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  • #16
    Yeah, that's 30% total deal. No rent. I carry our insurance for the haunt. Basically it's all my deal, they give us a key, leave us alone (once they get their flea market type items out of the building) and we build. Then they get to run the concession stand and that's all them. Other than that, we just pay them 30%. Our contract we have started, right now says " will pay 30% of total profits for rent on the building..." yada yada.


    Dewayne

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    • #17
      30% is the rent = great opportunity. RWRussom hinted at those resources that need to be cultivated that are worth more than money. A bunch of intrested people that can do things when they have to be done. I have had charities tell me September 15th yeah we are going to do it for the last two weeks in October. With a completely disassembled haunt all screwed together, moved in, set up wired and so on and 17 rooms tricked out in 19 days and on TV the wednesday befor opening. The fire hall guys after a few years got where I would lay out the floor and the whole 3,000 SF triangular grid was completely up in 3 hours.

      I kind of stalk people and find many of these newbies have been doing things secretly for also more than a decade. These forums are kind of a give and take. Many people have not had the opportnity to communicate what they sort of already know and are working it out. Great credit should be given, even if slightly wrong, or different that another's situation, what is being offered is some times genius and they don't know it.

      I kind of grew tired of the forums for a while because so many would not answer any questions. It takes too much energy apparently. It is so easy to just say buy someone's book or you suck. I don't think those are really answers to questions. The other one that takes no thought is don't even think about starting a haunt unless you have $150,000 cash. Yet that is not what they did and if that is what it really took they wouldn't have a haunt today. The people that have followed this advice seem to be in debt for $150,000 they may never see again. It is so much better to build and pay as you go, actually own something outright and know what it can do, matching the number of patrons it serves and not expanding until the customers sort of deserve it. There is no reason to have two haunts until you are backed up too much 300 people deep in line the whole last week. Only then is it good to funnel multiple customers.

      Conversely you want to hold the lines back where there is some amount of waiting so the more monied will buy a speed pass for their group and everyone else experiences some anticipation. That anticipation and que line entertainment is part of the show. I don't recommend it but some of our shows, there were monsters in your car when you got out and ready to leave or chasing 9 little kids around inside a suburban. Chasing kids around the parking lot. So many people get hung up on exact square foot or how to build walls. Or the ever popular crap known as a business plan. There is no business plan, you go to work, you make money. You aren't getting some corporation to fund you product that will be mass produced by some chinese village and has a proprietary something or other.

      Everything you need to know is already common sense and in your head and you just need to do it. Or you can be a fancy pants and pay other people $150,000 to do all of these things. The fancy pants doesn't necessarily know how or why something works, they just paid some guy for something that sounded okay.
      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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      • #18
        My advice and the way I've always done it is to start small (2500+ sq. ft.) and grow from there...
        Don't get in over your head...avoid the temptation of overspending...focus on your show and you'll be much happier!
        It would've been easy for us to go get a big loan and get 10,000 sq. ft. but then see an attendance that doesn't
        meet our expectations and be over our heads in debt.
        Instead we've taken 2 years to negotiate deals that worked for us, reinvested, and this year are buying ourselves a
        location! No more moving around!
        It's around 3500-4000 sq. ft. and a great reward after tearing down/moving every year!
        Best of luck to you!

        Kirk
        Kirk Boemmel
        Dark Ghost Manor
        www.darkghostmanor.com

        sigpic

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        • #19
          *Update*

          Thought I'd let you wonderful people know. We shredded the contract! The lady wouldn't even speak to us personally, talked through her husband, on the phone. She said we won't give her what she deserves, which was:

          45% off the top, they do concessions, they take care of the tickets and handle all monies and take 45% of our giftshop!! My wife told them to get bent. She didn't even have the nerve to tell us face to face, or even on the phone and had her husband do it. Told them they wasted a month of our time. I bet what happened is her "friend" said "ohh honey you need to get paid more than that" ... they're line always was "We use to get $800 a night for letting folks do a dance". So we told them "good luck making $10,000 with your redneck junk auction. (they have a ton of crap the want to start auctioning off. Badly stained clothes, old broken toys, etc.) Not meaning to sound so rude about it, but it just ticks me off.

          We have a backup location. Will be zoned next month C3, which is what we need and is 6,400 sq ft. 5,500 usable. 90% of all of the rooms are connected with 2 different entry /exits. 150ish parking spots, a huge industry parking lot next to it. However, it's $2,000 a month!

          They agreed to let us pay $1,000 a month, and the rest after our event. The place is big and has a house that needs plumbing and windows (someone broke in and stole the copper plumbing... while the water was on)

          This is about average for a building this size or bigger, but I just don't know if it's feasable to try with owing up to $14k at the end. Or, we could look at paying the $6-7,000 as building costs, but that's not the right way to look at it.

          Opinions? I can throw a link on here if you guys want, so you can see the place. It's up on a real estate site.

          BTW: Here's the listing. If this is against rules, please let me know.

          http://www.trulia.com/property/30730...gould-AR-72450

          Dewayne
          Last edited by Frightener; 04-12-2012, 02:12 PM.

