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  • #16
    Originally posted by Marr Branch View Post
    Maybe, Frightner was married to a whore, who else thinks this?
    Hahaha

    Greg, just curious what is the name of your haunt? I'm sure it's quite cool given your experience.

    Jake

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    • #17
      tkd9t2LUgqGJIlIgoioqNsSsU1d5LR-W0060.jpgIt currently is completely modified, sold as the second attraction called the Void at Terror Nights in Tyler. It was in Noonday for 5 years as a triangular grid and out door trail and prior to that was a roving gypsy haunt doing biker events of various sizes in the form of large 1500-3000 person private one weekend gatherings. It was portions of Castle Dragon reconstructed and added to considerably. It has been indoors as one unit and outdoors as 17 seperate sets on a trail.

      Some of it was circa 1979. We have done things for Terror Trails in Yantis Texas, Phantoms when it was at the State Fair of Texas, did a facade for Mayhem Manor that was at Mountasia in North Richland Hills a long time ago, and at Hangmans as a 3rd attraction.

      There are another half dozen haunts, event planners and investors I am an advisor to including all of the above are on going support efforts for us. Some are free for information sharing and some are on commission and under non disclosure agreements. For some we are an on call set up crew for the old style mobile attractions.

      Even though it was called Vampire Safari, no event used that name in their marketing or reference material. Who ever we supported is who got the credit.

      If it was cool, it was inspired by Verdun Manor, Mayhem Manor, Castle Dragon. A triangular grid only with lots of detail, props and actors. Whereas Mayhem Manor had painted walls to look like a house and mostly just a big maze with few props and few if any actors. I'd have to say Alex's Dungeon of Doom has a very similar look and vibe to what I came up with only mine was torn down and hauled off every year and could be put up and detailed in 2 weeks, taken apart and taken out in 3 days. The wall system was also used as a fire and rescue training house off season.

      At any given time it could have been a 1000 SF side attraction or usually 3200 SF indoors with 2 acres wooded trail. Currently at Terror Nights it is down to about 1500 SF of actual haunt in a 3,000 SF building. Our usual bay was 42 by 75 and now it is in 50 by 60 with central corridors and about half the interum walls taken out to comply with the fire marshal requests.

      The noonday haunt now has a different square room wall system and even more roof coverage but ended up with most of the props and costumes and power grid and lights. Of course over time things rot and break and wear out.

      I make more money from consulting than the haunt made percentage wise for charities and small events so I sold it. When it gets right down to it, it isn't how cool my haunt was or is but, how I have greatly effected the east texas market and all of these haunts now have expecting community around them in actors and patrons. I have been involved in taking area wide patrons from about 2300 when the market tanked to about in this town to 17,000 and in other areas from nothing to 16,000. The investor group is in yet another location in the country and is into 3 larger cities now.

      Some of my props over the years are in most haunts you know in Texas. Originally I didn't even have a haunt and was making and buying/selling props. I sold lots of stuff back in the day never thinking we would actually have a haunt and be more than a scenic design and set up crew. I bought lots of used walls to have on hand for scene building and moving in entire detailed rooms instead of full haunts. It was never actually my goal to have a haunt but it happened just because I had enough stuff to just set one up.

      Also my commercial concrete overlay business seems to have the same busy seasons as the haunt conventions and halloween season and being one guy made that kind of tough to do all of that. I became aware of haunts in the first place from building outdoor concrete caves for a wooded trail and for some water parks. Real ground zero was our first biker halloween party only had 80 people for a one night event, then having a doctor buy all the props for his backyard party.

      I have a couple of haunts I do sort of a mystery shopper thing for, posing as a customer and report on the performances and where improvement in the haunt design could take place or be re-engineered to meet entertainment goals and suggest what would attract more customers.

      With a haunt set up seasonally, for me it was an open gallery of props that could be bought or the whole haunt or specific rooms were for sale and could be viewed. So to me, the addition and support of the many more haunts was not competition, it was the inspiring of a customer base to sell even more props and set design. It ended up being a consulting business I don't even advertise. To me it ranges from costumes to hearses that are prop quality to 24 foot by 80 facades to 16 foot tall concrete skulls or volcanos.

      My newest venture is painting giant penises in the bottom of Olympic sized swimming pools that can be seen from air craft. I'm very busy and not looking for any work right now.

      I did all this stuff and all this work and I'm still facinated how 2 guys took 3 props and 20 walls and made $2500 outside a lame Jaycees attraction that could have been $10,000 at some of the haunts I deal with using the same set up. I could have taken my haunt apart and had a dozen of these things at a dozen different haunts with very little overhead. So if you were industrious and hard working that could be $120,000 right there but everyone asks for numbers and descriptions to fill out some magical business plan where Ed McMann will show up and hand them a check for $150,000 so they can get started. Except Ed is dead too.

