realy depends on the style and such but to me bottom line is that if you want through put you don't wont a guide let the screamers ush the rest through for you. catle care push until it hurts baby.
The main complaints I have always heard about October haunts from my customers is that they were rushed through, didn't get to see anything because of the other customers either in their way or pushing them through and that too many people were bunched together so the attempted scare was seen by everyone when it happened the first time.
These complaints ALL sound like a decent guide could cure most of these complaints most of the time, thereby giving your customers a much better, less frustrating memory of the place.
Maybe some large haunts in heavilly populated areas don't care if the customers come back?
My wallet cares even if sometimes after a cranky cheap-skate potential customer I don't feel that I should care.
different haunts, different atmosphere, different throughput..... what works for you may not work for all.... what works for all may not work for you. Some haunts run them in and out as fast as they can while others let the patrons control their speed.... hell, some haunts are so damn scary that they have to slow the patrons down !! pushers and guides might be needed in different atmospheres, in the wrong atmosphere they can be a nuisance to the patron...
.... I think a guide is needed to keep people moving in most haunts ?
Jim, in your haunt you are the guide if Im correct..... and you are entertainment along the way because you have stories about your house and whatnot?? I dont know just guessing.... Which I think is cool in its own.... Im interested in checking your house out if we are ever in the Chicago area again....
"I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."
For the last 5? seasons I have been very fortunate to have had very good guides since I can not do it all in the fall.
They are adept at controlling and entertaining the groups. they even make up most of their own dialog, of course they all discovered years ago the cheap, guaranteed laughs will come when they say goofy insulting things about me!
In-season on weekends I only get to do about 10 to 12 minutes in the front room, sometimes I will also get to do the second room, but not always.
I miss the fun, mostly then.....
Creatures Crypt did guides for years. The city demanded it. One of my rules to opening my own event was being in a municipality where I made that choice. No guides for now...
BTW, you think Jim is crazy now??? You should have seen him before he became the toast of Chicago... when he was alone more .... damn that show was freaking creepy!!! And it was all Jim... could have been in a damn corn field...LOL...
No guides. It takes away from the scare factor. At most use guides for a small part of the haunt but let the customers lead themselves to their own death.
We use guides. Its can be the best part of the tour if you have good set ups and well trained people. Our guides have fun with the groups, set up the scares, keep the flow going, cover for mistakes, and even sometimes throw a scare in of their own. We have found that its easy to find someone to jump out from behind a blind spot and scream but finding someone who can be a great guide is a rarity.
We had a guide that would tell them not to wander, gesture them into a kitchen room with a giant butcher guy that ignored them, and lock the door behind them. The guests had to cross behind the guy to get out, then go into the hallway and open another door. The best moments were when the group had to open a door while knowing the kitchen guy is in the room behind them, and has started to notice them. Guests are used to the conga line, not taking initiative. "Do we do this? That guy is staring at us, we gotta do something"- it ended up actually freaking out people. Anytime you have a percentage of people give up halfway cause they are too scared, you are doing something right.
When dealing with any company or just a small business, isn't nicer to actually have dealings with a real person versus a machine? Now think of your haunt, it's basically the same thing, a business seeing real , live customers.
A tour guide listens, learns what his group might be anticipating, expecting, then he may be able to modify some small , certain things along their travels to make some of them happen. It really doesnot take all that much effort to scare, distract or entertain many people, if they are in the hands and under the direct influence of another real, live person.
Wow. I feel sorry for Oklahoma. Not just because they mandate haunted houses must have guides, but that they think they need to dumb everything down to that level where the government is micro-managing how small haunted houses operate. I can only imagine what they're doing to other industries. Scary!
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