Haunted Attraction Network

This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about pricing your haunt.

Choosing the price for your haunt is one of the most important decisions you'll ever make with it and it's one of the easiest to get wrong. Price too high, no one comes. Too low and you can never turn a profit.

So how do you do it? That's the topic of this week's episode as we look into some approaches for finding your haunt's ticket price.

This Week's Episode Includes:

Intro
Conference Reminders
Quick Update on Our Haunt
Some Housekeeping Notes
How Much Should a Haunt Cost?
Approaches That Don't Work
What Can Work?
Covering Costs
Marketing
Other Tips and Thoughts
Conclusions

A collection of recordings done over the Halloween Weekend 2019. Scott talks to SpOoOoky Steve, the winner of the 2019 Trick or Tweet story telling competition at Tampa Theatre, gives his view of Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Tampa, chats about closing night at Undead in the Water at The American Victory Ship and reads a piece from his newest book, Awake in the Dark.

Everyone, the 2019 season is in the bag and that means all eyes should be on 2020. But, before we get back to slinging panels and building props, it's worthwhile to take a moment and examine the lessons that we learned.

However, this year is a little bit different as we were actually closed due to road construction. So, we have to look outisde our haunt to find things we can learn and, fortunatley, we have a lot of lessons in that regard.

So, without any further ado, here's a look at our lessons from the 2019 haunt season.

This Week's Episode Includes:

Intro
Conference Reminders
A Quick Update on Our Haunt
Our Lessons for 2019
The Power of Marketing
The Power of Add Ons
The Failure of Small but Many
The Need to Focus on Fundamentals
The Power of Actors
The Importance of Tightness
The Importance of Credit Cards
The Power of Customer Service
Conclusions
All in all, if you're planning on haunting in 2020, this is an episode you do NOT want to miss!

ScareHouse is on hiatus for 2019 while the attraction relocates, but the team announced two new experiences for this Halloween Season—a remodeled version of The Basement plus a new escape room, Stalked by a Killer. Both attractions are open Thursday through Sunday from October 17 to November 2.
Scott Simmons (co-owner and creative director of ScareHouse) has been haunting for 35 years, and the new location provided him with the opportunity to explore intimate horror experiences. “We realized we had to move out and reboot a lot of what we were doing. In doing that, it became immediately obvious that we couldn’t take everything down, pack it up, move it, and deliver the same high-quality show all in one year.” So, for this Halloween season, Scott’s team installed The Basement and the new Stalked by a Killer escape room in a venue Scott dubbed “The Scream District.”
“A good haunted house, in my mind, should be about the whole spectrum of emotions. The Basement takes guests out of their comfort zone. If we're doing it right, guests will think, ‘I wasn't sure I could do that. I wasn't sure I could face all these things.’ In Stalked by a Killer, guests become the main character in their own horror movie.”

The ScareTrack team experience the Contained Liverpool Press Night!

Click and listen too our full review of the TWO brand new attractions at Contained Liverpool.

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BUY CONTAINED TICKETS HERE: https://www.containedliverpool.co.uk/

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Visit our website here: https://scaretrack.co.uk

Watch our latest ScareCam vlogs: https://youtube.com/scaretrack

You can support the show here: https://patreon.com/ScareTrack

ScareTrack merchandise can be found here: https://smart-fx.co.uk/smart-artists/...



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Last weekend we had to record early because we were making the long trip to Houston. Well, we're back and, after having hit nine haunts in just three nights, we have a LOT to talk about.

We visited two trail haunts, three scream parks, one tourist attraction and three traditional haunts. It was a wild trip with hours and hours punctuated with trips to some of the best-known haunts in the region.

So how did it all go? You'll have to listen to the episode to find out.

This Week's Episode Includes:

Intro
Conference Reminders
The Basics of the Trip
Fright Trail
Lost Hollows
Redrum
Creepy Hollow
Scare Fest Houston
Dungeon of Doom
Terror Dome
The Haunted Hotel
Texas Maze of Terror
The Price Difference
What Others Can Learn from Houston
Conclusions
All in all, this is a REALLY long one and we're sorry for that. But we had a lot to say and this is an episode that you do not want to miss!