      In previous posts, mindset has been mentioned. My mindset see places all over that have memberships of 3,000 or as many as 1 million people per month where something simple could make money. All I know is carrying lots of haunt walls and moving big props will literally break you back. SO you better make it before you get old and busted up, leave clean underwear. And pace yourself because it is possible to work yourself to death. It doesn't matter how much money you made if you are dead.

      It was cool. I did what I could. It taught a lot of people their own capabilities and enjoyment of life.
      Last edited by Greg Chrise; 04-28-2013, 12:57 AM.
      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
        The best help!

        THE BEST HELP I can think of is Alan Hopps.
        http://www.stiltbeaststudios.com/
        Check out all his youtube videos.

        And take as many haunt seminars as possible.
        sigpic
        PEACE, ADAM
        www.poisonprops.com

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        • #19
          Originally posted by poison View Post
          THE BEST HELP I can think of is Alan Hopps.
          http://www.stiltbeaststudios.com/
          Check out all his youtube videos.

          And take as many haunt seminars as possible.
          Thats what my plan is. I'm going to NHC next weekend and taking as many as I can.

          Comment


          • #20
            I am glad Greg did only his short answer. Lol. Greg you are the best.
            Phatman

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            • #21
              So to try to summarize my dysfunctional haunted history, the outline of what to do is to make props, buy things that can be repurposed into props, cheap at trade days events, garage sales or even garbage day or dumpster diving. There is are a couple people who say if you are still doing that you aren't a success but one of my face book freinds you all know and love just found a bunch of manequin forms in a dumpster. I think he is kind of a success.

              The argument is when you are a success you will only go buy $18,000 distortions props because that is what people want. Far from the truth in how often that really happens. SO you make things, repurpose things, like an artist would. Like Allen Hopps Videos show so many things you can make that certainly provide the proper level of entertainment and eye candy any haunt really should be using for detail. Only Allen is so successful that he seems to have an addiction to shopping at Harbor Frieght, Home Depot and Tandy Leather supply. He also knows where ALL the suppliers are for professional materials. Yet with thinking a bit and watching for sales, and close outs, you accumulate all the raw materials to dress out a haunt. This is actually the time consuming part. Collecting costume bits and masks or make up and so on.

              Despite the other wildly held opinions that things from seasonal halloween franchise stores are all crap and are below standard for a proper haunt, these things are in lots of cases just fine and can be embelleshed to become part of a better costume package and personalized and upgraded if you will.

              It takes hours and hours to make things and some how hours and hours to earn money to buy things already made by a pro is somehow just magically in a budget or you shouldn't even proceed, there is no difference in hours making instead of hours earning the money to buy already made and marked up to hell items. Even if you were mister money bags, you will find it takes hours and hours to shop for things and worry about their timely delivery and still have to modify things to fit your overall look to a themed haunt. You can spend $7,000 for a proper costume or come up with time and a couple hundred dollars in materials. So where do you start is developing your own look. How does that happen if every haunt in the market buys this years newest thing?

              Or you do want to support vendors that make one of a kind custom items that are individual works. You spend more time planning themes and costumes and the customer interaction yet forums seem to only repeat over and over who bought what at Transworld, how do you make walls, write a business plan and deal with a fire marshal. So because we started out with parties, theming and decorating on an almost nothing budget it all came to be. The budget wasn't nothing because we were broke! We could pull of super cheap parties because it was part of the fun to make everything and lots of things and dummies posed and monsters and things flying in the air made out of crap and things popping up outdoors and giant dragons made out of freaking 2 litter pepsi bottles, covered in bondo, with detail carved and added and airbrushed with underpaintings and scale dimensions. It cost like $10 and 75 cents in air brush paint and was round different shops for like 10 years getting rave reviews and was built in maybe 2 partial days.

              It seems silly but you can do a model of your haunt or room set ups in paper or cardboard and your monsters are army men and space men toys and if it is hay ride you buy a kids farm set to have a tractor and hay wagon and plan out your scenes to enough of an extent that is going to flesh out your show.

              It isn't what haunts have become in the last 30 years and you need to aspire to that. I go to lots of haunts and come out realizing I have seen this crap before and the overall style came from the original Jaycees one kid in a room acting some crap out play book. There are a tremendous amount of haunts that have been doing it wrong for 30 years then if that is the recommendation. So if there are 20 haunts, go see them and flood your head with what is cool and what is not and attempt to do the better things. Some time you just can't afford to do the cool things in the beginning so you don't and plan for years down the line it might look like this or that. And the money comes from the customers. If the first set of customers doesn't respond you get some new customers! Either a slightly different kind of show or an entirely different location. Everything evolves.

