Transworld Haunt Tour - PHOBIUS Haunted House!

[Farmer]

PHOBIUS haunted house is opening their doors for Transworld attendees on Saturday, March 21st.
For those who don't know, the owners purchased the legendary Haunt House formerly in Caddo Mills, Texas and brought it back to life (quite well I might add) and added some of their own thrills as PHOBIUS Haunted House.
Just $40 and it INCLUDES bus transport and a lights-on tour afterwards. Can't beat that price!
Tickets are on sale here:
http://phobiushaunt.ticketleap.com/2...t-tour/details

[teamzombie]

We visited about 15 haunted houses last season and this was one of them. We stopped thru St Louis on our way to Columbia then Kansas City. Phobius was really confusing you had to park in one place to ride a bus to what seemed like a truck stop. It took more time to get back to our car than the actual haunted house itself. The haunt was okay nothing special and certainly not legendary. I think this haunted house is about an hour outside of St Louis. We visited on a Friday night it wasn't busy. Overall I would rate this attraction a 5 out of 10.

From there we traveled I want to say another 40 minutes and visited Fear Fest in Columbia which was really busy. Fear Fest was a lot of fun and would rate this attraction 7 out of 10. After visiting Fear Fest we went on down the road to Kansas City visited The Beast and Edge of Hell. Believe it or not we did all four of these attractions in the same exact night.

I have a question why doesn't Fear Fest or the haunts in Kansas City open they are not that far away.

Travel Distance from Downtown (guessing)

Phobius 1 hour
Fear Fest 1 hour 40 minutes
Kansas City 4 hours

You reach all of these attractions from the same highway.

[N2SPOOKINU]

Team Zombie
My wife and I own Fearfest. We have been open in the past for Transworld a few times. The main problem is getting transworld to support any tours other than The Darkness because of the close proximity to the convention. It is a ton of work to coordinate busses and food for hundreds of haunters.
We loved showing off out haunt and would love to do it again. We were asked to give private tours to a few of our close friends last year and were pleased to have the time to do it.
We also vend at Transworld (Zombie Safari Paintball Trailers) so that takes up much of our time.
If there is a way to coordinate a bus tour between haunts for next year we would be more than willing to do it. By March my crew is having haunt withdrawls and would love to open our doors for haunters.
Thank you for the kind words about Fearfest. Next time you stop by let me know. I would love to meet you and chat about your experience.
Stop by our booth and say HI during TW and thanks again for the comments.

Greg Allen

[N2SPOOKINU]

Team Zombie
My wife and I own Fearfest. We have been open in the past for Transworld a few times. The main problem is getting transworld to support any tours other than The Darkness because of the close proximity to the convention. It is a ton of work to coordinate busses and food for hundreds of haunters.
We loved showing off out haunt and would love to do it again. We were asked to give private tours to a few of our close friends last year and were pleased to have the time to do it.
We also vend at Transworld (Zombie Safari Paintball Trailers) so that takes up much of our time.
If there is a way to coordinate a bus tour between haunts for next year we would be more than willing to do it. By March my crew is having haunt withdrawls and would love to open our doors for haunters.
Thank you for the kind words about Fearfest. Next time you stop by let me know. I would love to meet you and chat about your experience.
Stop by our booth and say HI during TW and thanks again for the comments.

Greg Allen

[drfrightner]

TZ/Greg,

Couple things... I am wide open to helping produce tours next year that do NOT include The Darkness. I'm actually going to talk to some haunts about doing just that... we have gotten pretty good at understanding how to produce and promote haunt tours for conventions. Its easy to say yeah we are the most successful at because the convention center is like 5 minutes away from our haunt but there is much more to it than that.

There was some really painful lessons learned about how to produce a successful haunt tour... how to do it and how not to do it. I think we learned painfully what you shouldn't do! LOL

With anything there is a learning curve. One of the big reasons I feel The Darkness tour has been successful is because haunters what information they want idea's, they want to see something they have never seen before. To do all of those things cost a lot of money. Since TW has been coming to TW we have produced NOW SIX haunted house tours. Within that spam we have rebuilt OUR ENTIRE haunted house, and spent nearly 3 million dollars.

For 3 MILLION dollars I could have bought a mansion, an airplane, property you name it...

I do my best to promote this industry, and because of this website and magazine I've developed a passion for educations for this industry. I have always seen our tour in that light. I've been told many times I'm crazy for spending the kind of money we've spent and yes that is correct... looking back now I wish I would have done something different. But once you commit yourself to something you see it thru...

I really believe haunters come back because they realize we really go the extra mile otherwise why come back 6 years in a row?

Most haunts are not willing to make that effort and actually they are RIGHT for not doing it. Haunt tours are not money makers by any stretch of the imagination and furthermore they create a lot of undo stress. You are opening for haunt owners you know... that in and of itself is stressful.

With ALL OF THAT BEING SAID... I'm open to producing a big haunt tour next year and NOT opening The Darkness at all. I've said all along that i will NOT just open my haunted house just to open it. If I can't do something awesome, something worth seeing we won't do it.

Well the Darkness WILL BE WORTH SEEING in SPADES ... we are doing rooms so complicated I'm shocked we are even doing it to be honest with you.

