Money Back Haunt LLC. (BS scheme or good marketing?)

[wickedfarmer]

see link on posting #99

UOTE=MDKing;133649]What is it that you're supposed to eat in this challenge?


Allan[/QUOTE]

Posting #99 has a link to several people that tried it last year. A few talk about not beeing able to see for an hour afterwards. One mentions the guy dispensing the "hot sauce" wears gloves as it affects skin. Other tells about skin burning after his vomit gets on his body.

News at 11....is your local hauted house bad for your health. I can hear the news people calling me for follow up stories on this after last years corn maze fiasco several hundred miles away from me. Look at the mass hysteria "pink slime" just caused. Media only fanned the flames there. Now several stores are not going to carry this beef as of the last two days. Kroger even came out and said basically the medias hysteria is silly. They were "butchered" for taking a stance that the meat industry is not out to make people sick by making thm eat gross stuff. And as of yesterday they gave up. They found out public hysteria fed by sensationalism media can not be overcome. Kroger will no longer carry the ground beef treated with ammonia hydroxide to kill ecolie. Ammonia is in almost every food you eat. Like getting rid of food that contains the fire supressant dihydrogen oxide....you can't do it. (water)

The corn maze fiasco of having to call 911 and people being concerned for their safety was such a huge attention draw for the media (their words to me) as it involved the fall activites...I bet if this takes off they will be all over it.

[mindtumor]

What is it that you're supposed to eat in this challenge?


Allan

Hopefully, this long ass thread, if we could find a way to make that possible.

[drfrightner]

Howie,

No that is NOT what I said... read the whole sentence because I said that is how it would appear, meaning appear potential customers. Because I think most people with common sense realize there has to be something to not getting your money back and would assume they wouldn't be... because if you gave everyone their money back you couldn't be there in the first place. Listen that is simple common sense period!

So again and in my opinion if you have a really good haunted house you would have no need for a gimmick like this... and I think my assumption if a haunt ran this promotion is that their haunt is not as good as the next one so they need a gimmick promotion to compete. I'm merely stating this can be an assumption and I stand by it.

Fact is most people are not getting their money back and then your attraction needs to stand on the attraction itself. So what if you or a 100 people run this promotion fact is it smells like a gimmick, feels like a gimmick and looks like a gimmick to get more business. Its a marketing tool or a promotional something or other I guess no different than maybe have a celeb make an appearance or giving out movie tickets, or I don't know. Me personally I'm not going to stand outside my haunt and talk to 100 people a night and explain why they didn't get their money back... just would never happen.

But is that an insult to you... no because I've never seen your haunted house its merely an assumption that a haunt who can't compete would try something like this to get that boost. Me personally I'm saying just build a better haunt!

Lastly I totally 110% agree with you about phrases like the best haunt, or whatever... the biggest bullcrap gimmick are those haunts who try to say they have 10 or 15 haunted attractions. I CALL BULL... a black hole tunnel is an attraction, you build some walls turn out the lights you call it an attraction... all non-sense. But yeah some people will do anything, make any claim they know isn't true or they can't back up its all bogus. Its the world we live in! LOL

Larry

[Howie Slobber Erlich]

Larry,

If you totally agree with me about the "phrases like the best haunt, or whatever," then why do you promote The Darkness that way? America's Scariest Haunted House.

You can have a great haunt and still come up with new concepts to increase revenue. We had a great haunt before doing it the first time. In fact, I would say we were considered one of the top haunts in the state. I just wanted to try the idea to see if it would work. Our haunt was doing fine before the idea but did even better after. We did not do it because we were ashamed of our attraction or that we had a bad show. If fact we had two really good haunts running the year before.

Nobody complained about the idea besides other haunters. Our customers loved it and came back in full force the next year. I do not think anyone could find anything on the Internet that would show people complaining about the haunt or how good the haunt was in either 2000 or 2001 the years I was involved.

Customers loved the show, and the haunt was one of the best attractions in Michigan. I just think your theory and your assumptions are incorrect. We made sure our customers understood the entire concept so they new not everyone would get their money back. I actually think that, that was one of the biggest reasons for our success in the way we did it. They actually bought tickets for the fun of getting scared and trying to find the secret room. They took it as a challenge and came back several times in the attempt of finding it and bragging to their friends. The ones who found the secret room would bring their friends up to show them their picture on our Wall of Fame. We can agree to disagree on this point!

