Thread: Going professional....

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Since you'll need a full time place to cover your prop shop/storage/maintenance, it might as well be a warehouse or industrial space. Cheaper, easier to get, and they don't feak out when you start welding, casting polyurethane, or installing a paint booth. If the haunt itself is going to be strictly seasonal [and it sounds like your would be Oct 1-31 or close to it] renting a commercial space for 90 days [6 weeks for installation and inspection, 4 weeks operation, and 2 weeks tear down] but having the permanent space be elsewhere makes sense. An advantage to this is that you start with an empty building for every haunt so you can tailor the theme or just the vignettes to the space available regardless of whether it is bigger or smaller than the yuear before. A disadvantage is that you can't just add every year--you need to make choices about what you install every time. Some stuff, especially graveyards, can be easy to expand or to shrink with available space. Other stuff might need a specific amount of sq footage to put it up at all. Eventually you may find it desirable or necessary to buy a commercial space, but by that point [I'm guessing a decade], you should have a solid enough following to be able to find real estate on the outer edge of town and have a building built to specification.

I'm a strong advocate of having time set aside for families with little kids. It's largely a selfish motive--kids who grow up with "fond" memories of haunts generally continue to patronize them. It's a case of developing your demographic. I have it fairly easy since I tend toward the classical gothic horror haunt and you can tone down a Dracula or Frankenstein's monster a lot easier than you can tone down a chainsaw massacre. If you have enough space, you could have some sections that are kid specific that by pass more adult oriented scenes. During children's hour, the exit from the graveyard is to the left; when it's time for a no holds barred
terrordrome exit to the right.

just a few thoughts.

Originally Posted by Bubbels

Building in the warehouse.. I like that idea, probably save on cost. Unless you can flat out buy a commercial building and commit to being there for X years. But that has its downsides, like the need for expansion.

you can always buy storge space.

Originally Posted by ondeko

Since you'll need a full time place to cover your prop shop/storage/maintenance, it might as well be a warehouse or industrial space. Cheaper, easier to get, and they don't feak out when you start welding, casting polyurethane, or installing a paint booth. If the haunt itself is going to be strictly seasonal [and it sounds like your would be Oct 1-31 or close to it] renting a commercial space for 90 days [6 weeks for installation and inspection, 4 weeks operation, and 2 weeks tear down] but having the permanent space be elsewhere makes sense. An advantage to this is that you start with an empty building for every haunt so you can tailor the theme or just the vignettes to the space available regardless of whether it is bigger or smaller than the yuear before. A disadvantage is that you can't just add every year--you need to make choices about what you install every time. Some stuff, especially graveyards, can be easy to expand or to shrink with available space. Other stuff might need a specific amount of sq footage to put it up at all. Eventually you may find it desirable or necessary to buy a commercial space, but by that point [I'm guessing a decade], you should have a solid enough following to be able to find real estate on the outer edge of town and have a building built to specification.

I'm a strong advocate of having time set aside for families with little kids. It's largely a selfish motive--kids who grow up with "fond" memories of haunts generally continue to patronize them. It's a case of developing your demographic. I have it fairly easy since I tend toward the classical gothic horror haunt and you can tone down a Dracula or Frankenstein's monster a lot easier than you can tone down a chainsaw massacre. If you have enough space, you could have some sections that are kid specific that by pass more adult oriented scenes. During children's hour, the exit from the graveyard is to the left; when it's time for a no holds barred
terrordrome exit to the right.

just a few thoughts.

u know i was thinking a CHRISMAS haunt! well not really a "haunt" it would be family friendly like a bunch of lights covering the ply wood walls. but then u take the chande of some #### coming threw breakin all the lights and ripping them down. on the other side side and a totel gore side just christmas gore glore. TONS OF BLOOD.

-BYH

Originally Posted by Scattered Screams

this show is full of info that you need to go pro. its in March

http://haashow.com/wp-content/themes...ges/header.jpg

Transworld is pretty much just a trade show, with most of the vendors in the industry on hand showing off all their new props. They have very few seminars anymore, although it looks like they are trying to change that back to the way it used to be. Be sure you go to the Transworld haunt show and not the costume show. They split them up a couple of years ago, and the vendors you would be interested in went with the haunt show in St. Louis. The costume show is geared towards wholesalers, retailers and mail order companies.

Midwest Haunters Convention has more seminars but fewer vendors. It is also geared more towards the little guy, so that would be the place to go if you only win one million in the lottery.

I have heard both good and bad things about HauntCon, depending on who you talk to and what they think about Leonard Pickel.

All of these have tours of local haunts, and some of them offer lights-on tours so you can see how the scares work.

Originally Posted by Bubbels

I am under the impression that outside of Disney there is not much kid orientated haunts to be had. Its kind of a bummer as I am sure there is plenty of haunt enthusiasts out there who are parents and sometimes short on a baby sitter. Would be interested to hear if their is an industry reasoning behind this, as im sure im not the first to think of it. Glad you liked the idea!

I think this has been tried all over and just hasn't been successful. A couple of the reasons I have heard is that most of the patrons want to be scared, and parents look at something like this as a night out in an adult atmosphere. I have also heard some say that many don't want to risk the money on their kids, preferring something with guaranteed fun like a movie. I don't know of any haunts that will give you your money back if you (or your kids) get too scared to finish. That just means they did their job.

The only real detail I recall about the kid thing was in J.B. Corn's information. He actually set up smaller, less-scary haunts for young children as a companion to the large one for older kids and adults.

well yeah u cant ask for your money back. ur sort of right since the houses are now set on a high scare rating.

Originally Posted by BackYardHaunter

well yeah u cant ask for your money back. ur sort of right since the houses are now set on a high scare rating.

That was one of the big problems. The family would go through a couple of rooms and the kids would get scared (often the haunts weren't even very scary - the kids were just freaked). So now the parents have to figure out how to get the kids out, with new families coming in behind them. This created traffic jams, and patrons going against the flow. Then the parents would get everyone outside and want their admission fee back since they didn't feel they got their money's worth.

yeah and my local house has "scared doors" which double as exits for fires ect and the run staright outside. there all over. with those you take that chance away. theres aways traffic jams tho. do to people pace of speed. some people like to take it all in when other are scared as hell and run threw. one other problem is fire proofing every thing. thats a hassle.

There is sprays that can be sprayed from air guns to fireproof materials, its some cool stuff and would probably solve fireproofing. Personally I would put a large workshop, like 100x100 steel structure on my property to build props. Then rent a building in August up to December, It gives you enough time to set-up and add details. Plus not having a permanent building at first would let you choose better locations. The main issue is actors, it seems to me the hardest is to find actors and train them. I want good actors, not just people who can scream. People that can actually get into peoples heads, freak them out on a whole. Most of the time its the girlfriend or chick getting scared, the boyfriend is startled but then laughs. I want good actors to go after the boyfriend, if he is scared then the significant other will follow and be scared. A good haunted house full of details sets the mood and creates a creepy atmosphere. To take advantage of the atmosphere you need actors, they get the scares. Use the atmosphere to build tension like the crank on a jack in the box. Then the actors are the jack.

yeah i know about those sprays but still its a pain to do it to everything....yeah your right about the boyfriend thing. its ture some the boyfriend throws the girl in front of him. i saw that on travel channel