I've found it to be fun now so its actually my new hobby. LOL

What we have learned is the mass majority of haunters do not want to stray far from the convention centers... looking back at a Hauntcon in Denver very few wanted to travel to Salt Lake to see Rocky Point despite it being hands down better than all the haunts in Denver combined. We also learned with Hauntcon Houston very few wanted to visit 13th Gate despite it being maybe the best haunt in America. People don't want to spend several hours on a bus... I think most haunters would rather be in the bar drinking beer. LOL

At the end of the day Phobious I never visited, I don't really know anything about the place, I only know its about an hour or so away from St Louis but if you get traffic it could be double that. Fear Fest is I'm guessing about 2 hours away. Kansas City would be around 5 hours away maybe less. It would be tough to get a lot of people to visit because they'd have to sit on a bus for several hours and with the time at the haunt itself they would tie up around 4 to 10 hours.

I do think these far away haunts are better as pre-show tours. Nothing else to do. Personally if I'm Phobious I do not open because of all the stuff going on Saturday from the Price is Fright, Some awards thing, Darkness tour, and the biggest thing of all is really simple haunters are having parties.

I think MHC and Hauntcon both had success with tours after the fact... parties - drinking and more parties are what haunters want on Saturday.

Anyway so again my two cents is I think we should figure out some pre-bus tours and some after TW bus tours for 2016. I'm all for it.

I'm willing to help organize that. Lastly, to comment on Greg's comment about TW supporting Darkness, I don't agree with that. I simply believe its a product of the haunt owners wanting to stay close to their hotels, parties, doing business deals maybe, going to a casino, I think from all the shows we've seen over the years bus tours just don't attract a LARGE crowd not like the haunt right there 15 or 20 minutes away... get there get back.

Just my two cents. PRE-TOURS and AFTER TOURS I think are the way to go! Fear Fest I've seen this place Greg does an awesome job... but with or without support of TW its not going to change I believe how many people attend. I think TW is more of a party atmosphere than a haunt tour atmosphere.

Larry

[teamzombie]

Greg,

Thanks for the reply. Yes we really enjoyed your haunted house. We are planning our first trek to Transworld and I guess wondered out loud why there isn't a haunt tour to your place. I think Larry made some good points that I hadn't thought about prior to reading his post. I think it's not a bad idea to offer pre and post tours. Last year we also visited Darkness, Creepyworld but couldn't make Abyss (Friday). On Saturday we were the first customers at Phobius Haunted House as stated it was just an average haunt nothing special. From there we drove to your place bought a quick ticket because you had a long line. Since we wanted to get to KC in time we didn't do the paintball zombie attraction not enough time.

Are their other attractions in the Columbia area for a haunt tour during the tradeshow?

The cities we visited last year ranged from Dallas to St Louis all the way to Denver Colorado.

Chris

[Farmer]

You all have very good points, most of which I completely agree with.
I think an hour one way is reasonable and I myself wouldn't want to spend much more time on a bus than that (one-way.) For $40 I figured this would be an affordable tour to any folks who are hitting TW for the first time (we have some newbies coming with our crew this year,) or looking for an alternative to typically rowdy Saturday Night entertainment.
I personally haven't seen Phobius yet, but I've seen pictures and it's incredible how much it still looks just like The Haunt House. I did see The Haunt House many times while it was still here in Texas and it was one of the best around town. Personally, I'm excited to see what has become of it.

[Drjkyll]

You all have very good points, most of which I completely agree with.
I think an hour one way is reasonable and I myself wouldn't want to spend much more time on a bus than that (one-way.) For $40 I figured this would be an affordable tour to any folks who are hitting TW for the first time (we have some newbies coming with our crew this year,) or looking for an alternative to typically rowdy Saturday Night entertainment.
I personally haven't seen Phobius yet, but I've seen pictures and it's incredible how much it still looks just like The Haunt House. I did see The Haunt House many times while it was still here in Texas and it was one of the best around town. Personally, I'm excited to see what has become of it.

And for those who may not want to take the bus and full tour ($40) - those tickets are very limited anyway, you can also still go out and see the show for a $20 admission.

[Drjkyll]

I absolutely agree with Larry and Jake on all of their points. I cannot begin to imagine the logisitics behind trying to put together haunt tour, especially with multiple haunts. I would politely hide if asked to coordinate!

That being said, I was a part of The Haunt House for many years, and it was a pretty amazing experience watching it mature and grow into one of the premiere haunted attractions in Texas. No animatronics, actor driven... it was a darn scary attraction. While I was sad it had to come to an end, I was thrilled when I learend that it was going to have a new lease on life as Phobius in Missouri.

I cannot express enough what a miracle Justin & Nicci Fears pulled off by moving a non-modular, top rated haunt so many miles, and in a very short time. The dedication, determination and fortitude these folks showed was staggering. I witnessed a lot of the work they put in down here to dismantle it and again... the word miracle comes to mind.
Prior to their opening last year, part of The Haunt House team travelled north to train their actors - nad when we saw the rebuilt haunt for the first time we were floored. Not only was much of it rebuilt exactly as it was before, but the changes and expansions were outstanding! Any haunter who knows the story of the move would be hard pressed not to be humbled.

As for anyone who might not have been impressed with the show that first year, I cannot really speak to their concerns as everyone has a different opinion as to what makes a haunt scary or special. I also cannot speak to how the show is when it is up and running, but I will after I see it for myself Saturday night. I can say, when we met the actors they were as enthusiastic a cast as I have ever met. I have little doubt they will impress us!

There are a ton of great choices for entertainment every night of Transworld - that part of what makes it such a great trade show. And I'm certainly not going to tell anyone what choices they should make, but I can tell you that I'll be at Phobius Saturday night. And I expect it will be a very special experience!