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  • your first year

    Hello all, I'm starting to develop a business plan. so i was just wondering what all of your first year was like. amount of costumers, how much did you spend on advertising,did you sell other items like glow sticks, did you rent your first year. just need some point of reference to give to a bank about expected turn outs and possible other proceeds from other sale of items. i have a good idea of what i will spend to build the haunt and put props in it and start up costs. just need to give them some comparable industry data from other haunts.

    Thanks Joe
    In Darkness they hunt the living
    http://www.DarkMatterScreamWorks.com

  • #2
    Some Banks Will Only Lend You The Money

    .. IF you can prove that you don't need it.
    Or have a ton of collateroooolll!
    Business figures from 20 or 30 haunts might show some similar numbers? But there are so many reasons and ways to fail, maybe we need to list those too, right up-front?
    I could not afford to fail at all. It took me years of slowly working at this every day and most nights too, devoting every conscious thought to this haunting/thing, asking many questions of other unusual types of tourist businesses , trying to gauge the market for a different type of peculair entertainment.
    Medieval Feast, ran for maybe 10 years , people loved it when it was a free-for-all of vulgar behavior, throwing food , grabbing waitreses. then ... a divorce ended that business.
    Themed restaurants are popular, but I'm not selling food.
    The only way I managed to find success was to work at it ALOT and doing 98% of all the work myself and maintaining every night hours all year long with very rare exceptions because of very nasty weather when no one should be out driving anywhere anyway.
    How long have you been studying this business? Have you ever been a part of it before in any capacity?
    Knowing these things will help us here to respond better without wasting our time covering old ground.
    hauntedravensgrin.com

    Comment


    • #3
      Don't borrow money if you can somehow get or acquire the cash other ways, maybe pick up an extra weekend job...etc There's just too much risk, or, if you think your plan is convincing seek investors possible.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Jim Warfield View Post
        .. IF you can prove that you don't need it.
        Or have a ton of collateroooolll!
        Business figures from 20 or 30 haunts might show some similar numbers? But there are so many reasons and ways to fail, maybe we need to list those too, right up-front?
        I could not afford to fail at all. It took me years of slowly working at this every day and most nights too, devoting every conscious thought to this haunting/thing, asking many questions of other unusual types of tourist businesses , trying to gauge the market for a different type of peculair entertainment.
        Medieval Feast, ran for maybe 10 years , people loved it when it was a free-for-all of vulgar behavior, throwing food , grabbing waitreses. then ... a divorce ended that business.
        Themed restaurants are popular, but I'm not selling food.
        The only way I managed to find success was to work at it ALOT and doing 98% of all the work myself and maintaining every night hours all year long with very rare exceptions because of very nasty weather when no one should be out driving anywhere anyway.
        How long have you been studying this business? Have you ever been a part of it before in any capacity?
        Knowing these things will help us here to respond better without wasting our time covering old ground.
        Well Jim, i have been a home haunter for about ten years. getting bigger each year. building my own props, and designing rooms and working year round too. as my wife puts it.. I (she) comes down stairs at 2 in the morning and he (me) is on the computer, not looking at porn but in the Halloween forums always looking at Halloween stuff.....lol
        I also have worked in the haunt business for the last five years at a local haunt that does about 8 to 10 thousand people a year. I help them put it up and take it down, work as an actor in it. and helped design a few rooms for them. This last year they wanted me to bring my stuff and add on to them. you most likely read my post. well now i believe that if I am going to take the leap to pro i will have to do it on my own. although i still talk to the owners of that haunt, I'm getting the run around about joining them. I told them that i did not want to just bring my little bit of props and things, that if i was to bring anything i wanted to bring a haunt, something that would really add to theirs. as i found out they just wanted my stuff and and for me to get little for it. I have lent some of my props before and got the satisfaction that they enhanced their haunt. If this is old ground for you point me in the direction of some threads or info that you think would help. I'm just trying to figure out what i might expect for a first year attendance from the people that are in the business. I have talked to two haunts in my area already but getting info from them isn't always easy. i am (Or will be) the competition you know. I have read Kelly Allens Book. Haunt Entrepreneur,lol (btw great info thanks) was a subscriber to haunt world mag. Been in countless forum threads reading them looking for info. I was going to try this many years ago but the non profit pulled out on me six weeks before opening...Thanks to the lawyers. It just left a bad taste at the time. now I'm getting the courage to try again. but i want to do things right this time. all the adice i can get would be great. I hope this gives you a n answer to what you asked...
        Last edited by naberhoodhaunts; 03-19-2011, 11:38 AM.
        In Darkness they hunt the living
        http://www.DarkMatterScreamWorks.com

        Comment


        • #5
          It All Sounds "GOOD!"