I will agree with you for sure about the haunts claiming to be multiple events, then charging a huge amount to get into all of them. Then you find out it's really only one haunt divided by several facades, a black hole or a short black maze. Now that is scamming people and I hear how pissed customers are about it every year from the several haunts that try to pull that off in Michigan.

Howie
Howie

[drfrightner]

Howie,

Couple things...

I think we agree on just about everything. So really no issues... like I said your haunted house might be awesome beyond belief however I think the assumption that its a gimmick used to draw in customers stands. At least from my point of view. I'm saying many people will make the assumption that its a gimmick and I think I'm right about that. But then again there are the exceptions. Maybe your haunt is hard for me to say without seeing your haunt so I'm not saying because I don't know.

As for me saying this or that about my haunt... well I think there is a difference when you say something that is just a bold face lie and something you actually believe you can back up. Do I think my haunt is the best in st. Louis ... DUH! You haven't seen the other haunts here so yeah that is a total DUH... do I think its the best in the country??? I will say this that once your haunt gets to a certain level like say The Darkness you can make that claim because I'm not the only one who would state that. On the other hand you might personally think some other haunt is better, and its all an opinion.

Do you like hayrides, do you like outdoor events, all indoor, screamparks, dark rides, whatever your taste will influence what you think is the best.

But should some run of the mill haunt that has never even opened before come out firing with such slogans NO WAY... they do more to hurt themselves than help. But do I think my haunt is the best, well I like it so yeah I do. Do I think that not everyone is going to agree with me sure do... I think you could ask 50 different haunters and you just might get 50 different answers.

So its a matter of opinion really, but when you are not the only one who has that opinion then you have something to base your claim from. Totally different than people who base it off nothing but trying to make a dollar. There is a difference. If Netherworld comes out with a phrase saying they are best who can argue, what about 13th Gate, or what if House of Shock said whatever... the list goes on and on. You can't argue other than say its up there but maybe you don't totally agree with them... again I don't like beer it tastes bad to me, someone else loves it. Its just a matter of opinions and taste...

Larry

[MovieRelics]

Just saw this story about Facebook trying to claim "book" as a protected trademark and thought everyone in this conversation might find it interesting.

Facebook, as far as we can tell, doesn't have a registered trademark on "book." But trademark rights can be asserted based on use of a term, even if the trademark isn't registered, and adding the claim to Facebook's user agreement could boost the company's standing in future lawsuits filed against sites that use the word.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...-agreement.ars

[Haunted Castle]

Haunted Castle - Money Back

We don’t advertise the refund from making it through our Haunt, the “Money Back” Deal comes from successfully completing the “Panic Room” which is a totally separate entity from the Castle. The only thing they have in common is that they are located on the same property.

We have taken an old storm shelter and turned it into a dark concrete mausoleum
We let them eat a small piece of limburger cheese placed on a diaper, (smells like baby crap), two small mushrooms and tell them there fish eyes, sardines for fish guts, pig’s feet for road kill, orsters for cow snot and two night crawlers- then they drink a glass of clabbered milk and a small mouthwash cup of hot sauce. (everything is in small quanties there either going to do it or not I can’t eat any of these thing even knowing what I’m eating)

If they get that far they lay in casket with spiders, two real boa snakes along with several fake ones. We put rats, mice, worms, crickets anything we can find at a fish bait shop inside casket,( maggots usually show up on their own after a couple days). We have cameras inside casket to monitor, we dump loads of sardines, stink fish bait, etc. inside the casket for them to lie in and some actually do it.

The Haunted Castle doesn’t even get the Money from those who don’t make it through, the operator of the Panic Room keeps any proceeds paid by Non- Hackers. It is nothing more than an advertising tool for us, the only stipulation to attempting the Panic Room is that they did go through the Haunted Castle first. So for those saying you couldn’t stay in business by giving Money Back didn’t read the rules and requirements for attempting it.

Again this stunt is not for everyone but if you are a Haunt owner you know there’s always that one that says that didn’t scare me after exiting the Haunt and this is where we say “your just too tough for us” maybe you want to try the Panic Room of course all his friends encourage him most wanting to see him fail, because of his huge ego, and most do.

Two things you have to make it a do-able stunt, you can’t just rob people of their money but at the same time you want it to be a challenge Secondly you don’t want to mislead them into thinking that the Money Back comes from the haunt itself. We always stipulated the Money Back ref to the Panic Room ONLY that way there are no misunderstandings.

