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  • Pushing Larger Numbers Through.......

    So after our first opening weekend we have seen our numbers almost triple so far compared to last year....which is awesome.....and a bit scary because last year there were a few nights that we pushed big numbers for us and the wait time was about an hour and a half, almost two hours at one point.

    My question for everyone is how do you push a couple thousand people through a night and still give them a great show? I have been to several top of the list haunts and quite often see the "conga" line happen where it is almost a solid line of people going through the haunt, and to me that always seemed like the customer wasn't quite getting a good show because more often than not we would miss what was going on.

    We did improve on entertainment in the waiting area before the hayride portion that delivers everyone back to the haunts - giving them a little more to see while waiting in line.

    What other suggestions are there for pushing through the numbers without compromising the show and avoiding the bad reviews based on people's waiting times.

    Thanks everyone!!

  • #2
    I don't know that there is an answer. If you go to Halloween Horror Nights put on by Universal Studios, you get the conga line effect, and the haunts suffer for it. They have long waiting times, and conga lines once you're inside the haunts. They are Universal Studios, with the expertise and money that name brings with it, and they can't solve the problem. If Universal Studios can't solve the problem, how can an independent haunt be expected to? The thing is, people don't stop going to Halloween Horror Nights just because of the long wait times and conga lines. People are still attending in vast numbers. Keep your show quality up, and people will still attend. It seems like the more popular something is, the more popular it becomes., so to speak. People will see massive lines as an indication that your haunt is THE place to be. As in "if all these people are willing to wait so long, this haunt must be awesome!" If you've done all the standard design tricks to move people along (scare forward, good room design, etc.), then there isn't much more you can really do.
    Haunt: DARK REALMS

    Day job: Game Composer/Sound Designer

    My "geek rock" band: Legendary nOObs

    Comment


    • #3
      Here is the secret...

      1) On nights you KNOW you are going to be super busy OPEN ONE HOUR EARLY... it makes all the difference

      2) From the first person you let in the door run them thru at the same exact pace as you would at 9pm when you have a thousand people in line. In other words many haunters panic when they see long lines and go faster... NO DO NOT DO THAT. Send customers thru at a fast pace from customer one. Your goal is when the mad rush shows up at say 9pm you should NOT have one customer in line. Yeah eventually it will back up I know but don't panic because you are way ahead of the curve.

      3) Make sure your actors know to scare forward never block anyone.

      4) LOAD UP and as many actors as you can get this helps off set the quicker pace.

      Hope this helps.

      Larry
      Larry Kirchner
      President
      www.HalloweenProductions.com
      www.BlacklightAttractions.com
      www.HauntedHouseSupplies.com
      www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

      Comment


      • #4
        Universal, Knott's, and Busch Gardens all run people through in "conga lines" from the beginning (which, if you have to do very often is a sign of success.) In my opinion, all 3 parks still have excellent haunts. It's because they are high detail, high tech, and very immersive. Having enough actors and having them trained properly is important. In our show, most of our actors can get 3-4 scares easily on an average night and they are trained for that. But they all have one Primary or Essential scare that is the single most important to their role or position. On busy nights, they are instructed that it will be busy and to only hit primary scares and only scare forward, still delivering a good show. Another trick I've seen by the theme park giants is double casting roles/positions inside the house where the actors work off each other. Meaning; I see the actor pop out at the guy 6 feet in front of me so I know he's there. But while my brain is registering that, that actor's "twin" pops out right next to me and gets me because he skipped the guy 6 feet ahead of me - they sort of play leap frog to ensure everyone get some scares. There used to be a local haunt that ran in an old school fashion of having a skit or story play out in every room before the group moved on. Some nights they had a 3 hour line and didn't get done pushing people through until 4am. These days with bigger crowds and various types of live entertainment becoming more popular, that's just not feasible. At least not if you want your customers still awake and not grouchy when they finally get to the entrance of your show. (When guests tell us they didn't like being in such a big group or conga line we tell them that we find most people prefer doing that over waiting 3+ hours. We also point out what nights are usually slower, including our off season shows and suggest a visit then. Most people understand and are receptive to our logic.)
        Overall I'd say the key is training your staff and being able & willing to adapt. Nowadays when we design new sets and scenes for our show we keep "conga line" throughput in mind. Example: we wouldn't put a hellavator 3/4 of the way through the show. It's how we can still deliver a quality show during haunt season. We get the chance to slow it down and deliver a more traditional style experience with our 7 off season shows that occur from December through July.