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          • #20
            I dont know where your located but did you think about using a tent. Im also looking for a location and running into the same issues. I have the capital but the building owners are asking way too much for rent. Its almost like they are trying to recoup money lost when the real state market tanked. Im currently talking to a few business owners and FFC about setting up on there property.
            Chris Riehl
            Sales@spookyfinder.com
            (586)209-6935
            www.spookyfinder.com

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            • #21
              Originally posted by Frightener View Post
              45% off the top, they do concessions, they take care of the tickets and handle all monies and take 45% of our giftshop!! My wife told them to get bent. She didn't even have the nerve to tell us face to face, or even on the phone and had her husband do it. Told them they wasted a month of our time. I bet what happened is her "friend" said "ohh honey you need to get paid more than that" ... they're line always was "We use to get $800 a night for letting folks do a dance". So we told them "good luck making $10,000 with your redneck junk auction. (they have a ton of crap the want to start auctioning off. Badly stained clothes, old broken toys, etc.) Not meaning to sound so rude about it, but it just ticks me off.
              Yeah, that was precisely the eventuality I was going on about before.

              Like I said, if you get a deal with a landlord, it is what it is, and if it works out for you, then that's fine. That penultimately proved to be the case at the then agreed upon 30% off the top, per the original contract, which Greg astutely pointed out as a great opportunity.

              What I took major umbrage with, which in fact was what 95% of my posts were about, was what ultimately ended up happening, that this lady was suddenly talking up all this "partner talk", using terms and suggesting arrangements and conditions that only an equitable partner with an equal investment should have any right to suggest, or expect. Only someone who treated you as an equal partner in this should ever talk about large precentages and overseeing half of the operation and so on.

              To that end, it all sounded fishy from the very start, and, as it happens, it was.

              Originally posted by Karl Berger View Post
              I dont know where your located but did you think about using a tent.
              I've priced tents, and I found it cheaper, and more effective, to build a raised deck and a roof. JB outlines that approach very thoroughly in his books.

              C.

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              • #22
                Way too high

                I agree with a lot of the others here that this is not a good deal for you, but I wanted to add one more thing. This is not an unusual financial model in the concert business. My wife runs such an operation here in NC, and the way it works is the promoter rents the building for a set fee, and brings in the talent. Promoter gets the door, owner gets the rent plus 100% of bar/concession sales, and they try and get 25% of merch. They also get 25% off the taco truck parked in the parking lot.

                Promoter is also responsible for things like event insurance (the building owner is as well), security, and production (sound and lights). The production costs for the promoter are not much - usually around $2500 to $3500 since these venues cannot usually support really big tours. They pay around $600 for security and other personnel so their real cost is in the band ($25K for a big name). They can then turn around and sell tickets at $50+ and make a great profit provided they have big ticket sales. Cost is relatively low for them other than the band.

                Now look at our (the industries) business model. We spend a lot in production ($75k+), and a lot more in personnel, insurance, and other miscellaneous. Our ticket prices are much lower so we need to run many more nights to recoup our expenses. Rent is our biggest expense.

                Business right now is really slow for these venue operators because there are not a lot of bands touring anymore so the years of running 45 to 50 shows a year has dwindled down to very few, and none of them very profitable. This means they have to get creative and find other uses for their buildings, but they do not understand our business model.
                Travis "Big T" Russell
                President
                Big T Productions Inc

                Owner and Operator of "The Plague" and "Camp Nightmare"

                Customer Quote of the year: "Damn, I pissed myself"

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by BigT View Post
                  I agree with a lot of the others here that this is not a good deal for you, but I wanted to add one more thing. This is not an unusual financial model in the concert business . . . This means they have to get creative and find other uses for their buildings, but they do not understand our business model.
                  Yeah, but this lady doesn't understand business, either. You make an excellent point, and provide an excellent analysis, however, the venue in question is a crappy little dance hall in Nowheresville, Arkansas that hasn't seen a dime, nor a Texas Two-Step, in literally seven years. It's just been sitting there, leaking, rotting, collecting dust and junk, for seven years. Ergo, Frightener and "Dance Hall Lady" were literally godsends to each other. He gets a great building to run his first year, and she gets to turn a profit on a building that could be on it's way to being condemned if she doesn't start taking care of it and doing something with it.

                  And then she decided to get all podunk and greedy, and start trying to stick him for almost 50% upfront, plus a huge chunk of everything else.

                  Basically, she did him a huge favor. She pulled these shenanigans while they were still talking, well before they got in bed together. Now he has other options and she is stuck with the same crappy building, and no shot of seeing another dime.

                  C.

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                  • #24
                    He's right. We're not moving into our #1 backup building. $2k rent but we pay $1k each month and the other half in a lump sum at end of event, to help us get going.
                    The property also has a 1,900 sq ft home on it. We can rent to own, with proper papers and all, save 45k from listing price and the lump sums have 0 interest, meaning the lump sum of $12,000 gets taken off the... principle? i think, what we actually owe for the property.

                    We plan to use the front part of the lot for a "Park and Sell" for vehicles, fixing the house for rent, and all said and done, we only have to pay about $1,200 rent on our building. Of course this is the projected PLAN and we all know how "plans" sometimes go.

                    We've got 60% of the planning done, trying hard to design rooms w/ no help of animated props to keep costs down and put that money into marketing. We've decided to add to our marketing budget as well.

                    We should be getting power hooked up in the next week, we'll try to post pics of the place and any progress, if you fellas are interested.

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