General questions

[Dead End Haunted House]

Hey everyone this is mason healy with dead end haunted house and i am new starting out with a home haunt then moving into pro when i make more money..... ok so do you guys only open on halloween night? Do you charge admission? Do you pay your actors? What to use for walls thats cheap other than plastic or material! Thats all for now thanks mason healy

[deathtrail91]

Opening- It depends on how big and well known your home haunt is. It also depends on the schedules of everyone assisting with the haunt. We open and run two days in october. One for trick or treaters and the general public, the other a family night and party.


Admission- We don't charge general admission, but do have a donation box at the end of the haunt. If you are looking to make a small amount of money from the haunt, I would set up a concession stand and some small games for the younger visitors. It has worked the past few years for us, and everyone loves it.


Actors and staff- All of our actors and staff are family and friends. They volunteer their time.

Walls- Other than plastic or material, I am not sure of many effective ways to do walls. You may be able to get pallets for not much, but the hard part is finding storage. Corn stacks and hay/straw bales are also a possibilty.

[SomeThingInTheIce]

The Friday and Saturday before Halloween from 7 to 11, everyone is a volunteer but we feed them give them soda and water put their names into a drawing for gift cards and tee shirts. (have to do something for your actors they are the lifes blood of the haunt). Donation jar at the end, as for walls last year we used plastic but this year we have planks that are 9' tall and 5 1/2'' wide and are making panels out of it.

[Dead End Haunted House]

Thanks so much!

[TheHauntedManor]

A lot of people don't even think of this, use old fences. Go to Craigslist in your area and click on the free section. You will find tons of people giving them away for free begging people to pick them up. Only one issue sometimes is splinters, you need to lightly sand them. What I did was sand, dark oiled them, and then frosted them with a light varnish. Sounds like a lot of work but there FREE.