          I like what you are telling us. I had read your previous posting concerning possibly joining a haunt-in-progress.
          There are a great many "deals" out there but most people creating the body of the deal figure their piece of the pie large for them, possibly inflating their own worth, knowledge, experience, financial contribution.
          I could have had a deal that sounded pretty good with alot of artistic freedom, getting to see some more of my strange ideas coming to "life" but the deal-breaker was when he said I would be his partner for "?X" amount of money, then simply "Walk Away" after the first five years!?? No thanks. He pleaded that he needed the money so he would have something to leave his kids!
          I also have "Kids". If I had his money I might be considering not ever "working" again! (He has enough for many familys of "Kids".)
          Stay sharp, look at any deal from both sides, success or semi-success or calling it quits, who walks away with how much and with what?
          Any contract is really only as good as the people who are signing it, illreguardless of legal phrases and clauses.

          Where do you think that you will be able to find your employees? Do you already have a number of friends/relatives who would really want to help out? If so, this is great , as long as they do show up as promised. This can be the most frustrating part of this business, getting and keeping viable, talent.

          As far as many aspects of building and running a show, mostly what I know and have done here would not help anyone else because my idea of haunt-entertainment is very different from the majority of those doing this sort of thing. (I said, "Different" not Better.) "Viva La Difference!?"
          Although I think I do owe popularity to those differences I have luckilly enjoyed throughout the years, amassing a wealth of free storys, articles in magazines, listings on numerous "Bests" lists and tv shows, which all does help, but none of any one of them are really bank-breakers or even close.
          Mostly what I "Know" is what has worked for me, here. I have many patrons who support me with their ticket money, so I must be doing something half-way "Right".
          I play this mostly for fun, not fear, or revulsion or embarrassingly messed pants.
          A scream, a jump, then a laugh because what made rhem react like they did was so silly, stupid, simple-minded. Nothing to ellict any bad dreams or new phobias... unless they are just scared of my basic looks, voice, percieved personality, which has happened too.
          hauntedravensgrin.com

          Comment


          • #6
            I've been starting running and selling, taking over businesses since 1982. If I had only had a plan. Anyone that says they had a plan and it all worked out started out on a trust fund and they are lieing like a pro blohard on top of that.

            Plan number one, earn the money somehow and never let someone or some entity take all the profits and potential the money you worked so hard to accumulate to make your business solvent by not paying intrest or having short term deadline pay back plans that amot to taking away your money. In other words go to work, report to only paying customers, yourself and collect the money. A bank, an accountant, a financial advisor all have plans to show you how you need to pay THEM and they don't really do anything except make work for YOU, add attorneys to that. Un less you are already driving around in a limo with an attorney and an accountant in the jump seats recording every time you give a hobo $3, plan to do these things yourself. Ask this question: Okay I give my money to a bald guy and then what happens? Answer, you don't have your money anymore.

            Any further plans will not work out. Plans will not meet a schedule, someone elses approval and only be a waste of time talking instead of doing what makes money someday. I would want to know how these other guys got 8,000 to 10,000 attendees and there is the plan. It might have sounded so cool to only have a location for as long as you need it seasonally but really, if they made that much money and saw that many people 25% could easily have covered rent for a whole year so part of the plan is not to have money hogs around. Hogs that take money that could have paid rent somewhere for a long term stake in a business. And beware the you seem like a nice guy, this could be YOUR business! Chances are quiters walked away with the money you earned the hardway. I have taken over businesses and done people great favors getting them out from under all sorts of illusions and middle men they once had and you learn all mistakes you can possibly fall for that way.

            Plan two, actually have some skilz that equate to money being earned rather than paying contractors to do things. You can only know by doing and chances are you have it all down and there is no reason to worry, you are already organized in your head and heart.