              Still at some point you have to stop all this imaginary crap that you have to change the show a lot every year and spend the big bucks to keep up with the Jones haunt and make a living. It would look cool if this or that or the other thing was all pimped out. Well, make me a shit load of money and we'll do that. Until then this is what you got do something with it.

              You have to do enough research to understand you aren't just being told you need $250,000 or don't even start or that is what "they" want to see. Really? That's 3 people out of 300 million in this country alone. Find your own customers and meet their entertainment needs. Perhaps your crew that started with nothing is the top haunt prop maker or gizmo designer or character actor 10 years from now. Even if you did nothing for 30 years was developed people's skills and life trends that they truely wanted to follow, you are a success. It isn't just 60,000 people showed up and bought the combo VIP ticket for mega bucks and that is what success is.

              Back in the day, people in haunts all said they were inspired by the Disney haunted mansion. Well that took millions and millions of dollars and is larger than 100,000 SF and took 17 years to build. In the real world it might take 17 years to build but you open as soon as you can not two decades from now when it is ready. There are lots of Universal movie tour fans too. Still not what an intimate haunted house evening with no travel package can be. So it is an entirely different animal. You can scare people jiggling a plastic bag at them or having something with teeth go for the belt. How does that cost $250,000 to do something cavemen were spoofing each other with 40,000 years ago.

              First you develop the overall feel of what the routes of your show are and how these simple things become performance art and you test these things out any way you can in any venue you can afford and if it was riteaous you make someone money. Either you, some other established haunt or charity. If you can make people money, you get to be part of the bigger picture and are rewarded. It doesn't have to be step one, have a fast car to drive away with the ticket money on the busiest night and disappear and start a new life in Venusuala. It can be that the customers were wildly involved and intrested and then formula marketing can be lessened to a great degree. If you develop an enthusiastic following you don't have crap that sounds like a used car commercial cheapening your art. You still do well, just you might not impress other haunters by saying "my haunt's name is blankety blank, did that make you horny or did juices squirt around in your brain when I typed out the name of my haunt?" It really doesn't and it is the customers I care about.

              Even seeing pictures of other haunts is some kind of pathelogical end satisfaction. No reason to build your own because you spent the evening looking at pictures. Like Haunt porn. The haunt pictures are better than I can make so I'll just look at pictures as they come up for 10 years on some dorky forum. No make things...do small events, develop an enthusiastic cleintel and then get the walls and electric system and lease.
              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


              • #22
                Beware of the corporate haunt mind control stuff. That's how they keep the little haunter down man!
                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


                • #23
                  Originally posted by Marr Branch View Post
                  Maybe, Frightner was married to a whore, who else thinks this?
                  I told my story so I could express how important it is to expect a bomb drop from any direction, even inside the home.

                  I do not appreciate this comment. Not one bit. I put my story there, knowingly that something like this may come up. But you brought it up...

                  My wife was the most wonderful person to me for 11 years. Of course we had our trials, every marriage does. We haven't even had an argument in the past 6 years. We had that 'disgusting' kinda love that people always told us to get a room or w/e. We did everything together. She hated drugs, hated alcohol etc. She didn't do anything like that until 3 months after starting antidepressants. If you want some websites in case you're concerned or want to know the reasons for my believing this, other than seeing her beautiful personality switch with my own eyes, PM me and I"ll happily send you site after site, story after story.


                  Now, back to the subject. Greg always has great advice, but you do have to read his stuff to get it lol. He's helped me out along the way through 2012 and was actually the turning point for me to pull the trigger. Everyone else had me believing I shouldn't even try. The ONLY reason it 'failed' (meaning I can't be at the same location this year) is because of the incident with the ex wife. I wholeheartedly believe, had she completed even half of the marketing plans, we'd pulled off 2,000 ppl and would've been able to sustain the building etc.

                  Marketing is where it's at. You can have the best haunt in the area, but no one's gonna show if you don't get the word to them. Our publicity stunts made a huge difference. Most of the ppl who came, either drove by the gas station we were at, or went bowling and saw us there... etc. That, I'd say had 70-80% of our attendance. Other options were flyers and 1 radio (was suppose to have gotten 3 stations)

                  Keep up with Allen Hopps. He's always got new videos coming out showing some great tutorials and acting etc. Buy his DVD's. He doesn't talk too much... like some of the other dvd's like detailing etc... they talk for 10 minutes, then show something cool for 2. Talking is ok, but not when you're repeating the same thing over... and over.. and over.. and Ohh hey look at this. lol. There are some good detailing dvd's out there tho, so pick up w/e you can and learn learn learn! The more you do, the more you save!

