Saturday night at the Princess Theater in Columbus, expect tidal waves, tornadoes, earthquakes, firestorms and an alien invasion, starting at 9 p.m. The Princess Theater’s fifth annual Halloween event is 2012-anxiety personified: it is the Mayan Last Chance Doomsday Dance, and one and all are invited in their most apocalyptic attire (not required for entry) to let loose for one last Halloween.
Will Howard, owner of GTR Productions and coordinator of the lights and sound of the event, said the night’s main focus is not the DJs, lights or music but the attendees.
“First of all, it’s a Halloween party. We focus on the audience in costume. We’d love for them to come dressed up as apocalypse survivors, or people that rescue, like doctors or nurses, or come as part of the apocalypse, as a zombie or an alien or a tidal wave or a fireball,” he said.  “The second emphasis is the art, and we kind of bring it all together with the music.”
The sounds of the Doomsday Dance will be created by four DJs, each allotted an hour of the event: PJ Ladner, Blaine Garrard as Geronimo, Philip Vanderleest as GLOtron and Trey Burke, a graduate student in public administration, as Baby Statesman. Burke said his set will riff on the end-of-the-world theme through an orchestral, operatic lense.
“A lot of my songs are going to have orchestras and symphonies, getting the whole ‘end of the world movie’ feel to it,” he said. “Armageddon just happened, and there’s this huge orchestra playing over it.”
The event will feature all hand-painted sets, five eight-by-eight foot murals depicting the natural (and extraterrestrial) disasters of the doomsday, along with a six-and-a-half foot diameter reinterpretation of the Mayan calendar. According to Howard, the Doomsday Dance will hold the most artwork GTR has ever had on stage.
Jeff Bourque, senior clinical exercise physiology major, has handled video effects at many GTR Productions as video deejay, InDIVID. Bourque said the videos washing over the set will often coincide with the elements presented in the artwork.
“A mainstay of a GTR production is our hand-painted sets, and my projector will hit the sets and bring a certain part of the visuals to life; I’ll video the set with a tidal wave to make it look like a tidal wave,” he said.
Along with the Doomsday sets, sounds and videos, Howard said there will be a bit of an obstacle for guests to grapple with upon entering.
“We’ll have an inflatable obstacle course there to represent the jungles leading up to the Mayan temples,” he said.
The Doomsday is the latest in a series of Halloween events at the Princess Theater, following last year’s Haunted Nintendo party, put on through efforts from GTR Productions, local DJs, artists and students. Burke said the parties have become increasingly reliable celebrations, and, in turn, an increasingly safe place for extravagance.
“A lot of Halloween parties, there’s this problem of is it going to be a good time, because house parties are really hit or miss. People take it to that nth degree here because they have that sense of security that they know their time spent getting dressed up is worth it,” he said.
For those concerned with missing part of the Mississippi State vs. Alabama game, having the game projected during the event is in the works.
Tickets are $8 for presale and $10 at the door. Presale tickets allow lines at the door to be avoided the night of the event and can be purchased at the Princess Theater any night before Saturday or through those posted on the Facebook event page.