            Plan three, forget the word business plan, it really pisses me off. It means you are totally scared or overwhelmed by having your own enterprise and have all the wrong people giving you advice. It is also pretty much an immediate laughable term if you talk to anyone that has made enough money they might be of assistance to you if not monitarily, with direction. Perhaps you think businesses become successful with really smart people with buzz words? Nope most of the best businesses dropped out of academia at some point (usually early) because there was an opportunity to engage in. How many haunted house owners learned this business in Princeton, Yale, MIT or that place in California oh yeah Stanford. Nope none. Those are the only people that like buzz words. The hedgemonic masses. You think it takes a big stack of cash to have your own business? Who told you that?

            Plan four, step back and really determine if someone you would like to be like is a success or not. They can be a financial flop and actually quite happy or they may have a cash flow system and a belly full of 50 pounds of undigested meat that is going to put them into an early grave so what is the point of their stupid life anyhow? Even when evaluating haunts that claim to be successful, have they been in the same town and actually grown a business to something that is a load of fun or is a money machine or have they been a gypsy that thinks they are pretty clever. There have been some self proclaimed authors out there that several decades didn't really seem to work out and their college degree didn't seem to translate into real work. In fact I think college gave them all the idea that you try to get everyone to do something for you because you are somehow smart and that never seems to work out right because they never really did it themselves to be able to tell anyone else how to do something.

            Really how difficult is it? Just keep working your butt off enduring pain and injuries and near death experiences while everyone laughs until you need counciling only you don't talk to mind benders you go to the laundromat and go back to work. Eventually decades later you have something that works and has proven to work in your town. Then it is even then not a business plan, it is a sort of formula you try to go by. A network of people that evolves over time and changes with every dip and rise of the economy that can never be planned for.

            Plan five, plan for failure. If you don't see what doesn't work, how will you ever identify what does work? If you don't work you aren't learing. If you fail then what? Did you simply go for decades not having a vacation or do you owe someone a lot of money? What is your exist strategy? Build the stuff nice enough that it actually has some sales value? Have a trailer big enough to take everything to the land fill? Give it away to younger aspiring haunters? Are you gonna pay storage bills on all of this stuff until it rots? You want a plan the guarentees success? Spend $375,000 for a good subway sandwitch francise location and become a sandwitch artist when people don't show up. Get about 30 locations and you might make about $300 a week with out ever having to punch the time clock, after taxes. It is so simple.

            Plan six, to have a sustainable business means doing the same thing over and over and getting results. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity.

            Plan seven, do what you have to do with the least amount of overhead and stuff. The more stuff you have, the more stuff you have to fix all the time and there are relative costs to that.

            Plan eight, if you don't plan on seeing 8,000 to 10,000 people in a town that just proved there is such a market, then you better have something. If it is okay to just exist with even lower numbers, you need to own the property outright or that this is the ultimate plan that is saves money over great time in the property and anything over $20 a day is a party. Or do the haunt for charity. A great number of successful haunts that have lasted the test of time began trying to make a charity work or took over an existing attraction that they had worked at for a few years in positions where the could see everything. Not a few days.

            Plan nine, just say no to bugs.
            sigpic

            Another fabulous post from the U.S.Department of Wild Imaginings, now in spectaclar stereo, sponsored by the Adhesives and Sealants Council, suggesting ways to stick things together since the 1800s. Not fabulous in a gay way. Your results may vary. Illinois residents add 8% sales tax. These posts have been made by professional post makers, do not try this type of posting on your own without extensive training, lovely assistants and a trusty clown horn.

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            • #7
              Plan 10: Somehow turn your existing stash of props and walls into money all year round as a side business. Even if your regular income means you don't need this money and so you won't do such a lowly thing. Reason being you begin developing contacts with like minded contacts in the same region and this becomes a big part of spreading the word before you have anything set up.

              Plan 11: Even if no one orders your services, you might take your home haunt and simply expand it to the home and secondly for other locations that generate money. You can be a side decoration offer at a party rental store or independent costume shop actually renting props for parties. This way you pay your storage costs as the thing gets rather large. Perhaps local independent film makers and students, weird photographers if there are no takers create your own party that costs money to get in. The reason you do this is to take that community of people you have found and show off your skilz. Second If you really are looking for an investor you have a past performance record of how much existing crap can make if viewed by a paying patron. So imagine you see 10,000 people.

