CSSI Themes Navy Pier for Halloween and Holidays
When Navy Pier decided that they wanted a scarier haunted house this year, Chicago Scenic was able to fill the bill. Armed with a new script written by Michael Fosberg, in a joint venture with Ravenswood Special Events, CSSI designed, built and installed a new haunted house that had more pop-out scares and automated effects to keep visitors scared silly.

This year, the storyline takes guests on a tour of Captain Nightmare's Haunted Mansion. Highlights of the hair-raising event include falling bookcases, a levitating bed, and a reanimated Captain Nightmare springing toward the audience.

For younger visitors, CSSI created Scarecrow Hollow. This area houses a hay bale maze, games, colorful monsters for photo ops and a stage for storytelling. The scares continued throughout the Pier, with a smoke-breathing monster staking his claim on the Head House. Those brave enough to continue are in for many more frights, like hundreds of pirate skeletons hanging all around the Pier.

In addition to the haunted house and Halloween decor, CSSI's Tom Ryan also designed all of Navy Pier's winter holiday decor. Visitors were greeted with gateways covered with garland swags trimmed with oversized stockings waiting for Santa to fill with goodies. The enormous kinetic cookie factory once again hangs high above the Snowflake Stage in the Family Pavilion. Window boxes featuring playful penguins are clustered in the Shakespeare Theatre lobby along with Christmas trees and snow blankets to create a winter wonderland.

Project Manager Rick Boultinghouse worked with Navy Pier's Denise McGowan and Tony Camarillo on all of these projects. Ken Glucksberg and Andy Lemerand led work on the Haunted House; Debbie Miller, Chris Kiddle and Russell Pharr led Halloween decor and Joel Gordon, Chris Kiddle and Russell Pharr led holiday decor.

CSSI Builds Excitement at Navy Pier's TimeEscape
Working with Landmark Entertainment Group, the design/development team hired by YNOT Productions, CSSI built the themed decor elements for TimeEscape, a new year-round family entertainment center at Chicago's Navy Pier. The attraction is a three-part, walk-through event and movie that takes guests on a tour of Chicago's past, present and future. CSSI built the modern, Star Trek-like decor that appears throughout the facility, up to and including the retail and ticket counters. The greatest challenge was making all of the elements fit into the small space allotted.

CSSI produced the exterior signage and decor that guests see when entering the attraction, including a large light box that curves in three different directions, corrugated siding and stealth print billboards, which are produced through a process that takes computer animation files directly to photographic paper without a negative.

When guests enter the pre-show area, they are greeted by an animatronic robot sitting in a time machine that CSSI built. The robot tells the guests that the time machine, which was lost at the World's Fair, was discovered during renovations at Navy Pier. He then guides them to enter the time machine, where they are surrounded by CSSI's space age decor. Guests then watch a 3D movie on three large screens that takes them on a tour though Chicago's history, complete with atmospheric effects. The ship unexpectedly malfunctions, so the guests are directed to one of five escape pods that each house a 10-seat motion-based simulator that take guests on a ride through Chicago in the 24th century before landing safely in the present at Navy Pier.

A big time-saver on the project was the paint department's carving of sci-fi panels that were cast out of clear resin in a number of different configurations so they could be used throughout the attraction without visitors noticing. Paint Department Head Kevin Taylor and Paige Barnes worked on these elements.

Project Manager John Beckman worked with Josh Cottrell of Landmark Entertainment Group on this six-month project. Mark Goeke led the job in the shop, Tim Steimle's work on the CNC machine was invaluable, and Russell Pharr and Dave Duwell led the installation team.

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