Walking through a maze of corn stalks in the shape of a rooster, people might think they are in the heart of the Midwestern United States, but in reality they are in Padova, Italy.

Brett Herbst, a BYU agribusiness graduate, owns The Maize - a company that specializes in creating designs for corn mazes around the world.

The company owns Cornbelly's corn maze, located at Thanksgiving Point. It designs corn mazes in Utah and across the United States, as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy and Mexico.

In some of these countries, Halloween is not celebrated. In this case, the corn mazes are more of a fall harvest festivity, Herbst said.

The mazes are cut out of already grown cornfields, said Kamille Combs, the director of marketing and public relations for The Maize. The company has a team of five or six people that travel around the world and cut the mazes.

The company mostly uses tractors to cut out the mazes, Combs said. But the first corn maze was cut out using a modified weed whacker.

In some countries harvest times do not come in the fall, so the corn mazes open during the country's harvest season, Herbst said. For example, the corn mazes in Mexico do not open until February - their season for harvesting.

While the European corn mazes do reasonably well, they are not as popular as those in the United States and Canada. This is because the Europeans do not have as much of a disposable income as Americans and do not spend as much money on advertising, Herbst said.

The designs for the corn mazes come from what is popular at the time. This year Cornbelly's theme is "Pirates of the Cornibbean," with a maze in the shape of a pirate ship and treasure chest.

"We try to pick something that gets people excited," he said.

Cornbelly's offers a number of activities besides the maze. They also offer a jack-o-lantern lit hayride through a trail in the corn, and Halloween story telling for children. At night the corn maze is haunted by ghouls and monsters to startle, chase and scare visitors.

The maze is open from 4-6 p.m. on weekdays, from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and is closed Sundays. Cornbelly's closes for the season on Nov. 3.

Copyright Brigham Young University 31 Oct 2007