              Plan 12: you can make money, either flat rate service or a percentage of the ticket sales at a pro haunt just by having all the props and walls. The opportunis are out there where a big haunt wants to try a different location but wants the original to keep going as a back up and instantly you could fill that gap with people that already have the advertising budget and network plus the location. It might require travel but equates to a big shot of capital and some great contacts for the future. WaLa you never have to explain what a haunted house was to someone that had no idea what that was but had a billion dollars and got this money because they kind of hated everyone they ever saw including you right now and had no problem taking their money, thats how they got so much or making sure the deal was heavily toward their pocket. Or they waste weeks of your time because there isn't much on TV.

              Plan 13: You legitimately help every haunted house in traveling distance from your home as much as you possibly can for free. These later become your advertising freinds and references for customers and they get the same back. Plus you get to trim all of your ideas to what is really necessary either raising your bar to pro level or lowering how much you fuss on detail that may be overkill.

              My very first pro haunt cost $475 and a crap load of labor extorted from one of my companies. It was actually the purchase of an old attraction with so many walls we refinished over a few years to scenic design level. It was 3,000 SF and maybe $1000 into props and masks combined with a charity that had at that time been using black plastic prior for 20 years. Someone had a sound system, someone else had a bunch of electrical harnesses for their christmas lights, The rest was free junk it took a few years to round up. The charity had the location the insurance, the actor skills and I had the haunt and a hearse. Sponsors donated all the posters and fliers and so on. I was in from day one at 20% of what ever money came in the door. Of course this was all a learning lesson and I shoud have been in at much higher a rate. I wanted it to be accepted in the beginning, it was a bargain for them. The second year I went a little nuts and spent way too much money. I doubled the size with new materials and paid to tear down buildings for the decor materials and it was the best year ever. Then people died, having nothing to do with the haunt except removing quite a few contributors. Other large groups came in and brought their customers with them unfortunately over the years those people took charge and kind of changed how many hours it would be run, how much it would charge, much lower than what I had it set at which of course did two things. One it meant no one came because if it was that cheap it must be crap and two it wasn't open long enough in the season to develop and capture word of mouth and 3, 20 % of nothing is nothing. I did kind of demand at least as much money as previous years and got not quite that amount and sold the whole haunt and hearse to become a second attraction to some younger guys that were seeing big numbers. As this was a win win situation I know what happens in the future and all of this was a big investment in developing the regional markets, testing how many people come and to what kind of haunt and how it was marketed to get those kind of customers. Every location has to be developed and tested in that manner over the course of decades. Then you can file a plan in your head. The really big guys have no less than about 25 haunts they built over the years in varied degrees to learn what to do. Or kept building on the same one for one or several decades and developed their own customers.

              Plan 14: Pay special attention to off season storage expenses. Even buying semi trailers on property you already has isn't necessarily cheaper than paying storage rent. Plus tear down and set up labor if really compensated probably equals the rent on a good sized building all year long.

              Plan 15: Charity haunts, Home haunts and Pro haunts have all unique and different customers. There might be a small over lap buthey generally do not travel from one to the other or follow you to the next level. It used to be the big thing that haunts would completely change their haunts total theme every year as an advertising gimmick. Still haunt customers might only come by every 3 years so why change everything that much when you simply can pick and choose which customers you want to come this year? That's a little trippy but very high level getting money from what ever resources you have kind of thing. There is no way in hell all these 20,000 SF and larger haunts can get tremendous detail if it is in a town that only sees 10,000 customers per year and so they tend to be underdone. The actors feel it and the over all performance is adequate but the customers never come back. Not 3 years later, never. The haunt can be marginally changed and the detail and where things are rotated and it fits the bill, even develops greater fandom as people love to inventory things. They were trained by Walmart to see if the coffee makers offered are all the same or not. I went to one detailed haunt 30 times over a few years and caught myself doing this. Seen it 100 items, there is 3 things new, a bunch of things changed sequence and I felt like I got my $20 worth. Imagine you had to buy a ticket to see what is in Walmart? Well, it costs $35 to see what is in Sam's club! Wanna go see pallets of stuff? Wheee!

