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  • #46
    Eh, what happened here? Somehow I missed this last post, and was wondering why I hadn't seen Frightener in a bit. Any idea what actually happened, apart from something about his wife taking over?

    C.

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    • #47
      The last posts looked like this,

      http://www.hauntworld.com/haunted_ho...s-soft-opening
      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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      • #48
        I posted an update in the other thread of soft opening. SHould be bumped to the top.

        Long story short, everything blew up and I lost everything due to foreclosure. WIfe went nuts (explained in other post) and dropped the ball on most of the marketing. Instead she was out having drinks and partying.


        SO! While I'm here. Let me tell you about my thoughts. I strided EVERY LEGAL hurdle. And passed. The only thing that killed us is my business partner, ie; Ex Wife, failed at the most important gig of them all. Marketing. We still planned to move forward with the rest of the publicity stunts, just towing the hearse or going w/o it. But she never finalized things with the hosts.

        I can't help but to feel a success though> We made money, and had we done HALF of what was left of our marketing bit, we'd pulled enough in for the haunt to have stayed and I could've paid the rent. I caught the wife pocketing money early so I would've been able to have the biggest weekends in pocket to save it. So what am I thinking of doing? Going MOBILE!

        That's right. I don't think I want to throw in the towel just yet. Around here locally, we have 2 county fairs close together and a "loose caboose festival' that I can park at as well. The fairs and loose caboose I can run just 2 trailers, keep them for about 5-6 minutes with a theatrical room or two and make it what... worth $5? Maybe get on their ticket runs. I don't know how that'd work since I'm not a ride, but not selling stuff either. But that can be worked out later. Every location of these have plenty of power.

        Also, during season, I can park at the mall in Jonesboro which is a fairly new (just a few years old) and a HUGE parking lot with TONS of traffic! It's on the corner of 2 major streets. I have talked to the mall director a few times on getting an airbrush shop going, I think she'd rent a single parking spot if she knew she could make money from it.

        What do you guys think? I've been doing a lot of research (not much to go on) about the mobile haunts. I think I can do it.

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        • #49
          I found images of the loose caboose festival, not very groovy, old grandmas and sturdy sandles wandering the streets where people are standing by very small displays under tents. Church groups, vineyards, arts and crafts.

          The jonesboro mall photos don't look very exciting either.

          Still in one posting you have mentioned both airbrush shop and haunted houses. My first haunt was the excesses from my airbrush business. We did a halloween party for a custom motorcycle shop and my building was the odd off season maze you had to go through to see the air brush guy. I used all the haunt things as demos of what an airbrush can do and certainly as word of mouth that you could see all of these weird things any time of year and talk about getting your motorcycle sheetmetal customized or any item you could carry in detailed.

          In other words the haunt was the hobby and a lost leader promotion and the air brush skills made money. Most jobs were $175 to $400 in a day or so and used about 50 cents in paint. The motorcycle halloween parties got pretty extravegant and were promotional for the custom motorcycle shop and my air brush offerings.

          Still in reality all of those things in a town of 85,000 people were about my 3rd and 4th jobs for actual income. I see Jonesboro is a town of 65,000 people so it may prove to be even more of a challenge.

          I had spent more than 5 years building up the props and haunt condition before it every hit the streets. Prior to that it was just an odd collection of stuff.

          The secret there was not doing Tshirts but, more expensive motorcycle paint jobs. Alas I looked in the Joneboro area and there is only one custom motorcycle shop and it looks kind of rough.


          In a similar story, the motorcycle shop guys wife went on a psychotic drug induced bender, just like you describe ending in divorce and resulting in my shop I rented being sold out from under me. So the haunt went to do charities. We got a much more expensive shop. In a way you are lucky everything kind of revieled it's ugly head right off the bat instead of having 12 years worth of stuff that had to go somewhere immediately taking a month to tear down and move 3 businesses.

          Still getting real, starting over, the air brush business can fit in one carry tool box, actually it does to this day and you can go to any studio anywhere and hook up to their air compressor and make money. A haunt that can actually make more money than your first effort requires about 2 semi loads of stuff to be something that consistently brings excitement and can pretty much advertise itself. Whereas the customers are looking for where it will be rather than you having to market and rely on marketing to bring in the people. Plain and simple, two semis worth or storage garages full of stuff cost money or literally a decade to produce while making money somehow, paying rent and so on.

