Thread: my first haunt

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i did my first haunt in 2010 and even though the weather was against me, we did really well. i learned a ton about how much there is to learn. i made it out of pvc and black plastic. (i hope to post pictures soon.) but i made the HUGE mistake of making the roof flat!!! do not so, if it rains your outta luck and it will destroy it. but the hit of my haunt was the "sensory area". it was just a black hallway but with thread and gooey stuff hanging down, people hiding in the dark to scare them as they came trough. it really freaked people out. anyway i am already working on my props for this year, so if you have any helpful tips, i would love to hear them, thanks

Well, first, congrats on your first haunt.

What type of floor plan do you have? Is there a specific theme you want to go with for your haunt or do you do different scenes/areas?

how big was your haunt? are you charging admission?

I tend to think of a haunt mainly from a business perspective, looking at safety, throughput, and special effects. you can never over-engineer for safety.

biggest tip if you haven't already done so: attend as many haunt related conventions as possible to soak in all the information. take all the classes possible for at least 2 years. meet the pros of the industry to learn from their mistakes and be inspired for your own creations. you'll be surprised by how friendly everyone is and how willing they are to share their secrets, provided you're not in the competing market with them ;-)

we created the first Halloween haunted house in mainland China 2 years ago (Shanghai Nightmare), couldn't have done it without learning from Leonard Pickel and the other teachers at HauntCon. a few other haunts sprang up after seeing our success but they all tanked, they thought a haunt was just simply putting up some scary stuff and waiting for customers --- boy were they wrong.

last year i just came up with different themes for rooms then built my haunt to work with that. it had a maze like feel. i had the spider lair, the crawl space with creepy clown over head, body parts room with severed head and a water pump to make bloody water through head into a pool, creepy doll/little girl room, sensory area, and the black light ghoul area. then outside the grave yard and pumpkins for sale.

Well, decide what rooms worked very well last year and change up the ones that werent. You dont want to really have the same exact rooms as previous years.

yea we charged for it. $2 during the day and $4 at night. it was a moderate size but felt bigger because of the layout we did. the feel of it is really old school back yard haunts. one of the hard parts is getting volunteers. but safety was a huge concern, i had like 10 fire extinguishers. i know i have to do a lot more advertising for this year. i am going to try buy one get one free deals. just to get the word out what we are doing. and as for making props i have great ideas but i have to artistic skills so i do my best.

well, if you are charging money for it, then i definitely recommend to start attending the conventions if you haven't started. HauntCon and MidWest Haunters Convention offer tours before the weekend show, you visit about a dozen haunts on each of these tours and get to discuss ideas with others on the bus. you'll see what works and what doesn't. seeing pictures and videos is one thing, seeing them in person and taking notes helps a whole lot more.


if you get large enough, you're gonna probably move onto a larger venue and have to worry about leasing, fire marshal, ADA rules, business license, management, sales, marketing, etc... etc... it's a whole business of its own. if you ever talk to many of the industry pros, they'll often try to convince you to stay out of the business first because they may not take you seriously --- then you just gotta be head strong, make it happen a few seasons to prove yourself, and then show them you're serious =)


and also if you're charging for it, it already IS a business and you need to be business minded in order to stay in the game. here's a recommended book if you eventually want to turn this into a true income generating business:
http://www.hauntbook.com/entrepreneur.html

yea the funny thing is i HATE to be scared....hahahah sad ...yea we are planing to start small for a while and get the word out, while researching. i would LOVE to do this full time, but i will take it slow and play it smart. i eventually want to tie it into a haunted hay ride.. we have plenty of space for it. but that will take a few years.

well, actually there are a few haunters out there who LOVE to scare but HATE to get scared. you're not alone =)

having a lot of room is a LUXURY and many haunters don't have. so you have that to your advantage. MOST haunters in the industry still have a day job, they just make sacrifices for 1/2 the year to build their haunt. a small percentage do eventually turn it into a full time job --- but they must be raking in at least 500K in ticket sales to do it full time.

planning is very important, so committing enough time to attend the shows is the first step. I don't want to sound like I'm shoving this down your throat but many times haunters who don't learn enough from others' mistakes will make those same mistakes and hurt the industry as a whole. for example, if you overlook a safety concern (that you may have otherwise learned from someone else) you may hurt someone, cause a lawsuit, and if it's a big enough case, you may change the safety standards for haunters across the country. so as a precaution to yourself and a courtesy to the rest of the industry, learn to not make mistakes that others have already made =)

was that black plastic fire resistant?

Glad to see you are excited about your first haunt! It should keep you motivated to do bigger and great things in the seasons to come! Best of luck to you on all your future Haunted creations!