Thread: My Haunted House has been cancelled!!!!

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I found out this morning that the haunted house that I was apart of last year will not be picked up this year. (bleep) Now what am I going to do? I have an idea that I need to discuss with someone in town, but this is very discouraging news. I am so disappointed!

If there is anyone in the Columbus, Ohio area that has ideas (particularly in Licking County), please let me know!

Thanks.

Oh how disappointing. Hope you find another one in your area to work with and hopefully someone on this forum can help with your search.

Was your previous one a private one or done for charity?

The Licking County BIA ran this one last year. I volunteered and since I wasn't involved in the planning, I tried to keep many of my opinions to myself. The haunted house was "nice", but it could have been so, so much better. It would have helped if they would have advertised or put some money into marketing the house. They were not in a very good location and with little to no advertising, they didn't get much traffic. Plus, with the location that was used, there were a ton of fire regulations that affected the effectiveness of the house. I don't think that the people who ran the house for the BIA were interested in doing it again and I was hoping to take over a large chunk of the responsibility myself for this year. If I am unsuccessful in finding a charity to work with me for the house this year, I am not sure what I will do! It would be a shame to have a mind as warped as mine go to waste! (Although, with looking through this site, I am not sure it is as warped as I thought it was!)

Why don't you approach the BIA and tell them that you'll run the haunted house for them if they want to try it again, then give them your list of improvements.

Sorry to hear of your loss, but you can always ask around at a public recreational facility, church or nearby schools for volunteer needs.. Well i wish ya the best and hope you find what you seek!

I know someone that works at the BIA and I did that over a month ago. It isn't that they are concerned that there isn't someone to run the house, but they are concerned about the cost of the house. I won't get into the financials of what they spent last year, but being a first year house, they dropped a pretty penny to get it started and they probably only had 500 people go through the house.

But I do want to know what they plan to do with all of the wood and other materials that they had at last year's show. I wonder if they would be willing to donate the material to a charity that might do the house....

If they invested all that money last year in materials, then that budget should shrink drastically this year. If you saw their financials, then you should have a good idea on what they can cut from the budget this year. Put together a financial proposal that shows they won't lose money based on X number of people coming through. And tell them how you'll get those people to show up.

I might have to try that, but I do have a plan going forward too. There is a charity in town that I would love to work with (it would benefit the local high school), so I am going to see if they would be interesting fronting the house and make this an annual event. If done right, it would be a major money make for them.

If the charity isn't interested, I plan on submitting a plan to the BIA myself, as you suggested. I think that if they see numbers on paper, they would be more inclined to reconsider. BTW, I didn't see the exact financials, but only got "ballpark" numbers from my contact in the BIA.

All the best, hate to hear that.

that really sucks. maybe something good will come out of it? GOOD LUCK!