        Jake Farmer
        Assistant Show Director & Technical Director
        Dark Hour Haunted House
        www.darkhourhauntedhouse.com

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        • #5
          Thanks!

          Thanks for the tips - We would love to open an hour earlier but unfortunately it doesn't quite get dark enough for most of the attractions until the sun goes down which later in the season is right around 7pm. The actors do know to scare forward so that helps for sure.

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          • #6
            Larry,

            Thanks for the tips! Would like to hear more if anyone has them.

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            • #7
              What do you think was the primary factor(s) that caused your attendance to grow in the 1 year time span?

              Comment


              • #8
                The increase -

                I would have to say definitely word of mouth - Our advertising has stayed about the same each year - Radio, Billboards, Social Media, and a few Newspaper ads. This is also our 4th year in this location so that helps. We also offer almost a "One Stop Shop" - we have a Hayride, Haunted Trail, and 7 walk through attractions. We make sure to change things up each year to keep fans coming back - and our prices are pretty low compared to surrounding haunt when you consider what is included. We offer the Trail & Hayride for $5.00 per person any age, and if you want to do everything it is $10.. 11 & Under, and $15.00 12 & Up - so we make it affordable for families to come out.

                This year we definitely noticed more and more buzz going on well before we opened the haunt, a lot more people talking about it ahead of time.

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                • #9
                  And the weather has been great up there this year hasn't it? Michigan has had a very nice fall so far....

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............

                    Yes we try not to say that too loud The weather was good for opening weekend - Last year wasn't to bad, had a couple rainy days but that doesn't seem to slow our attendance down to much, and the cold doesn't keep people away either. Even if it pours we keep the indoor haunts open.

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                    • #11
                      The best night to attend any haunted house is on the weekdays and considering these are your slower nights why not push that? You need more customers on Thursday right so I believe one way to slow down the lines on a weekend is offer bigger discounts for slower nights to grow those nights. If you can take pressure off weekends by filtering people to slower days that should help.

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                      • #12
                        If you ever have the opportunity, I highly suggest visiting Statesville Haunted Prison in Illinois. Never have I seen a haunt so sufficient with throughput or actor utilization. They build their sets more as environments rather than rooms and have an impressive amount of actors and props that completely overwhelm you. They send through massive amounts of people but because of their layout and building their sets for multiple scares by the same actor, you still experience a fantastic show.

                        They are part of The Legendary Haunt Tour this year in November, I highly recommend checking them out!
                        Zach Wiechmann
                        www.frontyardfright.com

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I think one of the keys is to build scares that scare more than just the person directly in front of them. I think the shift is going towards special fx that can scare 10 to 12 people at a time. I also think a combination of actor then digital/animated fx then another actor hoping you don't miss anyone. Overall I believe the key isn't to scare every single person with every actor but make sure you hit everyone 5 or 6 times out of 30 potential scare points. On top of that make sure you give the guests a great show so its just not about scaring them. When you have good scares both human and non-human mixed with a great overall experience there is no limit to how many people can go in at once.

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by NS Haunt View Post
                            And the weather has been great up there this year hasn't it? Michigan has had a very nice fall so far....
                            Better weather here in MI, but that Michigan vs. Michigan State football game hurt our attendance last Saturday.
                            Haunt: DARK REALMS

                            Day job: Game Composer/Sound Designer

                            My "geek rock" band: Legendary nOObs

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              There will be a seminar about this at TW this year... I already made sure of it.

                              Who do you think should speak about it? Larry
                              Larry Kirchner
                              President
                              www.HalloweenProductions.com
                              www.BlacklightAttractions.com
                              www.HauntedHouseSupplies.com
                              www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

                              Comment

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