              Plan 16: Pick a better location. If your town does 10,000 people potential that means 30 to 50 miles away there is another town that would bring 10,000 so find a spot in the middle of the two towns and see 20,000. Don't figure this after being in just your town for a couple years. If you move it might be like starting all over.

              Plan 17: If you are paying for storage or rent, every square foot is cost per month or year and some totally free prop might really have cost $100 to keep hanging onto so have haunted garage sales or outright sell outs every 5 years or so, sell before it rots. Scrap prices are up big time every January and huge things made out of metal are thus tremendously fun. One hearse I had $400 in, I sold to another haunt and it at last check had entertained nearly 60,000 customers so how much did that $400 make? Also a square footage calculation. When you get big you think like a retail store requiring $150 per square foot for building and fixtures but it can all be done an started by adapting what you have in your storage garage right now and no more money than that. It is just a different perspective of turning things into money. There is a fine line between selling a product and renting out the viewing of the item like a paid museum.
              sigpic

              Another fabulous post from the U.S.Department of Wild Imaginings, now in spectaclar stereo, sponsored by the Adhesives and Sealants Council, suggesting ways to stick things together since the 1800s. Not fabulous in a gay way. Your results may vary. Illinois residents add 8% sales tax. These posts have been made by professional post makers, do not try this type of posting on your own without extensive training, lovely assistants and a trusty clown horn.

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              • #8
                Plan 18: It takes many people and hundreds of thousands of dollars to actually build a regional market. That doesn't mean you need 5 partners in one location, it means all the haunts work together carving out the customers that work for their style and share what works and what doesn't. Some doofus in Texas can't really tell some guy in new York if he will ever get back his 7.5 million dollar per year location expenses. They don't but of course before things go down the tubes everyone collected a regular salary. And you can develop an overwhelming debt in lower population cities. Wonder if some of these haunter really died or figured out how to get out of debt? Like the haunted version of the witness protection program? In other words don't even do it, go into debt. I know of only a few haunts that routinely cycle investor money every year to great success. Yet, they never get out from the routine of having to gather investor money every year. It isn't just haunts though lots of business operate this way and credit has been deemed to be the american way. Still guess what happens when the credit markets dry up? And they never became independently solvent? Game over. So why not be solvent from the beginning and develop your market, matching the resources of the haunt to the customer demand. You can actually later have many haunts you are affiliated with rotating props for that new show every year and yet they may all be at different performance levels in design, still matching what the markets deserve or crave.

                Plan 19: Do everything in secret. What you have and what you dont have is on a need to know basis. Filling out a form and leaving it off to be evaluated by a banker might as well be telling everything to some gossiping spinster. All of a sudden people you could care less about are forming judgements that make things a little harder to make things happen in the money circles. Everyone has a great laugh and only rarely do you get to show them by making a more than expected deposit. It is about the same way as screwing up your credit rating by filling out every credit card offer you get in the mail. Make the financial guys wonder and leave it at that.

                Plan 20: When giving out tons of free advise, spell check is optional.
                sigpic

                Another fabulous post from the U.S.Department of Wild Imaginings, now in spectaclar stereo, sponsored by the Adhesives and Sealants Council, suggesting ways to stick things together since the 1800s. Not fabulous in a gay way. Your results may vary. Illinois residents add 8% sales tax. These posts have been made by professional post makers, do not try this type of posting on your own without extensive training, lovely assistants and a trusty clown horn.

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                • #9
                  If no one has mentioned it, find a copy of Kelly Allen's (Raycliff Manor on the HW board) So You Want to be a Haunt Entrepreneur. I hear that's the best place to really start, especially with creating a business plan...

                  http://www.hauntbook.com/entrepreneur.html
                  http://www.bigscaryshow.com
                  http://www.rabidbadger.org

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Plan 21: Any information you need to set up or operate any business is available free on line somewhere, especially items relate to local state and federal government. Now in your education I must say, you can buy all the videos, see the DVDs, Buy all the books, spend a couple thousand going to conventions and another couple thousand visiting pro haunts whether you get in for free or chose to remain anonymous so you can really experience the haunt rather than turn it into a 2 hour social event.

