What makes a "Professional Haunt"?

[Nightmaretony]

How many of us in the industry derive our sole income from our haunts only? If that was the defining factor, the number of pro haunts would be super small, even the amusement park ones since the staff dedicated towards the haunting side is very few. For example, Knotts has a staff of thousands of people, but only one or two actual people who have it as their full time job dedicated to the haunt side.

For example by definition, Larry would be semi pro and not a true pro since the majority of his income is defined by sales from HPI rather than solely the haunt.

Jim Warfield would be one of the few entirely pro haunters as 100% of his income is derived from his haunt.

The permits and insurance and business aspects make a good defining line.

[Jim Warfield]

Except guess what Tony? By many people's current standards I do not run a "Haunted House".
Myself and others have always had some difficulty finding words or a term to describe exactly what it is that goes on here. I began calling it a Haunted House because by my definition it sure was!
People describe it as various things from "Performance Art" and on down the list..

A "Haunted House" was always the big, old house that had a supernatural history, that is this house.
I add to this with my own artwork and usually mostly comedic performances.
My dialog and physical actions are things that I feel comfortable doing and the majority of my patrons enjoy too.
I have had people begin laughing as soon as they enter the house and laugh non-stop for the next 90 minutes til they are leaving, often begging for "Mercy" along the way since most people can't laugh that much, that long without physical discomfort.
But before some extremely hard-core haunter writes me off as a non-scary entity, I do have thousands and thousands of hours of video tape, via surveilance cameras, of people screaming themselves silly with deep, genuine, uncontrollable fear, all recorded right here, inside these walls, no they are not family films of my ex-wives either!

[Nightmaretony]

Except guess what Tony? By many people's current standards I do not run a "Haunted House".
Myself and others have always had some difficulty finding words or a term to describe exactly what it is that goes on here. I began calling it a Haunted House because by my definition it sure was!
People describe it as various things from "Performance Art" and on down the list..

A "Haunted House" was always the big, old house that had a supernatural history, that is this house.
I add to this with my own artwork and usually mostly comedic performances.
My dialog and physical actions are things that I feel comfortable doing and the majority of my patrons enjoy too.
I have had people begin laughing as soon as they enter the house and laugh non-stop for the next 90 minutes til they are leaving, often begging for "Mercy" along the way since most people can't laugh that much, that long without physical discomfort.
But before some extremely hard-core haunter writes me off as a non-scary entity, I do have thousands and thousands of hours of video tape, via surveilance cameras, of people screaming themselves silly with deep, genuine, uncontrollable fear, all recorded right here, inside these walls, no they are not family films of my ex-wives either!

Ok, lets go step by step.

A "Haunted House" was always the big, old house that had a supernatural history, that is this house.


Ok, so do many haunted houses. So that fits definition.



I add to this with my own artwork and usually mostly comedic performances.

Haunt owners do their own artwork or their employees do and sometimes them or their actors do comedic performances. So that fits the definition.



I have had people begin laughing as soon as they enter the house and laugh non-stop for the next 90 minutes til they are leaving, often begging for "Mercy" along the way since most people can't laugh that much, that long without physical discomfort.


Are you sure you aren't showing them a picture of me there?





You still fit and I hope to get out there someday. Gotta love definitions. I still remember somebody doing a smear campaign of me politically some years back, claiming that I don't own a single haunted house.

That is correct. I own 3 of them. All on my property, all paid for. (ok, so one was free but 13 trailer loads of props and structures is a helluva lot of gas bills!)

By definition, ownership implies that you can buy and sell your own property. I can call Norton's tomorrow to auction all my props and structures and the money would go into my own pocket. That would imply ownership. If you sold the Inn tomorrow and retired to Florida, the money would go into you pocket, but mostly Jessica's (tell her I sez hi and am still crazed out here