So how was everyones season ... up or down??

[drfrightner]

So how did your season finish? Larry

[Grey Lady]

first season

I have no comparison as this was our first season but we hit the goals I had established. We've also had great feedback and reviews! I couldn't have hoped for more.
Thrilled and exhausted.
Jan

[gorezone]

Down from the year before. I figure we raised the price so that might have done it. Money wise about the same. Wasn't a great year but not a bad one either. GZ

[sean]

up, all the way around. I'm surprised at the turnout considering we had poor weather. One of our biggest nights, turnout wise, was during a heavy rain. Only had one weekend where rain wasn't in the forecast.

[wickedfarmer]

Choked at finish line

Was chugging along to be our best of 14 years for our outdoor event even with weather; going strong through Oct. 23rd . Then it fell off the cliff the last weekend. Something about snow and outdoor haunt just doesn't seem right to people I guess.


Wicked Farmer

[BlackForest]

Not too bad. About the same as last year, but this year we tried completely different advertising and marketing techniques, so at least we know they perform the same/better than before (they were a bit cheaper). Overall, a very nice season and we had tons of good reviews and people who thought we 'blew the roof off the place' this year. To top it next year, we might just have to blow the roof off of the place. Haha! In all seriousness, our plans for next year are big and bad and we hope everybody enjoys them!

Tyler
Black Forest

[HauntedHouseOnTheHill]

We had rain every weekend and still beat our numbers form last year.

[Jim Warfield]

"Up" -"Down"-"Sideways!"

October was down but being open every night of the entire year evened it out, financially. The gratifying thing to me was the large number of repeat customers we saw from say Friday to the very next Saturday! (Unless so many people happen to have twins out there?)
My Wife also did a superior job of getting just the right number of employees every night to control that needed nightly expense.
Some patrons told us they have come here every year for 16 years! One guy from 65miles away has been here 75 times!
We also seemed to see quite a few people who were brought here as little children, who are now bringing their children here! (Open almost every night for 27YEARS!)
Even though some people will always be disappointed in October here because I can not do their entire tour for them, we have also had numerous tour guides in October who some patrons request by name,and those guides do enjoy quite a lot of freedom with their characters.
One young man in his second year here is very High-Energy and entertaining and postively Entertaining!
He leads people during the last leg of the tour, a very good and positive attribute for this house.
All in all, October slid by very quickly, as it usually does for me......
I had to chuckle to myself recently remembering one of the first Trans World groups that came here.
As they were all leaving via the Exit I said:"I have some bad news for you, you all just got The Very Same tour, that I give everyone else!"
(And I HAD!)
A few of you did say that you took some new knowledge back home with you that night.
Thank You.

[Jim Warfield]

"It's THE ECONOMY?"

Is what a locl business owner kept telling her employee.
He said "No it isn't! I have people paying me all day long to cut down trees for them at $2,000 a tree!" (His own business, he works for her too)
I told him:"You are dealing with older adults who are home owners, your employer and myself mostly see teenagers and College kids, young familys with small children, all groups hard pressed with menial paying jobs if they have one."
He had not thought about things from this point of veiw before.
If I only had one customer a year, but they paid me $100,000 for a tour of this house, I think I wouldn't be just too worried.....I could be wrong.

[drfrightner]

We started off horrible because of the Cardinals. It was like a ghost town (LOL). Then they lost and I was oh yeah maybe... well then it rained that whole weekend after they lost so another wash out. We finished really strong the last two weeks but it didn't make up for the Cardinals and the rain. I don't know our final numbers but its down again I'm sure.

We didn't really raise our prices except for Lemp we brought that attraction up with the other two... so from that stand point it helped.

Larry

[Spikerip]

Overall we were up for the season. The first weekend we were down, but weeks 2, 3 & 4 we were up and set records for attendance. Unfortunately weekend #5, Halloween weekend, we had severe storms (high wind with cold and rain) and our numbers were down that weekend compared to last year. We were pleased with the season and since it was our second year in this location; we really took the haunt over the top with improvements and additions. Review teams gave us high marks for the haunts and our customers exiting were very impressed with the new scenes and our actors.

Our timed ticket sales and VIP ticket sales were huge this year. Gotta love opening the night with a couple hundred advanced ticket sales. We got aggressive with telling customers as they were approaching our long line outside about our VIP ticket sales too. That’s an extra $10 each just for walking them past the general admission line. Also we did a better job promoting makeup services from our makeup crew and they were really busy on Halloween afternoon and evening. The news media is contacting us now asking for interviews and information.

Exit surveys indicated nearly 85% of our customers found out about us on google. So much for all that money spent on radio. Pretty sure we’ll be cutting back on radio and print advertising next year.

The city is now requiring large home haunts to apply for a building permit and they shut down several of them. Not only do they need to pay about $1000 in permit fees, but they are required to provide emergency exit signs, emergency lighting, emergency exits, fire-proofing, fire extinguishers, etc. Pretty much holding them to some of the same level of standards we’ve been held to for many years. The only thing I didn’t hear them requiring of them were sprinkler systems. One of the larger home haunts was featured on the local news a couple days before Halloween and the next day the city inspector was there to shut them down. Heard it happened to several of them just before Halloween.

Hope everyone else had a good season. We’re now finalizing plans for our Happy HorrorDays after Christmas event.

Kelly Collins
The ScareAtorium Columbus

[Capt.Chaos]

2014 season

We were up from last year. We had amazing weather all season. That sure didn't hurt. I really threw some cash at marketing this year. We tried some new marketing ideas and it worked well. I'm pleased across the board. But tired as hell.

Buck

[N2SPOOKINU]

We had alot of rain leadfing up to our first weekend open. Not good for outdoor events. Iit stopped raining just in time but the ground was saturated and made it difficult for our tractors to navigate but we got through it. The second week same thing. I think a total of 11" of rain fell in 2 weeks.

Number wise we were up and quite surprized. We tried some new things and it seemed to work.
We usually spend $50k plus in our own market on radio plus another $30k in outlying areas. We dropped all of our radio advertizing in our area and only spent $4k on surrounding areas.
That saved us quite a bit and our numbers didnt reflect a drop. Our test showed that radio in our area is not a good way to promote our haunt and Facebook was the way to go. We jumped to over 10k likes and didnt spend a dime on Facebook.


I think we will continue our advertizing changes and look forward to saving even more money next year.

Greg

[Joe P]

The Shallow Grave was up.........

We saw a 30% jump from year 1 to year 2, we were hoping for a bit better numbers but still getting the word out. Thursdays suck!
Starting to build a reputation, striving everyday to put Central Florida on the map (outside of HHN)

Joe
The Shallow Grave

[remyghost]

This was our second year as a pro haunt. The first half of the season was awful. I think it was a combination of really sunny, warm weather, and some bad-mouthing from another haunt in the area. (Long story there.) The last few weeks, it picked up. Our reviews were great, and we ended up finishing close to the first year.

I think we will be doing some different advertising in the future.