Haunted House Ratings

[damon carson]

I was just wondering how AOL and Yahoo do their ratings of haunted houses? There is a local haunted house in Columbia Mo advertising they were rated the #1 Haunted House in Missouri by Yahoo.com. Funny thing is you cant find this on Yahoo nowhere?! And from the looks of this place I know it isnt better than Darkness or Beast or Edge of Hell. So Im just wondering how they can be making such a statement? Oh by the way its the Necropolis haunted house. And if your haunt is rated by one of these online do they visit these haunts in person? Or do people rate them? Just wondering if there is any credibility to these ratings. Are these just regular people or someone who knows maybe something about the industry?
Damon

[dr0zombie]

That is a good question... if you go to Yahoo you can rate events in their local directory details on events. But, using Illinois as an example, it would only take you four reviews to be king of the Yahoo hill for 2006 and 2007 combined. Though it sounds really good to say... "Best on Yahoo"...

[damon carson]

Thats what the problem is! The general public unless they are really into haunted houses, horror movies ect are just basically blind to these type of scam artists. And in this area its really bad. There are alot of bad haunted houses. And they are getting almost the price if not the price of big city haunts with big budgets and amazing detail. There needs to be sometype of national rating system set up to basically close these ripoff haunts giving Halloween and the Haunt Industry a bad name. If this day would ever come it would be great but somehow I dont see it anytime soon?
Damon

[drfrightner]

AOL put out this list this week...

http://cg.channel.aol.com/haunted-houses

Larry

[Barry]

Congrats on being on that list again Larry. MHC's Miss Midwest Scary Pageant is listed in the Top 13 Freaky Attractions off of that page as well!

[Mr Nightmarez]

Amazingly every year - all the haunts in Chattanooga are rated #1 except us...

We are the ONLY haunt that does not claim to be #1 out of 6 claiming the #1 SPOT..

So for fun we are developing a commercial that reads something like: (Teenage Voices Picking Haunts to go to)
Look this haunt, and this one were rated #1...oh wait so was this one and this one and hmmm this one. So how can they all be #1? Yeah?
Ruby Falls Haunted Cavern, we don't have to claim to be #1- we know we are...
Try the rest and the face the best. Don't be fooled by the #1.

Rated #1 (by themselves and their family)

We already started a few pushes on Mocking the others as Rated #1 on this street. Why not face the # 1 Haunt in the Chattanooga.

The sad part is... the normal everyday Haunt Goer has no clue and reads into it. #1 - Always an issue... And I wish there was a way to regulate or make people reveal 'WHO RATED THEM #1'.

[Ghost River Duck]

It's jsut marketing and most people are not fooled by it anymore.

I wouldn't sweat it too much. Your competitor are not really competition. We figured out long ago that we were all better off to raise our standards and all work together. They are not going to either come to my haunt or yours. When they leave my place they want directions to your and vise versa. So we started printing up maps to each others haunts. INCREASED BUSINESS EVERYWERE.

[Jim Warfield]

Anyone remember how they would show Ford and Chevy commercials for trucks a few minutes apart and they would both be claiming to be #1?
Maybe these huge companys spending all that ad money this way is what contributed to the general public not paying attention to such boisterous claims?
Hitler may have been the one credited with the saying"People will believe a big lie before they believe a small one?"
...but then on the other hand, would the average age of your October haunt customers be around 15? They have yet to learn about much of the BS in the world...they might be prone to being fooled for a little while?

I like to think that 98% of us are doing the best that we can with what we have to work with and putting on this type of entertainment does burn alot of calories doesn't it? Whether judged highly or not by anyone else.

[screamshow]

Don't worry about it.

And a national rating system is silly and would serve little purpose other than bragging rights on the internet. The Mega WalHaunts would always win of course, yet they cater to an entirely different customer volume and must be designed differently to acheive the same entertainment value as smaller shows. For example, Raven's Grin, probably one of the best haunted shows (and values) in the world might get a crappy rating simply because it is smaller and doesn't have a matching pair of thirty foot tall fire breathing scarelator deluxes flanking the front doors. If your total voume is five thousand victims then you can entertain them very effectively without spending a fortune -- yet budget is exactly what those "best of" reviewers are looking at.

So who is going to judge?

The customers. High School kids aren't checking the Yahoo reviews before selecting a haunt, nor do they care what AOL or even your commercials claim. They are looking for a cool entertaining experience, and they trust their peers to tell them which show that is. Nor are they usually limited to one haunt anyway. If they have fun at one they'll visit another.

[HauntedWebby]

We have a haunt here in UT that is claiming to be #1 in the Nation. I kinda laughed at that one.

My personal choice for the best haunts in Utah never claim to be #1 or scariest at anything. They just are.

[s.fc90]

A lot of haunts claim to be the best. But idk how they choose it. Haunts are sometimes really good for certain reasons. I think they should take an overall concensus of the guests who come out of the haunts for about 2-3 weeks of operations and then order it from there.

[Bill Schnell]

Well, it seems I came to this discussion pretty late. Nihilbotic did a good job of providing the factual data, but I feel the need to explain myself. I am the owner of Necropolis in Columbia. When we first began our haunt, we tried very hard to work together with our other local haunt (I don't feel the need to give names). They had been around before us so we respected them. However, it became obvious that they were not interested in working with us or really in being on friendly terms with us. This other haunt used the #1 marketing ploy on ALL of there advertising and we knew the website they were basing it off of. We were trying very hard to stay away from the "#1 this or best that" but the other haunt continued even after customers had made our haunt the best rated on that website (horrorfind.com). Just before our 2007 season we were contacted by Yahoo and told that they had ranked us the #12 haunt in the country. That was something that I could not just sit on. Did I think that our haunt was really the 12th best haunt in the country, no I didn't. But I was certain that ours was better than our local competition (in my opinion). We are basically in a marketing war in Columbia right now, and it is not pretty. As for the quality of our haunt, I would hope that you would reserve judgement until you either have experienced it or have spoken with someone who has. We are all just trying to give the best product we can and get better each year. I would never use any ranking statements in marketing my haunt without the factual data to back them up. It is my hope that in one way or another our situation can be worked out because I believe that the more haunts in an area the better and if they are all working together then they all do better. It just becomes very difficult when your main competition does not believe the same. I actually would appreciate any feedback about this situation and any advice you may have.

[Jim Warfield]

What song is number one? (Best) Which movie is number one?(The Best?)
Ask a group and you will get a bunch of different answers because it is all "Art" and we all see things differently in this life, don't we?
Add to this the fluidness of live entertainment and the physical stamina needed which diminishes as the night progresses and who is number one?
Who took their vitamins?
Instead of getting upset just stand at your exit for awhile and enjoy the friutiness of your labor of love as seen and heard coming from your patrons.Forget about the rest of the bull chit.
Don't look for something to take your mood down, too many of those exist already.
Maybe you can have a quiet laugh thinking about all the paper and ink the others waste on those "Number One! " posters and ads!

[Bill Schnell]

Thanks for the advice Jim, you're right in that thinking about the whole situation does bring me down and decreases my enjoyment of the thing that I love the most, my haunt.