Market Analysis?

[Jim Warfield]

I have always wondered..

When you work in Hell, do report directly to satan? Does he ever give a kind word of encouragement?
Benefits?
I bet he banned smoking there too just to make more suffering.
That would be in character wouldn't it?

[Haunting Copy]

LMAO - I needed that, Jim. Thanks!

Any haunters here done a "haunted motel" theme? I could offer lots of ideas. :|

[Boni]

LMAO - I needed that, Jim. Thanks!

Any haunters here done a "haunted motel" theme? I could offer lots of ideas. :|

As a matter of fact, BRETT.......

[Haunting Copy]

as a matter of fact, brett.......

lmfao!!! . . .

[Boni]

lmfao!!! . . .

13th Floor, Huntington Jaycee's, his website is awesome.

[Lord of Fright]

What???

Michael, if you are roughly in the center of three major areas, but are yourself rural or "country," I'd be very careful before deciding to open a haunt.

As one successful haunt owner told me once: "You can get people to the city, but you can't get them out of it."

Ok first of this country thing is all wrong!! You have to promote and the people will come!!! IE: The Nighmare Forest still brings Louisville outside their comfort zone and we continue to do so!!

So yes I'm from the country and I like it that way!!!

http://www.nightmareforest.com

[michilson]

Boni Thanks that was what I was looking for!!!

Here's My Breakdown.

Town of the Haunt
13,000+

Towns within 20 miles
2,000+
5,000+
600+
6,000+

Towns / City's 50 Miles away
1,000+
103,000+
19,000+
9,000+

I realize that not all 5% of the 50 mile populations would be making the trek to come to my haunt right off the bat! But down the road I think I could have a good chance to get them to come if it’s good enough. I know people that travel from this same area to Pittsburgh to go to haunts there because thier that good and that’s an hour and a half drive on the highway. So people will travel to go to a good haunt!

So I’m looking at between 30 – 70k in local population it’s kind of a more rural area so it’s hard to get a really good accurate count!

[Haunting Copy]

Ok first of this country thing is all wrong!! You have to promote and the people will come!!! IE: The Nighmare Forest still brings Louisville outside their comfort zone and we continue to do so!!

So yes I'm from the country and I like it that way!!!

http://www.nightmareforest.com

What I would like to know (if I were thinking of starting a haunt in a rural area) is whether people will travel far for a haunt when there are good haunts nearby them *already*.

It's a matter of knowing who and where your competition is.

So, please, spare me your "angry" emoticon and hurt feelings. People are looking at investing a LOT of time and energy, and it doesn't hurt to examine the market and ask the questions.

A revised question might be, if your haunt is in a rural area *and* it draws people from metro areas, what kind of competition (quality, number of haunts, locations, indoor/outdoor) are you facing in those metro areas? In other words, are the people traveling *even though* they can get good scares without leaving their cities?

[Boni]

Jump in here and correct me if I am way off base, but I would guess 25 to 50% of haunted house guests will try to go to more than 1 per year.

If your local big city has 3 or more established haunts, you are going to have to really out perform them if you need their market to make your haunt successful.

If your local big city only has one, which is the case for me, then that one is like a primer for wanting more. The next night or weekend they are searching outside of their market to go to another one, that is good for the haunts within 40 miles.

In my market, the local big city has 1 established haunt, the county south and west each have a very strong haunt. I am two counties to the west. I can't rely on that big market to carry me, but I did hear a lot of people say they went to the one in the neighboring county earlier in the night and then came to ours.

Next year, I want to work out a deal with Brett where we each advertise for each other.

I think it can only help us both if we put fliers, posters, etc in our exit room. By doing this, you hit the people as they leave and they are in the mood, but they already bought a ticket for yours, so you don't get anyone skipping yours for the other.

I tried to get this done last year, but couldn't find time to make the drive to exchange fliers with Brett, we will do it this year though.

[Haunting Copy]

Jump in here and correct me if I am way off base, but I would guess 25 to 50% of haunted house guests will try to go to more than 1 per year.

I think you're absolutely right, especially since most of them open only one month per year. Personally, I couldn't see myself being satisfied with seeing just one.

If your local big city has 3 or more established haunts, you are going to have to really out perform them if you need their market to make your haunt successful.

Another thing that may make a rural even haunt more competitive is teaming up with other activity/amusement businesses in the area. If the haunt and a couple of the local businesses could put together a "package" for tourists/visitors, it might pull pretty well. (A restaurant with a really good reputation is a good pull, too.)

If your local big city only has one, which is the case for me, then that one is like a primer for wanting more. The next night or weekend they are searching outside of their market to go to another one, that is good for the haunts within 40 miles.

In my market, the local big city has 1 established haunt, the county south and west each have a very strong haunt. I am two counties to the west. I can't rely on that big market to carry me, but I did hear a lot of people say they went to the one in the neighboring county earlier in the night and then came to ours.