                    Just saying what if you spent that $5,000 worth of money and the hundreds of hours it took to do all of those things to, and actually put all of that energy into your dsplays, props and such and listened to your customers and let the commnity tell you what they would like to see. Just starting out you will have beprayed upon and bought a whole lot of hoover sweepers, sent money in advance for things that show up 3 months later and you want to do things NOW. If you go to bigger conventions you simply discover there are lots of things out there for sale that you can't afford or should not buy until you have figured out how to make that first dollar.

                    Plan 22: Value that money you earned, understand what it took to make it and base value judgements on that. If my fantastical dream world costs 6 hours hanging on a grinder was that magical product really worth it?

                    Plan 23: Exchange the concept of I'm going to have a pro haunt with I'm going to have a hobby collecting haunt videos, books magazines and taking courses. Sounds like great fun, quite the achievement but, in retrospect is is not. Then what are supposed to do? Now you know the media rather than haunting so you are going to have to write a book or start a DVD collection to keep attending all the parties? You are going to replace hours and hours of your time on forums and taking phone calls and meeting people out in the real world instead of buying materials and building something original for your haunt. If you just went ahead and did it, you won't have to borrow money, fill out forms, think like how some corporate entity wants you to express things and your haunt will be better for it. Do you want to be a fan of haunters or do your want to be a haunter with perhaps an original take on something that works for you?

                    Plan 24: Many of the haunts that have stood the test of time were begun and operated and developed before AL Gore invented the internet. Now I will say I do not type all of this crap because I want to hear myself or be someone. Contributing is also a form of learning only if you notice I seem to put stuff out there and kill threads. no one agrees disagrees or had anything much to add. If you contribute, more information is out there to help, morefacts are filled in to the many haunt equations possible and free advice is available right here.

                    Plan 25: My "haunt education" if totalled up cost about $25,000 before I made the first $400 off of a charity haunt. Was that necessary? I wil say I did find one freind that has been long term that showed me it was okay to be nuts and clever. A life changing kind of sickeness. But for the most part I was participating in things that could have been done after I made my first million. How does spending $1000 to travel somewhere to discover that there are props you can buy for $18,000 really help you go from home haunt to pro haunt.

                    Plan 26: If you really had spent this same $5,000 to $20,000 on your displays you would run into someone that says you should put this into my building and have an attraction. All the time you spend making travel plans and deciding what you are going to wear can be put into cheap number 2 pencil designs of your next thing you are going to build.

                    Plan 27: Don't let this preoccupation destroy your day job or core businesses. Only at the point where money comes in that pays the expenses is it something to so passionately spend every waking moment.

                    Plan 28: In formation of a business it is "customary" to spend upwards of $25,000 on developing a market study. Well, some towns aren't worth that much investment and that would be customary for a company marketing to much larger regions with a location or product. Why do you think so many businesses do fail? They borrow money and then spend it on things that don't actually move the business forward. Then they just owe money. How are you going to pay that money back? sell your magazine collection? Sure there is an industry out there and ways to make money but that is a seperate life style to having a successful haunt. Being a haunt celebrity is an entirely different matter. Everyone that passionately wants more haunts out there are the people that have something to sell whether is it the fears you must face when talking to the fire marshal, I'll tell you how for $30 to I really hate to point out specifics but what makes anyone a genius or a success? The haunts that I know that actually pulled in the bucks quickly didn't actually want another haunt 3 blocks away.
                    Last edited by Greg Chrise; 03-22-2011, 11:05 PM. Reason: normal is a setting on a dryer
                    sigpic

                    Another fabulous post from the U.S.Department of Wild Imaginings, now in spectaclar stereo, sponsored by the Adhesives and Sealants Council, suggesting ways to stick things together since the 1800s. Not fabulous in a gay way. Your results may vary. Illinois residents add 8% sales tax. These posts have been made by professional post makers, do not try this type of posting on your own without extensive training, lovely assistants and a trusty clown horn.

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                    • #11
                      Keep it coming Greg, I will absorb as much as i can... Thanks for all of it so far.
                      In Darkness they hunt the living
                      http://www.DarkMatterScreamWorks.com

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        yes i read kellys book front to back, back to front.....its the best thing u can read... it tells u about starting a business plan all the way through operating and everything in the middle!!!