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Mike Chambers View Post
                    I have been a haunter for as long as I can remember. I have worked in the professional side for years as an actor and laborer for build outs and have been doing the home haunt thing. So I have been thinking for years now that I want to own my own professional haunt. Am I crazy for wanting to do this? Some might say so.

                    So my question is where did you start? Where should I start? I'm not looking to start something this season but I want to plan and do things the right way if this takes years then so be it, I want to learn as much as I can from where ever and who ever wants to teach me. I have worked with John Burrton a.k.a One scary guy for a few years. I have learned alot from him and would have to say he was the biggest influence for me to get into this.

                    So where should it start?
                    Start small, do not go for broke the first year. Do not expect a return for the first 5 years. I am on year 4 by the way, and close to turning profit. If you're wife get's on citalopram shoot that bitch in the head.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      .......



                      Ok... I'll admit I laughed hard at that one. (actually, there's a blackbox warning now that states the family should look for personality changes and contact doctor if needs be. However, the doctor will want to up the dose.. just turn it all away. You won't go to prison)


                      Although you could shoot her and have a $800 static prop to put in the freezer with the low low cost of a 45 slug :P

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        When starting out, it is also important to intentionally not be too flashy. Setting up a wall system in even a parking lot or in a building with large garage doors wide open for a few weeks or a month is in itself free advertising of what are they building, what is that about, what is happening there? If you whip in with semi trailers or horse trailers already set up in half a day and whip out the ticket podium then it is they just want my damn money, stupid gypsies screw them.

                        Setting up and tearing down is part of the performance art. Auditioning actors is part of the performance art. Having some landlord with lots of freinds getting an attraction at his place is part of the performance art. Telling other haunters what you are doing and where is also part of the performance art. It shouldn't be a competition, it should be every venue finding their own style of customers that evolve and become the other haunts customers and vica versa.

                        Genuinely helping other haunts with stuff is becoming part of the community, developing a market. If there is no market, no one makes any money and it is a crazy hobby. You are just some weird Halloween guy.

                        So someone that goes to Universal studios might not be impressed but he should be because you just took $10 from him and it took Universal studios billions to get $30 from him. Does Universal come to you? No. So they are not the competition. Again it isn't something that only happened 40 years ago, it is happening all over in undisclosed locations all the time. Now many chose to remain small 8,000 customer venues and not bring 60,000 to their facilities. Success is different for everyone. If you only saw 800 or 4,000 people you are not a loser. You were able to be more intimate than any cattle line of patrons doing a conga line through pretty styrofoam and jiggly latex.

                        As much as I kind of hate some post menopausal grandma pretending to be a witch warning of which path we should go down in the woods, those are the things I remember. Even the bad things that are just slightly tolerable are what speaks volumes of gotta go back it could be different this time. Some how going big loses that sense of wonder and changability. There is no way to manage hundreds of actors but you might be able to really get 15 in the groove. There is no way to have a mobile haunt and detail 20,000 SF and it is really tough to detail 20,000 even in a permanent building but you can really rock 3,000 or 5,000 SF. BY comparison you aren't able to charge $20 or $30 but even at $10 you might be seeing a profit.

                        Every little detail of why is that idiot painting a skeleton in the parking lot in July is advertising. I have the advantage of having been around a long time and I'm hearing now from 18 to 20 year olds who drove past my shop wanting to see weird things like hearse and walls with strange paint on them when they were 6 and 8 and 13 and 14 and waiting for that time when they could go or what happens in reality when they are out on their own, employed and free to go anywhere the couldn't go when being with their family that budgeted every meal and trip.

                        So that is the real story of marketing plans, they take 20 minus 6 = 14 years of going through the motions for a majority of your real customers to show up. So what you do for 14 years needs to not have lots and lots of stress and deadlines and budgets and pay backs or you are dead and problems of any kind. You can't buy real loyalty of a community, you can earn it for free by just being consistent and happy and laid back and matter of fact about how cool this is.
                        Last edited by Greg Chrise; 05-01-2013, 06:57 PM.
                        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


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Greg Chrise View Post
                          make things...do small events, develop an enthusiastic cleintel and then get the walls and electric system and lease.
                          Great quote!
                          Haunt: DARK REALMS

                          Day job: Game Composer/Sound Designer

                          My "geek rock" band: Legendary nOObs

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