## porkchop (Oct 10, 2012)

In my experience it would be easier to ask who DOESN'T think their theatre has a ghost. My old high school had one before we even moved into it completely!


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## avkid (Oct 10, 2012)

At least I have a good back story.


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## MarshallPope (Oct 10, 2012)

I have a few haunted theatre stories. 

My high school had Victoria. She could be heard whispering backstage from time to time. Once, during notes on stage, we looked back and the booth lights were flickering like crazy, on and off for maybe 2 minutes. Never before, never again. That theatre has since been torn down, and I haven't heard stories of her moving to the new venue.

The PAC I worked in as a college student has an eerie feeling in the cats, emanating from the area directly over the apron of the stage - this "Go away, you shouldn't be here" feeling. I was up in the spot booth once, alone in the dark theatre, near an access ladder to the catwalk, and felt compelled to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible and ran downstairs as past as humanly possible and out of the building. One of the creepiest moments of my life.

My best story is from my church. I've always heard stories about weird things happening, particularly on the half-basement floor in the 1916 portion of the building. There have been times where CD players have turned themselves on and begun playing in the choir rehearsal room. I have seen the choir suite door close on its own. There is an area near the split-level entry to this oldest extant part of the building that is said to be especially haunted. Once, one other person and I were alone in the building around 1:30 in the morning and we heard two distinct voices coming from this area. Our secretary later told me that she was sitting, talking to our janitor there and they both saw a shadowy figure walking up the stairs toward them. Neither of them acknowledged it then, but they compared stories the next day and described seeing the exact same thing.


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## ravenfan91 (Oct 11, 2012)

Normally, I do not believe in ghosts, but one of the theatres at the college I went to was haunted. During a performance, our followspot (really just a source four) went out for no reason and came back on about 15 seconds later. Other people have reported hearing strange noises from the booth while on stage. As the story goes, one of the old professors had as his final wish to be cremated and his ashes painted into the walls.


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## neotrotsky (Oct 11, 2012)

I personally find the whole "Haunted Theater" thing as a bunch of BS. My stagehands insist it's my religious bent (Jodo-Shinshu Buddhist) that keeps me from buying into the haunted bit, but also every "scary thing" that has ever happened at ANY venue I have been in has always been explained. Also, people *want* to believe that things like ghosts exist, because it makes for good drama. We're in the business of wanting to believe the story... so it's not unusual that the mindset goes into ridiculous territory sometimes.


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## avkid (Oct 11, 2012)

Come to NJ and I'll lock you in a burnt out dressing room for a few hours.
Then we'll see...


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## gafftapegreenia (Oct 11, 2012)

While I was always told my college theatre was haunted, I never directly experienced anything. I was certainly in there alone many many times late at night. However, our props storage building, which was at one time a children's hospital, is FAAAAAAR more creepy at any time of the day.


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## neotrotsky (Oct 11, 2012)

avkid said:


> Come to NJ and I'll lock you in a burnt out dressing room for a few hours.
> Then we'll see...


Was in Bosnia in my early 20's in the late 90's. If that doesn't cause one to see ghosts nothing will.


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## Aman121 (Oct 11, 2012)

Now I really am not a religious person and I DO NOT believe in ghosts or anything paranormal. That said, I can think of one pants ruining experience that definitely put the fear of god in me for a while.....
I was alone in a catholic schools auditorium working with the sound system after a rehearsal. It must have been about 1AM. Now this building is supposed to be super haunted, besides being next to a huge graveyard there was a shooting there 35ish years ago. Killed a little girl. Anyway, I had my ipod cranking AC/DC and running through the PA, and I was busy setting up wirelesses. I kept hearing strange noises and the room was getting colder as I worked. I glanced to the stage, and I saw a shadowy figure off to the side. The lights dimmed a bit, pa faded to quiet static, I could hear whispering voices and doors banging in the distance. Figure was still onstage, kinda looking at me. I was about crying at this point. Then it was gone and everything was normal and suddenly got much warmer. Needless to say, I killed the equipment, hit the lights, and got the hell out. I live a few blocks away so I just legged it home. Scariest moment of my life, to this day I wonder if I was dreaming or if it was a power blip+imagination getting the better of me or if something paranormal really did happen.