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I have nothing against Kelly's book but lets put a few things in perspective here. Kelly already had a business running a hotel. He already had a partner and they had ultimately some amount of equity in this business that was leveraged or sold ultimately and used as reference for all the things he did. So what do al of you that have nothing but rent or house payments, car payments and phone bills and not so much disposable income do? Will you ever make it? Will knowing how to fill out forms make you feel like you are accomplishing something?

                          Also it says right on the front bio that Kelly actually began haunting in 2004 but the book didn't come out until 2008 or so I'm guessing. So what happened the first three years before Kelly decided to get all serious? Did he not somehow educate himself on what he could do, what he wanted to do, what he found as a passion for doing this thing? I'm guessing there were some smaller events that proved that it has potential and he found his style and THEN it was time to get investment capital that could surely be guarenteed to be repayed. I'll bet he didn't start out with the business plan first.

                          So there are services on the internet you can pay $200 and get a business plan program to fill out. Have you noticed that no institution is lending money yet? Filling out forms or answering questions to yourself might be highly organizational. Going to all the haunt events might be very inspirational, the line Larry Kirchner uses all the time if you got one piece of information, only one from any DVD or book or article it was well worth the investment. Thats from a guy who has literally made millions. I have talked to Larry and he has some skills in business before agreeing to take over the business that was the Darkness. He had learned by owning a bar that if you put new furnitings the place is very popular for a while and makes lots of money. When he got the opportunity to run the Darkness, he maxed out his credit cards and even got loans on his car hoping that sprucing it up would bring in lots of customers and it worked. He didn't lose his car. Was there a business plan there?

                          Even me, I will tell you this is what I do, I learn and take over businesses and operate them for a few years then sell or liquidate them or in the most recent case about 17 years still doing crap. I didn't get into a haunt as my first ever business. After a few years of feeding myself with everyone's information I was able to just walk into a place and set up 3,000 SF and have it open in 19 days never having one ever before.

                          However, here we are talking home haunt skills and passion. We are also talking business plan so this means limited money. How many people are in that boat? Guess what most of the long term successful haunts you can look at a financial chart of exactly when no one was hiring, country wide economy was in a recession or stalled and that's when people got out and started a haunt. They wanted something better or something to do at all that made some money and didnt necessarily have any money to eat every day let alone thousands from grandma in their birthday cards.

                          I have a lot of people's stories of how they did it besides my own. One guy went from home haunt to being a second attraction somewhere and now has two haunts that each see about 16,000 people a year. Wanna know how much the first haunt cost and did it profit? Another guy worked at one that was following the state fair, agreed to pay what the scrap value would be on it and actually had times where he had no choice but to live in the thing. Some other guys gathered all their friends after helping the Jaycees out for a few years and immediately kicked ass because they knew what not to waste advertising money on. Some other guys had lots of money and transformed 18 acres into a community demanded event with a slow start and years to crash 10,000 people but enjoyed what they did enough to sell all their other busineses and buy 174 acres that will be something someday, they added an indoor haunt building and the rest is history.

                          Another guy well eductated spent the better part of decades, years getting people to sign contracts and some one got screwed a large amount of the time. Other guys developed a passion for building animatronics and having the best charity haunt they could possibly have but then they had families and financial responcibilities and had to disband.

                          A lot of people that made it from absolutely nothing have a story but they didn't write a book about it. I have this business book I probably paid $60 for that has in great detail anything you would ever think or wonder about. The book is 4 inches thick. I bought it and thumbed through it one afternoon and realized something big time. I had even run companies that had attorneys sitting there with every estimate and such, I have done government contract daily reporting and reqirements documents and I have this damn book. You want it? I will mail it to you. The piece of the puzzle is I did spend $60 but, this book describes the mannerism to about 90% the kind of business I do not get into. I know how stocks work, how to valuate your business for investment or resale I know how to do all the accounting with reuards to quarterly reports and I know how to get 1.5 million dollar jobs accepted. No where in that book does it mention masks, lighting, art detail, or pretty much crying when the season is over because it was so much fun and it is over. No where does that 4 inch thick book descrbe how people come up to you crying and thanking you for setting a haunt up for them and it is a highlight of their life to have done it. No where in that book does it describe getting things at a garage sale or a flea market or having a freind spot something you can get and modify that equates to money someday down the road. No where in that book does it really describe sweat equity or any institution giving you credit for that.