Next year, I want to work out a deal with Brett where we each advertise for each other.

I think it can only help us both if we put fliers, posters, etc in our exit room. By doing this, you hit the people as they leave and they are in the mood, but they already bought a ticket for yours, so you don't get anyone skipping yours for the other.

I think that's a great idea! I wonder if you guys could talk to some other businesses and put together a "trail of fun" for visitors to the area. You could even create a scavenger hunt, of sorts. A brochure placed in the right spots would be good, and the expense would be mitigated because there would be many businesses sharing the cost.

[michilson]

Compettion

Other than maybe a couple of volunteer Fire company haunts there's nothing to my knowledge really close to compete with a Large Scale Professional Haunt.

the closest pro haunts are over a hour and a half away one in pittsburgh and one in cleveland.

Nothing to my knowledge in erie in the forms of a pro haunt!

So as far as i know there's not really any close compition to compete with.

[Old Tree Studios]

Depending on where you live, sometimes a search of your town on Wikipedia will give you a raw demographic break down of your town (or towns) that you are marketing towards. Reference that with the "haunt demographic" and that can give you a rough number to play with for attendance.

[JamBam]

Sarah?

Sarah,

I did not take offense by anything you wrote. We do a haunted hotel theme and would welcome your thoughts for ideas on the "motel" ideas.

The postings on market stuff is alway good to know. I love to anylize and compare data with others. Many times haunters are cautious of releasing data for many reasons.

Boni,
We will get together on a cross promotion. We need to set a time to meet and discuss things soon as I am starting to put my ideas to action.

[Haunting Copy]

Jam

Sarah,

I did not take offense by anything you wrote. We do a haunted hotel theme and would welcome your thoughts for ideas on the "motel" ideas.

The postings on market stuff is alway good to know. I love to anylize and compare data with others. Many times haunters are cautious of releasing data for many reasons.

Boni,
We will get together on a cross promotion. We need to set a time to meet and discuss things soon as I am starting to put my ideas to action.

LOL, on the haunted hotel ideas, I was being fecetious. I have such a terrible boss, that it's the customers here who could tell of nightmares, LOL. The dude won't put anything into repairs. He's just running the place into the ground, and it's embarrassing to be a part of it.

I would like to say again, to whoever is interested, the concern over competition is sometimes not necessary. (I do believe there is a legitimate concern for more rural haunts, though.) It's like anything, if a person has a particular interest in something, then that person will pursue almost all avenues of that interest, especially if they are not all that common. Apparently, they will even drive out to the boonies for it! (I know I would.)

Cross-promotion with another haunt, in my marketing mind, is the best thing any haunt can do. When I was in St. Louis, there was no way I was going to go to Necropolis and *not* FearFest, or vice versa. And the only thing that kept me from The Darkness was I had heard we were going to have to wait for three hours. Since I had no jacket, that was too long for me.

Another consideration . . . even if a city is chock full of haunts, cross-promotion among *similarly priced/quality* haunts is a good idea. Then, customer expectations are met, which keeps them happy - which will bring them back the next year. If the quality of the haunts are mixed, I think the credibility of the cross-promotion is lost.

There are systems in place for bigger businesses to do market analyses. I hope HHA or IAHA will come through for us with something similar.

[JamBam]

Marketing

I am of the belief that in haunts and marketing, the customers usually don't go to just one. Years ago, I went to a haunt in a town 20 miles north of our town. They had a one page sheet of many haunts listed on it. The guy who ran that haunt had put it together and passed it out as a service to his customers.

Many times customers come out of a haunt and ask the workers outside, "where is another haunt?" A few years ago, one haunt that was the biggest event in the area and us got together and we pt together a nice folded handout for our customers. We got eleven of twelve events within an hours drive of this area to participate. If the customer went to five of the events, they would get the sixth event FREE.

We did a similar promotion the next year and had a full color 2 page sheet that was folded over the edge of the Sunday comics and several other area papers during that week to reach over 250,000 households in four cities. We had 12 of 13 events in that year. The one event that declined put our page up (both sides) on the side of his ticket booth. Haunts bought two areas with a coupon and map listing and a third area was sold and priced by the area ordered.


I feel sorry for the areas that do not have a network and cooperation like we have had. I have heard of haunts marketing materials being taken out of stores and pulled down and replaced with competitors stuff.


This year, we will be cross promoting with haunts at least an hour drive from us. We will have their posters by our ticket window with an offer decided by that haunt. Ours will be a buy one get one free if they bring us the ticket of the other haunt. Most we have talked to will be doing the same offer for our customers. I am sure that many of those that come will bring others that will pay full price. I think we have five lined up to do this with us so far. The farthest is three hours drive away. All it will cost is a few posters.

The customers will visit more than one and will travel to new ones if they are aware of them. We will keep track of those numbers for future use.