Hush Haunted Attraction in Westland, Michigan, is debuting three haunted houses in a new venue that’s 6X as large as the previous space. The trio of haunted houses—Descent, Coven, and Rosecliff Hall—reside inside a 40,000-square-foot-building for one admission price. Hush opened on September 27th for the 2019 Halloween season and continues every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and on select weeknights through November 2nd.

Cody Bailey, executive producer of Hush, used the new building as an opportunity to design a themed environment. The environment provides a background for the haunted houses during Halloween, but also allows for year-round revenue opportunities. “Since Hush began, it’s become known for its high-quality set designs, actor-driven experiences, and new technology,” he said. “This year, it’s all indoors, and we're creating an experience that people aren't used to seeing in a haunted attraction—at least not in this region,” he said.

Cody has been in and out of haunting since childhood but committed fulltime to Hush in 2013 after a brief political career. “The whole reason I'm a haunter—after graduating from college, running for office, and losing—is that I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was stuck in a rut and, when the opportunity to do Hush came up, I took it. That failure of losing the race for office changed my entire outlook as well as my career path. I'm extremely glad I lost and that I took the risk to see how this would do. The opportunity to plan new attractions each year and create these high-quality, immersive sets is the motivator for me,” he said.

For the 2019 Halloween season, Cross Road Escape Games unveiled a unique, theatrical horror experience with escape-game overtones—The Séance—which opened on October 2nd and will continue on through though November 3rd. Ticket costs range from $45 to $60 per person depending on the date and time. Each séance group is a maximum of eight people, and guests must be 16 years and older.
Madison Rhoades, co-owner and creative director of Cross Roads Escape Games, describes the The Séance as a typical séance with “unexpected twists.” It’s an hour-long experience that takes place in one room and features human-size puppets playing visiting spirits. In addition, The Séance has been designed to be portable, so the experience is available for purchase by venues around the world.
Madison’s background led her to The Séance in a rather circuitous way. She was an actress in Delusion during its first year, and then she worked at the Queen Mary's Dark Harbor as one of their scenic painters. “I loved both sides of it,” she said. She and her husband had been theater students, and when we discovered escape rooms, they were thrilled. “This was what we've always wanted, to open our own theater and be in the story,” she said.
Another reason Madison is such an escape games fan is that she wants to bring guests to what she calls “the brain blast moment.” “This is when people are working so hard on something and then, suddenly, that light bulb goes off and they're like, ‘Wait a second guys. I know it!’ They’re able to open up the lock, and they get such an adrenaline rush and feel so good about themselves.”

Dead Factory, located in Mexico, Missouri, is a 30-minute, linear walkthrough experience in a 12,000-square-foot building. Guests enter the realm of Dr. Phil Phobia, a deranged neuroscientist who specializes in the wide variety of human fears. Dr. Phobia’s allows guests to get up close and personal with common phobias, which change yearly. Dead Factory is open from October 4th, 2019 to November 2nd, 2019 every Friday and Saturday night from 7:00 to 11:00 pm.

Dead Factory also represents how a hobby can turn into a seasonal business. Brian Foreman and his brother bring their haunt to ‘life’ every year in between working full-time jobs. Brian has been learning the haunted house game for the past 15 years, and he keeps working year-round to create the best guest experience.

ScareTrack - Thorpe Park Fright Nights 2019 / On-location Review

The ScareTrack team experience the 3 mazes at Thorpe Park Fright Nights 2019

Listen now to hear our thoughts on their brand new attraction Creek Freak Massacre

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BUY FRIGHT NIGHT TICKETS HERE: https://www.thorpepark.com/fright-nights

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ScareTrack Website: https://scaretrack.co.uk

ScareCam Mini Vlogs: https://youtube.com/scaretrack

Support ScareTrack: https://patreon.com/ScareTrack

ScareTrack Merchandise: https://smart-fx.co.uk/smart-artists/...



Social Media

Facebook.com/ScareTrack

Instagram- @scaretrack

Twitter- @scaretrack

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