                          I guess I will just sit here and wait until everyone has developed enough credit and start up capital to pull this off, filled out all the forms and sounds like something. Maybe I will write a book while I'm waiting for everyone to catch up.

                          So when filling out this business plan, what do you fill in for expected per year income? $2,000 or $60,000 or $200,000 or 1.4 million?
                          Last edited by Greg Chrise; 03-23-2011, 11:32 PM.
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                          Another fabulous post from the U.S.Department of Wild Imaginings, now in spectaclar stereo, sponsored by the Adhesives and Sealants Council, suggesting ways to stick things together since the 1800s. Not fabulous in a gay way. Your results may vary. Illinois residents add 8% sales tax. These posts have been made by professional post makers, do not try this type of posting on your own without extensive training, lovely assistants and a trusty clown horn.

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                          • #14
                            There are old pros out there that can be in trouble in debt and get the haunt out of a freaking horse barn and make half a million dollars. There are out and out thieves that some sectors of the county have been like haunted teamster wars stealing trailers full of props. There have been haunts that began as $164,000 SBA loans that ended up on the action block, gone for the first guy that can write a check for $10,000 and move the contents out of 6 semi trailers in 24 hours. Go! There are people that on a measely budget of $3,000 per year have a wonderful haunt that is 20,000 SF and renouned among other haunters but can't figure out how to get out of low attendance. They could be seeing 10,000 people after being in business for 20 years. There are people that have read Kelly's book that have thousands of dollars of crap on their property that may never open or see more than 80 people.

                            It is all more than filling out a business plan. It is doing something.

                            Now back to the gentleman in New York. His town is easily good for about 24,000 people in attendance, the haunt that rcently said they may not open next year really didn't have it going on and saw some intresting skills and concepts in his props and he is so lucky he didn't get weaseled. But, I'm seeing enough formation in those 72 pictures that can be greatly expanded on and it doesn't require a lot of money to go to the next level if he desires to. On my way to my job I thought specific to New York and their laws concerning fire detection systems and such and at some point any haunt in even the rural areas is going to get hit with a $20,000 system. It might not be until year 3 but it will happen or it may go 20 years before someone says you should really do this or else. So this means there has to be $20,000 made and saved to me, it doesn't mean a loan.

                            You can actually have a haunt that is no larger than about 15 Square feet and make $2500 to $10,000 per year. Yes, fifteen square feet, no joke. Wanna hear how? So 2 years of doing that and the fire detection devil is paid off. Or how about a display that is about 4 panels by 10 that can make the same amount or even more and where to put it with cheap rent?

                            But, what will happen here is instead all the haunt owners are going to say don't quit your day job until you have $150,000 to start your first haunt. Of course they all started out with nothing but that is what you should do. This ground has been covered before. I attended one consultants talk where he had 3 pages of hand out neatly stapled together that says really look into yourself and decide if having a haunt is really something you want to do? Really. He went on to discuss all the things you will find disillusioning and could cost your whole life savings, your home etc. Oh, you think this doesn't apply to you? Do you have $75,000? Sure, sign right here. Feel free to use my good pen. Is this what we would like to discuss or list as something to avoid?

                            When is Kelly going to get hip enough to have an affiliate program that every time someone links to kellys book and buys it you make a dollar? That would be so much easier than trying to give advice.
                            sigpic

                            Another fabulous post from the U.S.Department of Wild Imaginings, now in spectaclar stereo, sponsored by the Adhesives and Sealants Council, suggesting ways to stick things together since the 1800s. Not fabulous in a gay way. Your results may vary. Illinois residents add 8% sales tax. These posts have been made by professional post makers, do not try this type of posting on your own without extensive training, lovely assistants and a trusty clown horn.

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                            • #15
                              Some people have just plain figured out how to enjoy every moment of their life. Where is that paragraph on the business plan?
                              sigpic

                              Another fabulous post from the U.S.Department of Wild Imaginings, now in spectaclar stereo, sponsored by the Adhesives and Sealants Council, suggesting ways to stick things together since the 1800s. Not fabulous in a gay way. Your results may vary. Illinois residents add 8% sales tax. These posts have been made by professional post makers, do not try this type of posting on your own without extensive training, lovely assistants and a trusty clown horn.

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