Troubles with other haunts

[Joedog]

I have.Like trying to prevent other haunts from opening by manipulating inspecters.That's all I will say.

Speaking from experience.
The above statement is ONE of the many reason I left haunting along with several of my friends.

Plus my experience I have garnered from the years has helped me in my new hobby.

[Nicole]

People like that guy can't see the big picture and RUIN the overall industry... THEY SUCK.

That is sad you had to leave the industry because of a LOSERS like that.

[Greg Chrise]

Just got the mail!

Thanks for the shovel!

[Jim Warfield]

Now YOUR fingerprints are all over it!
Plead guilty Gregg, the Feds might go easier on you if you do.
Maybe it was fate's way of pushing you to do more problem-solving, use the shovel, use the shovel, bury them deep!

[Mr Nightmarez]

In the business world you should not worry about the competition but your own product and business... So I try to keep that in mind when in the Haunt World!

I've had the building, fire, electrical inspectors all called on opening night - But I gladly open the doors and show I'm within code... I use to think of things and ways to get even... then I realized I should use the same practices I do in Business!

Promote yourself and forget the competition - recognize they are there and keep tabs on them - sure... but don't fret and attempt to ruin them - promote yourself.

In the long run - it will all work out!

We do trade for tickets and I take my crew to visit other haunts. (Normally we are open when everyone else is open - but a few are able to work nights w/ us)
Ok - Long story ending...
We tell our crew to acknowledge great detail, actors and say nothing if they can't say anything nice. *(PERIOD)*
I have been asked "What did you think" "How was it" by other owners... And I give honest answers. I point out the good and leave the rest silent. Except for one time - when a guy refused to let me leave until I told him my HONEST opinion...
Which I sighed...and responded : "I hate this style haunted house, I was bored, and ready to leave 1/2 way through... Detail and some actors were good, but the rest was meaningless and frustrating..."

Some people may despise or dislike what I do... So be it and that's what makes the industry great - each haunt has a little different offering - something better for some - something less for others. We are all a part of the same industry serving a different style or flavor...
Keep the customer in mind and do your best - Competition? There's no competition We are merely providing a different style of the same product...
We are all attempting to have the same end result. A happy customer.

Sorry to rant there...

[Nicole]

Mr. Nightmarez - Here here!

Well said! The whole "out to ruin" someone else approach is the complete asinine way of approaching the business and in the end hurts the industry. It doesn't foster healthy competition thus not allowing for haunts to improve year after year. Shady practices are wrong - life has a way of working itself out with those who don't play fair - Karma's a you know what. (sorry, I still just can't believe that earlier post about "manipulating inspectors so a competitor couldn't open.")

[Kevin Dells]

When i was living west of Chicago and haunting a few years ago there seemed to be a bad case of "mimic what i do at my haunt!"

While this is not a very smart approach to having haunts miles within each other to have the same scares, same themes and same rooms it is what happened and customers actually did notice this and thought lame upon both haunts. Didn't matter who thought an idea up first, their both lame!

Seems to be pretty normal because now im all the way down in North Carolina it's happening all over with our crosstown haunt (and NO this is not spookywoods!).

We did comp their entire crew last year at the beggining of the year and yes they were asses to our actors and our patrons saying the childish lines like "our haunt down the street is so much better!"

The fun part is on our night off we wanted to see their show and we preach to our people the keep your mouth shut until we get back then debreif as well.
(Tony all good on your haunt, we actually had to talk about stepping up our show after seeing yours, a very positive learning experience actually!)

But when we got to their ticket booth we were denied any comp anything, so a few did pay and go through just to see a haunt with almost every theme we had yet smaller chessier scale.

Back in the Chicago area there was a lot of tensions and bashing going on back a few years ago. There were a few haunt owners that had parted ways and things did turn ugly.

Things were being posted so maliciously that Adam Drendel had to re work his website to better patrol these problems because over all when a customer goes on a search engine type website and reads a bunch of bad posting under made up usernames it makes ALL the haunts look bad.

This had hit a boiling point by 2004 so myself, Ken Spriggs and Nicole who has posted here started Knowledge for the Carnage. This was an off season mini-camp for anybody haunt, including actors and make up seminars, haunt tours, and lunch. We kept the cost very minimum, it was totally non for profit, it was a great way to keep your own actors busy,together and learning.

Last but not least it put all haunts that did show up face to face on level ground. What all our actors learned was that we all shared the passion of haunting, we were all very much alike even though we were from different backgrounds and city's, we all had great experiences to share, and lastly it gave all the owners a huge open crowd to address with their concerns for the industry in our area from haunt bashing.

Knowledge for the Carnage worked a LOT better than we ever anticipated, the turnouts were huge! People would come from as far as 4 hours away by carloads to attend (XXXDIRK,Ron from Theater of Lost Souls) eneded up being very good freinds with myself, ken, nicole and many others!

