Our staff has been approached by a local organization which wants to run a haunted house on the museum's grounds, NOT in the museum proper.  I have been asked to see what others in the museum field are doing about non-standard use of the facilities.  None of the activities will take place in historic structures and, at this time, we are not considering details such as insurance.  What we would like to know is, do other sites allow the use of their grounds like this?  What happens when items such as "tombstones" are left on the lawn for a week?  Does the idea of scaring children conflict with our mission as an educational facility?  We would get lots a free publicity and, hopefully, lots of people to the museum that might not otherwise come.  BUT, this is not what a museum stands for (the organization has already rejected our suggestion of a historical themed fun festival).  Even though this would not be our event, we would be connected with it.  Of course, this all has to go through our Board of Directors but we on the staff would like to have some idea of what we think is appropriate.

Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,
Betsy Crawford-Gore, Curator
Santa Fe Trail Center
Larned, Kansas

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