Closed in spaces make for scarier haunted houses.

This was the advice University Board received from Dallas and Company, a Halloween and magic supply store in Champaign, for its haunted house, the “Haunted Union.”

The haunted house is sponsored by UB and the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. It will be open 8 p.m. Saturday in the 7th Street Underground. Admission is free.

Participants will enter from the outside entrance to 7th Street and within about 15 minutes they will exit from the Union entrance to Seventh Street.

It will be something fun for students to attend before they go out and will be enjoyable for community members, said Katie Skaggs, UB special events coordinator.

To make the haunted house scarier and more enjoyable, UB members took a trip to Dallas and Company where, inside of the store, is a haunted house that UB chair JC Miller said gave them some good ideas.

After hearing that closed spaces make for a more frightening haunted house, the challenge UB faces is to create walls within 7th Street, she said.

Set-up for the “Haunted Union” will begin Saturday morning and chalkboards and fabric will be utilized to create walls.

“We’re being a bit of over-achievers this year,” Miller said. “It will be very interesting to see how it turns out.”

UB and the union hosted a haunted house last year in 7th Street Underground and plan on using some of the same props and then some.

Strobe lights and fog machines were purchased to make it more unique than last year, Skaggs said.

Purchasing more props was the reason UB members visited the shop in Champaign.

“We are trying to make it bigger and better this year,” Skaggs said. “We are trying to make it as scary as possible.”

To make the “Haunted Union” scary, there will be theme rooms and actors who will seek out people in attempt to make them squeal.

Some of the theme rooms include bats, blood and clowns – and not all are set out to scare.

“Some of the rooms are fun,” Skaggs said.

Movies like “The Grudge” and “The Ring” will also be a part of the theme rooms.

“It’s pretty much a generic haunted house,” Skaggs said.

Miller said the nearly 500 people visited the haunted house last year found it both scary and fun.

“Last year when they went through they thought it was funny,” she said.

Community members also enjoyed it.

Last year the community participated and children who got scared, or just had fun, loved it, Miller said.

The actors in the haunted house will be members of campus organizations including the Black Student Union, Epsilon Sigma Alpha and Alpha Sigma Alpha. The organizations will also help set up, tear down, hand out candy and pour hot apple cider.

Because 500 people attended the event last year, UB is looking forward this year’s turn out.

“We are hoping for just as much of a crowd,” Miller said. “It’s a good family event too.”

Skaggs agreed and added, “It should really be an awesome turn out.”