Larry and myself have not always agreed so I want to watch how I word this as to not piss him off, lol in reality I admire him, his work and what he has done for the Haunted House industry but sometimes I don’t word everything correctly and people take offense so no offense meant to anyone, however you couldn’t be more wrong on your statement about the ones who do a money back show must be compensating for a poor haunt. I don’t think it has nothing to do with the haunt but more with the promotional effect and attention it draws.

Howie made some good points as to the way you advertise your own haunt and the tag lines you use, I have never been but I’m sure from looking at pic it is spectacular. For the area I’m in we have several college and we cater to them and their age group so what better way to draw a crowd (money) then to offer a challenge to these guys.
As far is too what they eat everything is a food product (except the worms) attorneys say as long as their of legal age and sign release they can eat anything they want to freely. Again ours is food but sometimes the power of suggestion overrides common sense and merely tagging it with another name or in the way it is presented is enough for most to drop out, and if they do get through the eating and drinking part the casket is another deal.

Getting in a casket and letting someone that looks like the Panic Room caretaker(see his pic on wall of fame) pad lock you inside is enough to back out - but throw the snakes, spiders and rats on top of that well, not many can do it. Hope this gives everyone a better understanding of our challenge as we will now need to change everything for this year.

As for the Money Back trademark I get mostly free legal advice and representation but have better things to do then waste time in court I do that enough with my job . I went to a trademarks link where Chris does in fact have it trademarked will it hold up in court I don’t know and don’t want to waste time finding out so I removed my Money Back deal until Chris called the other day and told me I didn’t have to so I have now re-posted it to our web site for the 2012 season.

I’m not a big fan of Rodney King but I will quote him this one time, “Can’t we all just get along” lol

Sorry, to be so lengthy but wanted to explain what we do, I would say those using a lot of hot sauce or things that can actually harm people I would change that to something else or just a small quantity even with them signing the release we can’t be negligent .

Thanks Fred--- PS Thanks Larry for providing us a way to communicate with each other and I think the “LIKE” button would be a great addition to your site.

[Marr Branch]

The "Like" button has probally been copyrighted by Facebook.

[wickedfarmer]

That sounds better.

I have posted several comments on this thread about what I see as red flags.

Haunted Castle's way does not raise red flags to me. It is not advertised as a money back "haunt". Their website in no way will cause customers to think they would get money back for simply making it through the haunt. And the owners comment on hot sause...dont think they need to wear gloves just to serve it.

Wicked Farmer

[Jim Warfield]

It seems like, in this country.

Anything written on a piece of paper, that you can get someone else to sign will make anything OK. ? No matter how ridiculous , stupid, self-serving, morally wrong..
So having a stranger put nasty things in their mouth after they sign...
But the FDA did step in to stop a Hell-House Haunt from using rotten meat as a sensory device.. because it was rotten!
Maybe the maggots called up and turned them in?
But then again, "Whatever works... works."
"The proof is in the pudding" (but please don't alert the jury to this fact!)
(More pudding for ME!)

[Dark Attraction]

Larry,

I don't remember there really being any name calling, at least not from me.

Howie, I found proof of name calling:

It's not worth my time - bluntly, some of you are complete idiots and I wonder if you can put a complete thought together.

Geez. Get an Education or at least consult someone who does have one. Any monkey with a computer can check this fact. I don't like exposing people's ignorance

but also unfortunately some gutless cowards, emboldened by anonymity, who resort to personal attacks.

Please call and tell me directly what you think so I can expose you for the jealous, stupid, scum you are.

I also understand this thread gets alot of attention because it's so much easier to criticize someone else's idea than actually grow a pair, and try to create something yourself.

Actually, all of those quotes are from MoneyBackHaunts. The last one is my absolute favorite! I love irony.

[SomeThingInTheIce]

Ah.... irony can be a cruel bitch.lol.

Howie, I found proof of name calling:



Actually, all of those quotes are from MoneyBackHaunts. The last one is my absolute favorite! I love irony.

[Howie Slobber Erlich]

My Bad! I guess there was some name calling!

Howie

[Greg Chrise]

3 points for jealous, stupid, scum! Yeah!

[Greg Chrise]

I'm kind of curious about the customer complaints about one big haunt with different facades being considered a rip off. Were they charging lots of money? Like over $20 for the whole event? Was each sub haunt too small or undetailed?