The Stanley Hotel Embraces 'The Shining' Tourism With Maze Design Contest

Gabe Zaldivar
by Gabe Zaldivar
Last updated: 10:00 AM ET, Thu January 8, 2015

Image via YouTube

The Stanley Hotel, the place that inspired Stephen King to sit down and pen The Shining, is asking fans to design a maze that will one day pay respect to what was presented in the film of the same name.

Of course, we would ask that you refrain from staying the winter with just your thoughts and your family for company.

The hotel's website (h/t Neatorama) explains the details behind the pop culture-themed contest.

"The historic Stanley Hotel is excited to announce a public competition to design a 61,500 sq. ft. hedge maze inspired by Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980).

The contest will attract designers, both amateur and professional, from around the world who will have an opportunity to put their work and name on permanent display at the iconic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year."

If you need some inspiration, you might want to glean some from this chilling scene from the film:

The plans are already quite expansive, including the use of "1,600 to 2,000 Alpine Currant hedge bushes."

If you are fan of the movie or just like doodling out mazes in your spare time, get in your entries by Jan. 31.

From there, employees and Stanley Film Festival staff will choose a winner whose design will be unveiled on April 30, 2015. More than bragging rights, you are also promised a placard that will live on at the maze's site.

Back in October, we pored through some of the more intriguing details of the movie's locations.

As a reminder, a great many scenes were shot in studios back in England as well as on location at the equally gorgeous Timberline Lodge in Mount Hood, Oregon.

We again point to BBC.com's Lindsey Galloway and her assessment of King and his impetus behind writing the now famous novel:

"In 1974, famed U.S. horror writer Stephen King and his wife Tabitha lived for a year in Boulder, Colorado. In late October, they spent a night in the mountain resort town of Estes Park, 40 miles northwest of Boulder. They checked into the historic 155-room Stanley Hotel - and found that they were the only guests for one of the last nights of the hotel's season."

The Travel Channel even has a video dedicated to the hotel:

The Stanley Hotel, like any resort, is keen on embracing any tie to pop culture it can, so it makes perfect sense it would go a bit further to tout its history.

Halloween seems to be a special month with a Murder Mystery Dinner as well as a Shining Ball taking place.

Now the hotel can boast of having a maze similar to that seen in the movie. If there was a race to become the all-out Mecca for the 1980 movie, The Stanley Hotel may have just pulled ahead of its rival in Mount Hood.


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