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## josh88 (Oct 12, 2012)

I've had a couple "holy **** I'm out of here" moments in one of my spaces that was supposedly haunted. One of the weirdest involved an entirely empty and locked building with me programming at 2 am. I know 100% for a fact the space was empty. We had 2 small doors through a hallway (think tiny door to narnia) which came out into our boom positions. I hear one of them slam shut, which was weird to begin with because I had closed them. I walked up to figure out what happened. I checked it out and it hangs free, doesn't swing shut on it's on, no breeze, nothing could have slammed it. While I was looking at that door, the door at the end of the hallway slammed shut. Both of them with good force. I didn't see anything, I didn't hear anything, I still won't say that place is "haunted" but I sure as hell wrapped up and went out for a late dinner haha. Never could explain how that one happened.


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## misterm (Oct 12, 2012)

neotrotsky said:


> I personally find the whole "Haunted Theater" thing as a bunch of BS. My stagehands insist it's my religious bent (Jodo-Shinshu Buddhist) that keeps me from buying into the haunted bit, but also every "scary thing" that has ever happened at ANY venue I have been in has always been explained. Also, people *want* to believe that things like ghosts exist, because it makes for good drama. We're in the business of wanting to believe the story... so it's not unusual that the mindset goes into ridiculous territory sometimes.



i personally don't believe in ghosts. have i had experiences in theatres/venues that i couldn't explain and made me question that? yes. emphatically yes. and i do tell my students those stories as "ghost stories" and we have a ghost light. why? i fully believe that these stories tie us to the history of our craft and the individual venues and the community. i hate learning history, but i really love learning ghost stories in the various towns i've lived in because it makes the history of the area come alive for me. for example, when my family lived in north ga, it was a blast hearing about the ghosts from the civil war that supposedly haunted the area (particularly the mountain behind my dad's church) and learning the history of the town and the stories passed on for generations; personal stories about the civil war that one doesn't read in a history book. i think we had a thread on haunted venues at one point on CB.


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## patrickh (Oct 12, 2012)

I do believe in ghosts because I live in a town where stuff happens constantly. In my hometown one time at a theatre called the coliseum a very eery incident happened to me. I was alone on a Sunday afternoon after the matinee. The set was being struck by a high school that rented the space for their senior musical. The high school was only 20 minutes from the school so they made the load out in two trips. I was alone sitting in the orchestra texting when a playbill hit me in the head. I looked up and said hello? and no one replied. I thought maybe it had fallen off of a statue as the theatre was a very elaborate movie house from the turn of the century. I continued to text and then another hit me. I looked up and said hello?, this time it was a little creepy. I had locked myself into the space. No one could get in the front doors and the stage door was locked. I walked up into the mezzanine and balcony to see nothing. There where many programs in the floor that patrons had left but none on the hand rails. I walked back downstairs and this time sat down under the balcony. I was reading an email when about 20 programs fell off of the balcony at one time and the row in front of me scattering everywhere. I sprinted out the emergency exit next to me and sat down on a street bench until the high school got back. I have been in the space alone twice since then and just feel eery.
I also happen to live in the town that William Falkner was born and lived. The University that I study and work at own his home, rowan oak, and maintain it. His fictional Mississippi county in several works is actually my town. His ghost will be spotted occasionally around town.
In 1962 there where many riots on campus due to the fact that JFK was forcing integration and our governor was denying him. The army was sent in and several people died. The theatre that I work in everyday has bullet marks on the front columns from the riots that night. It is a creepy space at night with no lights on.

there's my two cents. I have many more stories


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## JFRHorton (Oct 12, 2012)

One place I worked when I was just out of highschool was a converted basement/annex of a Methodist church, which was built in the mid 1700s. Dealing with a structure older than the country was strange enough as is, with odd noises and drafts. I am not superstitious nor religious, but there were definitely a couple of times when I was locking up late at night, alone, when I heard and felt things that were not the normal old building noises. Things like whispers, muffled voices, footsteps close behind, the works.
The worst was the basement platform/practicals/other random stuff storage, which had all of two flicker-y lights to illuminate it, and gave off that musty 'this-once-might-have-been-an-ossuary' feel. I had a couple of times when I got out of there as fast as my feet could carry me, because I felt like I wasn't alone.


