The Beast Takes Over Navy Pier
Chicago Scenic helped Navy Pier produce “The Beast’s Lair” as the headlining attraction for their Navy Fear and Fun Halloween event. This year, the Pier decided to try something new, and mounted a 150-foot-long, 50-foot-wide, and 25-foot-tall inflatable experience that allows visitors to walk around the insides of a giant beast on Skyline Stage.

Chicago Scenic provided overall art direction and theming, creating new set dressing from previously used décor and adding special effects to the attraction and the surrounding area. CSSI Designer Tom Ryan created the look and feel by decorating the entire audience section of Skyline Stage with beast artifacts, and customized the colorization for the Beast to be greener, to go along with the “just caught in Lake Michigan” theme. Chicago Scenic contracted the inflatable from Brainchild Design Lab.

The journey through the Beast starts in the mouth, which is complete with fog machine and scent generator to simulate bad dinosaur breath. From there, guests move into the lungs where a live actor jumps out to scare them. The Beast’s heart has giant inflatable organs and fake skeletons on the wall. An air-blaster noise effect and more actors scare guests as they move through the stomach where terror ticklers swing wildly in front of them, restricting passage. Guests find a squishy floor in the small intestines and more decayed bodies on the wall. An air cannon between the large intestine and colon spews large blasts of air and streams of fog as guests proceed to the exit, where they are expelled out of the Beast with a huge blast of air.

The family-oriented event also included other activities, such as slides, bouncers, a kiddie haunted house, a climbing wall, costume processions, pumpkin pitching, trick-or-treating, and other entertainment. The event was very successful and the Pier is looking forward to expanding it next year.

CSSI Project Manager Rick Boultinghouse worked closely with Pier Project Manager Sherry Caruso to ensure the project was completed on time and on budget. Ralph Concepcion, a partner from Ravenswood Special Events, was the producer, and Andy Lemerand was the job lead on the project.

<<Back to Themed Entertainment/Environments
<<Back to Winter 2003 Newsletter