          Eventually years and years of marketing do finally kick in and thing go times 10. In the first several years or up to a decade you can't make it a gamble that paying rent or paying anything is dependent on how many people will show up theoretically. Everything has to be made, paid for, a manageable expense.

          The reality is many do not get out of that 800 to 1000 people in attendance and usually quit for some more responcible life reason. So the budget in a small town is not $150,000, it is more like $8,000.

          Even all the haunted house facades and scenic design work we did, was actually just another application for someone with an airbrush to make money doing something. It can be signage, carnivals, circus trailers, photo back drops, faux interior embellishment, fine art, Automotive, lazer tag, water park, amusement park, haunted house work. Then you progress from air brushes to things that are giant airbrushes shooting concrete and overlays. You can be an airbrush guy for mask makers and prop makers, have the skills to do the faux finishes. I already see you can do these things. It is more the focus of making things to make money and the haunt is something that might make money someday but is the large sample board of your skills. You may have to show off $20,000 worth of haunted house stuff you made to get a $200 job applying a custom paint design.

          One of the bitches I hear from the critics is you can't do everything. You have to do everything because it isn't buy a bunch of crap and you will be rich, it is show off your personal skill and it brings you work. The haunted house isn't your sole income, it is the grand conversation piece to sell upscale jobs that might be $2500 or $4,000. A real life portfolio of stuff you can see rather than some photo album.

          I'm not going to be able to spend much time on Hauntworld for several months so if I don't respond right away, I will be in and out. I have had too many commercial jobs come up at one time. Last year it seems no company wanted to do anything until they knew who the president would be and so they all piled up now. Now everyone wants their $12,000 job done before World War 3 breaks out or something.

          It all started with a good airbrush and a pager.
          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.

          Comment


          • #50
            Greg, thank you again for your response. Crazy enough, I remember you writing that story about your airbrushing etc very vividly. I guess it's one of the things that stuck to the roof of my mouth like the first bite of peanut butter in the morning.

            I can't airbrush much anymore. During this fiasco I got into a fight with a hyundai. Someone threatened to 'beat rape' my niece and I didn't take too well to it. He hid in his girlfriend's car. I must've been some kinda pissed and very noticable.... cus he was a professional mma fighter. (self proclaimed but it was proven, haha. He is a fighter) Losing all my airbrush equipment wasn't all of it either. I lost my portfolio I have nothing to even show anymore. ALl I have left is some pics of tshirts I've done when I started getting back into the art. The whole thing sucks.

            Loose caboose has come a long way, however. No, it's not huge. And I didn't think I'd make a ton off of just one venue. I spent 3 hours in Jonesboro tonight (tech. last night, it's 2:13 am now) scouting locations for a possible setup. Wow, Off the bat I found about 6 locations.

            I don't want to get rich. I don't want a huge house, 3 or 4 cars. I don't want $50,000 in the bank. I want to make enough so if my body gets bad, I don't have to worry too bad if I can't keep a job at a factory because of my bad discs in my back. Or my hand that's been recently broken for the third time on a car glass. That sh.t only works in the movies. I figure if I can get 500ish people at $5 a head at caboose, maybe a thousand or two at each fair (which Jonesboro's fair this year, at it's new complex, broke records 3 nights in a row for attendance they said) IT'S HUGE! I figure 2 to 3 thousand ppl won't be that unrealistic. Hopefully I can get the haunt up to an $8 or $10 show and still be worth bucks. I'm willing to give it a shot, try and run it for 3 events during Sept and Oct.

            I don't know which mall you looked at, but the indian mall is no more. The turtle creek mall is the new one. It stays packed. Especially during october. I can tell you, the halloween market has really come a long way since that mall opened. Kmart, Walmart even, Golden Grotto has ALL been increasing their inventory and sales have been wicked for them! Target and now Spirit Halloween has created much competition and business seems to be booming for everyone halloween around here. If I set up at Target / The Mall, I'll be between Target, and Chicfilet and Golden Grotto is right across from there! Traffic is thick in this spot. I watched it tonight, thought I'd count cars, but gave up at 600.

            I do have a possible location, on the main highway between Jonesboro and Paragould. It's right beside a busy gas station. It looks to be about 6,000sq ft and has been vacant for at least 4 years. It's an older woman who has it and apparantly has been 'taken' by her last two tenants. She almost sounded like she'd go for a deal with us, but was still reluctant. The wife at the time wanted to try the old daycare building.

            I plan to call the building owner Monday or Tuesday and have a chat with her, take her to lunch and see if we can negotiate something. If that falls through, I'll try the trailer haunt.

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