It opened up a lot of doors for people as well, from 2004 on my crew would help out Dream Reapers (Kens haunt) during Transworld. My crew would go up and help Rons crew train and learn new building techniques which also lead to campouts with both crews and eventually become a haunt on our touring schedule when we lost our lease and took to the road.

The bashing seemed to become almost non exsistant because now so many were aware of it, had become freinds in combat, and just wouldn't accept it by anybody.

After the entire Knowledge for the Carnage experience i would more than suggest it for areas who have these kind of problems and relationships, it worked thats all there is to it. Adams boards are now civil again.

And the kicker is that haunt that used to mimic/bash our haunt back up north i now talk to them a couple times a week, we have become very good freinds and my daughter may even go work with them this October!!

Bottom line! (and this goes a lot to the guy who's trying to get other haunts shut down as a way of giving himself more bussiness)

It dosen't work that way, you want a bunch of great haunts in your area! You want to cross promote as people said, your creating an area where people will drive up to 100 miles away because there are 2-3 great haunts to squeeze into one night. If you have the only haunt for miles and miles yeah you may get the locals but thats it!
Your taking away the celebration of Haunted Houses and just offering yours and unless you own the Big Daddy haunt that everybody Must See, your just killing your own bussiness!

Think about it this way, you have a good haunt and the two guys down the road do as well. That carload of people drive 100+ miles to see your haunt that they found on a search engine website go through and love it! They come out and see haunts vouchers that are nearby and go visit them. So by the end of the night that group has hit three haunts, and has had a great full night of fun. Guess what these roadtrips to do this will more than likely become a yearly tradition.


If anybodys interested in learning more about Knowledge for the Carnage please just drop myself, Nicole, Ken and even Ron a PM we'll gladly fill you in on the details,we"ll tell you how we pulled it off as it's very much worth sharing

[graystone]

In case you thought...

Bamasmith was saying we bribed the Firemarshall thats not the case. What he was saying is our competition used their friendship and a lil donation to try to have us shut down when we went pro. We were shut down for 9 weeks told we had to have an Architect, even though we were in the county and not 1 other business has had to have one. Well we got one. Then they said we had to have a building inspector. We did that. Then they said we had to have a sprinkler system, We installed that. They tried very hard to prevent us from opening but in the end we did and they can never come back to us for any of those reasons. Funny thing our competition did not have any of this either and on their 2nd night open after 10 years of not having it guess what ? they got shut down. I felt bad for them but you know what? Let me tell you what goes around comes around. And after they turned us in we still never turned them in. The state firemarshall went around and said if we had to do it everyone was gonna do it and they showed up there and they did not have it and could not afford to do it so they are no longer in business. So it was a blessing we just did not know it at the time. I hope that clears up any confusion. Shane Graystone Manor

[mindtumor]

I had to have an architect, building inspector, and fire sprinkler. I figured it was normal. There must be more to your story then just having to have these three things.

[graystone]

Mindtumor

There is Mindtumorread what I said was our competition was friends with the fire marshall and we had to go above and beyond what would be normal! Also we were in the county not the city and the county and city has different rules. But then again when your a special amusment they are cracking down. But no matter what we did they tried to throw another you need to do this and that.... BECAUSE AGAIN OUR COMPETATOR WAS FRIENDS WITH THE FIRE MARSHALL!!! Shane

[shawnc]

A couple of these comments remind me of a story I saw on a business TV show about Subway and Quiznos sandwich shops. When one of them opened in a new town or area, the other would open nearby. They figured that the other had done the market research already and decided that the business would work there and decided to jump on the bandwagon. The interesting thing was that this created an increased market for sandwiches, as opposed to burgers or tacos, and both did well.

[Joedog]

Mr. Nightmarez knows of whom I was speaking and fortunate for him had the deep pockets behind him to combat that individual.

Us on the other hand were in it for the fun and did not have $$$ to combat the underhanded tactics. Our group has since gone back to our humble beginnings of "yard haunting" and last year we had F-U-N. I broke out my Paranormal Investigation Groups video system to use for surveillance (boo cam).

But as for me, I am really happy playing with REAL haunted houses all year round.

[tomstrong]

I know that representatives from one semi-local haunted attraction made an impression on our cast last year ... mostly by shinning flashlights in their faces, making rude comments, and disrupting the throughput of the entire attraction just so that they could spend some extra time stading still to study some of our props up close.

I have a feeling I know exactly who you are talking about, we had a few do the same thing.

It seems so much easier to just cooperate, if the same group had shown up and been polite and friendly we probably would have invited them to stick around after closing and taken them back through without the crowd for a private tour let by the tech guys.

[Nicole]

I'm not sure why there's this "gang" mentality amongst actors (and sometimes owners). That's why we started the K4tC workshops that Kevin referred to earlier. It really broke down barriers and friendships were made and you could see the quality amongst all actors go up across the board at all of the haunts. Cooperation SO much easier, it's also cheaper (no one will come in and break your things) and everyone wins.

[Jim Warfield]

Might part of the success be found in the group because the people who were the nasty boys decided not to bother to show up?
Or maybe they couldn't make bail to be there?