Sick and TIRED!

[bodybagging]

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Im so sick and tired of all the bullcrap that goes along with trying to get a haunt up and running.
Im sick and tired of Retarded Investors, that are on board all the way up until the moment the check is supposed to be handed over.
Im sick and tired of those same investors then tying you up for another 3 months until its to frigging late to do anything for the season.
Im sick and tired of Hauntowners that Hire you to consult or actually build their event and then 3 months into the project tell you that due to THEIR investors no longer have the funds to complete their project.
Im sick and tired of sponsors that are on board that take forever to push things thru.
Im sick and tired of the INNERTURMOIL that dealing with all of these knuckleheads creates within my company.
Sick and tired of all the turmoil in the industry that USED to be FUN!
Im basically just sick and tired of wasted time effort and money!

[MDKing]

Sorry to hear of your troubles. This is why having a board and investors and all these hands in the cookie jar is asking for problems most of the time...

Good luck, hope it works out for you.

Allan

[graystone]

Rob

Hang in there there man! Help is coming!! Anything I can do feel free to tell me! Shane and its Concerned Shane this time!

[bodybagging]

Allan more than you know, Its one of those if you cant afford to do it yourself, then dont do it.
I truly figured securing our property with 70,000 indoor sq. foot, in addition to 37+ acres of land and landing a millionaire investor,who has been a 4 year client, that drops 10,000 for four hours at his annual halloween party, stuff would have flowed like water.
But noooooooooooooooooo although he KNOWS our show would be a success, had to be a greedy little toad monster and decide that instead of being a investor he needed to have controlling interest in BodyBag Entertainment. (NOT Happening)
Then before calling the 2008 haunt season a Loss, I jumped on board a lost cause of a haunt aboard a old steamship here in Detroit.
With words of encouragement and promises of incoming capitol, we began work redoing this show from the River up. only to waste 3 months of countless man hours, fuel, and personal income.
Now here I am with less than 3 months before season starts with nothing to do.
Word to the wise and not so wise ... If you want to do a haunt. wait until you have enough of your OWN money to do so!

[Dr. Giggles]

Hear, Hear! Im sorry about your misfortunes my friend. You could do a home haunt? Or not whatever floats your boat.

-Zackary J

[bodybagging]

Giggles, all I can say to that is........ As a Homehaunter I had ALOT more fun! Putting thru numbers of 4500 in a three night span always made my heart smile. But honestly pissed my neighbors off, not to mention the city, and police dept.

[Jim Warfield]

I spent alot of time asking for investors from my own little hometown where everybody knows everyone and I got laughed at everyday for a year, I got extremely discouraged and went to bed that night saying to heck with it, it will never happen.
I would wake up the next day saying to myself, "Give it one more day."
I gave many "one more days".
I finally realised I was asking the wrong type of people for the money.
I needed to think of someone who had once taken a big risk against all popular advice, made it work, made alot of money.
The next day HE called me up to come fix his faucet, I gave him my pitch, it worked!
Around the time I was born this man had flooded a perfectly good cornfield and made a lake ("You're crazy!")
The lake became a campground, a restaurant a summer stock playhouse(now the oldest continiously operating in Illiniois)
Yes, he made money. By following his ideas. He loaned me the money to follow mine.
After I saw success here another man I had approached (and had declined )remarked how the haunted houses he saw at a tourist place seemed to have people lined up to get in them even though it was not the fall of the year?
How about that?
Investing your time and labor is always risky.
If I had had an active day by day working partner I know I could not have created this place in the style that I did and it probably would have floundered and failed long ago.
Just last night I asked two people exiting my house about the other haunts they have attended and the woman was not happy remembering paying $25 a person to walk through a dark corridor and seeing some settings every so often with absolutely nothing else happening!
This sort of report always makes me feel bad. It is alot of time and work to set up all of the stuff, but you still have to make it a "Show" to give it value to the customers. This seems to be an obtuse concept to many people.
Maybe it was break time when she went through, or maybe the people were just too tired to act that night?
She felt totally ripped off.
She and her husband loved my tour as did the others last night, they were all laughing for 90 minutes when the wounded soldiers home from Iraq weren't getting a little scared once and awhile. (I scared the one local guy for the first time he said, in the "kitchen" with all the lights on, infront of everybody!)
For some reason getting scared with all the lights on is usually easier.....

[bodybagging]

Jim , your words of wisdom are as always uplifting.....

[Jim Warfield]

thank you!

That word "Wisdom", I think comes from experience not opinion, which hopefully gives it greater value than just opinion.
Sharing my sometimes hard earned "wisdom" for the benefit of others feels like the right thing to be doing.
I hope I have helped somehow.
Good Luck.
You certainly are not alone in your struggles.
Right everybody?

[Frighteners Entertainment]

Yeah Rob, that bites the big one.

and Jim, well put!

[elowther]

Man...that sounds horrible! Hopefully you will be able to look back at this season and laugh someday. I guess if it weren't so hard to get in to this business there would be a lot more haunts than there are. I'm sure you will find the right partner and location that will be great in the future. Is there an already existing business like a farm or party store you could pair up with in your area?

I had an out of control home haunt like you had. I took Rich Hanf's seminar at Transworld and he suggested partnering up with a farm. After a few failed attempts I landed on the right farm and the right people to make the whole thing work. I could never have done it on my own with loans or investors. The first season was a success from the start even with the smallest of budgets and this season is shaping up to be a major improvement. We both brought something to the table, them with the land, established business and customer base and me with my custom props, haunting abilities and my audience.

We are doing the haunt mostly outdoors until we can pay cash for a sprinkler system for the barn. I don't know if something like this is feasible in your area but it's worth a shot even if it's on a much smaller scale than you would have liked.

You have a good thing going already with your prop business so I'm sure you will have an awesome haunt if you still feel like doing one after all you went through this year.

Eric

[Jim Warfield]

I also had another not so good experience , this came after I had my house up and making money.
A man my own age who owns alot of property and has alot of money told me I should move my haunt business to his town. I countered with an idea that was a tourist thing, not quite an actual haunted house but sort of similar and potentially very entertaining.
He had the land, and the construction crew on his payroll.
After a few months of meetings he finally laid it out for me. His crew would build the building. I would do the tricky display work, I would create the back story and the "historic" memorabilia necesarry, ads, artwork. I would be working on this during the day, working in my place during the evening.
He and I would be partners ..for the first three years...then I would walk away ...with...nothing. (I knew that it would take long hours and three years worth of advertising it and being open to make it begin to turn a profit)
He "needed" "something" to leave to his kids someday!!!
We Both have kids.
I have found there are people out there with investment money but they need someone desperate enough to do it all for them, they put all the major money from it in their pocket and you have just figured out that you got paid less than minimum wage.
Be carefull, be smart, get it in writing, but a lawyer once told me that any contract is only as good as the two people who sign it.

[bodybagging]

Elo

I actually have a local haunt within 10 miles of our property that is willing to cross promote with us, his numbers were in the 50,000 last year, When I get the property up and running Im sure we will do well. again it goes back to having the start up capitol in my pocket first hand.

[elowther]

OH,

Sorry I didn't realize you owned the land and building already. It sounds like it will take off once you get the capital for the show. Good luck! We are cross promoting with 3 other haunts in NH this year. Check it out http://www.nhhaunts.com/ It allows us to split the cost of billboards and stuff 4 ways. I think it will work out great. Working together is always better than working against each other I think.

Eric

[SomeThingInTheIce]

Sorry to hear this, I know how you feel. I'm still waiting for $5,000 from a freind of my brothers that wanted to invest, as of today it is 20 days late.