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## jglodeklights (Oct 14, 2012)

I'm pretty skeptical of ghost stories. I have pretty much ended up staffing mostly older spaces or theaters with histories of deaths, and only once felt as though there might be a presence. However, it was also 3AM and I had been in the building for about 18 hours. Maybe ghosts just know better though, it is pretty likely I would exorcise their spirit from the space  That or throw my C-Wrench at them when they are really just my assistant making eery and distant sounding cat and dog meows and barks from the fly rail.


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## JLNorthGA (Oct 14, 2012)

Our theatre isn't that old - mid 1980s. Supposedly we have a ghost who is the woman who was responsible for building our theatre.

That being said - we have smoke doors in the fly space above the stage. They face east. They soak up the sun. Around midday, they have a tendency to "pop" and creak. Later in the day, especially in the evening, they pop and creak when they cool. Before we had the stage wiring reworked, we always had problems - they combined the neutrals so that a single neutral "serviced" several hots. Used to have a lot of mysterious electrical problems (also had a lot of bulbs blowing out). Now that everything has been rewired, we don't have electrical problems.

So call me a skeptic.


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## BGW (Oct 14, 2012)

I don't believe in ghosts persay, but I do believe that there are things out there that we can't explain. 

That said, I haven't had any experiences where I haven't been able to find a reason for them. These stories are all from when I was high school. Just to preface this, the main building and auditorium were built in 1937, and definately have some creepy looking areas in the basement due to numerous unrepaired light fixtures. It's pretty dark most places down there. 


1. This one is pretty minor, but still a cool sight to behold when it happens. A girl who was working in the haunted house called me one night. She had been walking down the admin hall to use a restroom when all of the doors slammed shut around her. I explained to her that most of those doors are fire doors, and that they're held open by electromagnets. Something must have tripped them while she was walking down the hall. I can understand why she was unnerved- there are over 100 of those doors in the school, and when they all slam shut on their own accord, it's pretty eerie. 

2. One of my favorite incidents was when some people thought that a ghost was inhabiting the main stage area. They had been standing around when they heard a muffled gasp, a piercing shriek, and then felt a cold draft washing over them. That one was hard to track down, but it was pretty funny when I found out what it was. It turned out to be a very noisy pneumatic damper on an exterior wall. The actuator must have leaked, for it had a loud hiss (which they must have thought was a gasp) and the shutters moved with an agonizing, shrill "shriek". The damper had opened and let in some fresh cold air. Lubed the pivots and got rid of the noise.

3. One guy had been working in a tunnel alone when he heard a hissing noise, was overcome by an awful stench, and then all the lights went out. When he found a staircase and left, he found that the lights were on everywhere else. He was spooked, but I attribute that to the sketchy tunnels and that he had been setting up some nasty looking corpses for the haunted house. When I checked it out the next day, I found that one of the aged ballasts in the fluorescent fixtures had catastrophically failed and popped the breaker on the way out, leaving this guy in total darkness (no emergency lights down there). It had gotten so hot that it had boiled the resin stuff inside and had dripped everywhere. Nothing like the smell of a burned ballast. 

4. Same tunnel, different stories. People always talk about eerie noises in said tunnel, but I think I've found the source for all of them. I've had several people tell me that they think someone is banging on the pipes down there, even when they know they're all alone. The east boiler room is near that tunnel. There are three boilers, two are set up for water and the other is steam. Along the condensate return pipe for the steam boiler is what appears to be a purge valve, although I have no idea why it would be there. Anyway, sometimes this valve will start making a very loud metallic clank, once every second or two. Sounds exactly like someone is hitting the pipes with a wrench. 

Then there are the stories of hearing a wailing moan and shuddering noises down there. It's an ailing 10 horse circulation pump that feeds the auditorium loop. 



So while I don't necesarily believe in ghosts as I've never had an unexplainable incident, I don't completely rule them out.


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