Great Problem to have

[UnDeRTaKer313]

Alright so for the first time ever, we are having a throughput issue. we filled up our main que line, our overflow queline, ticket booth que line, and then the line was about 500 feet outside and around the building. The line was constantly that long all night. It is only going to get worse these last 2 weekends. We had hundreds of people drive by that saw the line and just kept driving, we actually lost business over it.

I am looking for tips to get people through faster without ruining the experience. Is it simply hire more actors and space them more evenly? or is there a better way?

Also, tips for making the people standing outside happy? it is all covered waiting outside, and we already have fire breathers, magicians, and actors.

[HauntedMemphis]

I am looking for tips to get people through faster without ruining the experience. Is it simply hire more actors and space them more evenly? or is there a better way?

To answer the question, it really depends on what is causing the bottleneck.

Maze design holding people up as they get lost? Do certain rooms get people "stuck" due to effects, dialogue, or something else? Is there a first room reading the rules that is a chokepoint? Do you have any traffic flow control once in the haunt?

Depending on the answers to questions like this, there are very different solutions.

[Killer Katie]

Sometimes, the actors scare backwards (from the front) when they should scare from the side to push them through the rooms. When we get lines like that, I tell the actrs to not "get in the way" and stop them. Just something I look for

[Darkblood]

We have a 1 minute preshow and then move them along. We tell our actors to scare forward. We haven't had a problem, even with 2 very dark maze portions.
However, a very large haunt that is about an hour from us (at an old amusement park) just 'conga-lines' the people. This ruins the show according the patrons and house managers I know.
It's hard to say not knowing your haunt...

[evilmanor]

We have a 1 minute preshow and then move them along. We tell our actors to scare forward. We haven't had a problem, even with 2 very dark maze portions.
However, a very large haunt that is about an hour from us (at an old amusement park) just 'conga-lines' the people. This ruins the show according the patrons and house managers I know.
It's hard to say not knowing your haunt...

Is there anyway to move the pre-show outside? They're already standing around waiting so if you could eliminate that extra minute for multiple groups simultaneously I think it would help.

Went to a first year haunt over the weekend and they had a similar issue. Longer wait than previous weekends and rules presentation in the first room. The effect providing the rules was cool, but I think would have been better served for something shorter and if they would have had the rules outside they could have cut down on the amount of time to go through the first room.

To speed things up they later incorporated a short section of rope that each person in the group held onto to help keep the group together and moving along.

I have also heard of haunts setting up the lighting on dimmers and turning the lights up a bit to increase through put and down when its slower.