Most affordable company to buy from...

[Nightgore]

Hey guys,
Let me elaborate... What is the most affordable attraction construction company in our business? Please, opinions only! I have a SMALL list of companies that produce attractions:

Oak Island Productions
Halloween Productions/Dark Rider
Dark Attraction
ThinkTank Entertainment/Attractioneering
Elm Street Entertainment
Creative Visions
DOA Haunting

If you know of anyone I have left off.. please add them by replying.

I ask that if you plan to respond then take into consideration the following:

Detail
Customer Service
Price
History

This is just to see what everyone thinks IS the best company to get an attraction from. I know that thoughts and views may vary and I ask that each response be factual and are not trying to "promote" a certain company. I am looking for HONEST answers!
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I for one think that "Oak Island Entertainment" is the BEST company in the business. Why? They offer affordable, highly detailed attractions, awesome customer service... and also offer products that haunts can ACTUALLY use! It's just a great company.....

I am looking forward to reading other members responses...

Happy Haunting! -Tyler Barnett

PS: I know this thread might get ugly! So try to keep any negative comments to yourself! Thanks!

[Jim Warfield]

You forgot "Dark Dumpster Products" and "Twisted Dumpster, Limited", and "Cy D. Rhoades Discontinued Products", and "Sittywide Curbpicks", each and everyone top suppliers to haunters everywhere, they save money with no catalog printing, no website, no conventions, no guarantees, and pass the savings right along to you, the pick-up truck driving consumer!
No local franchises availble!(Another way you save time and money!)

[drfrightner]

You should probably include Ghost Ride, Scarefactory, Unit 70, and many others...

Is your pole mostly about buying a whole haunt or just supplies?

Larry

[drfrightner]

Nightgore,

I think most of the people if not all of the people on these boards have never dealt with any of the companies listed above for the purchase of a whole entire haunted house.

Most haunts and I mean most like in 99% or more build their own haunted house. I think in total we've only dealt with maybe 2 or 3 individuals for a whole haunt. We're doing a MASSIVE one right now for someone in New York and last year we only dealt with an amusement park.

90% of all of our full haunt shows went straight to an amusement park, not a private business person. Not many people will know how to answer your question honestly when most have not worked with any of the above, or for that matter dealt with more than one of the above. Hard to give a comparison when you haven't worked with more than one of these companies.

Speaking for ourselves....

When someone buys a full haunted house from us they get every dimes of their monies worth. A customer gets a lot of our attention, they get marketing help, operation assistance and more. We also own and operate our own haunted house, which I feel is a HUGE advantage of ALL you mentioned in your post.

With that being said I've seen some of Oak Islands work and they do a good job! I'm not a fan of the Elm Street units, as I'm more of a detail person. Whenever we build a haunted house we try to deliver something as good as what we'd do for ourself.

I'm a perfectionist, so you can trust NO haunt leaves our place without doing everything we can to meet or exceed the customers expectations.

With all of that being said, I have no less than $500,000.00 if not more into my own Darkness Haunted House...very few will pay such a sum for turnkey haunts, hence no one should expect it to be as details.

You can visit our website at www.halloweenproductions.com to learn more about what we do!

Thanks
Larry

[Ken Spriggs]

Why a debate about who is better?

[Jim Warfield]

Mr. Tuxedo says that he wouldn't personally pay more than a few thousand dollars for a Turkey Haunt, let alone $500,000!?
(Turkey doesn't keep too well without being refrigerated, does the price include refrigeration units?)
The Man-Eating Attack Turkeys! Gobbler's Knob Haunted Carnivors!

[drfrightner]

Couple of questions???

Who is Think Tank? Do they have a website? I never heard of them!


As for Kens post...I agree with you and disagree with you. If someone is making a large purchase like this they may want to get some feedback from people who have done business with these people.

From my own personal standpoint, we're basically not for hire right now. We're knee to elbows busy...I doubt we'll be taking on ANY haunt projects this year other than the one we've already committed to, which is in New York.

We'll take on additional mini golf projects, dark ride projects, but probably NO haunt projects not matter how much money is involved. We build a very high end product, and to do so takes a long time and many man hours to create. If you dont' have the man hours to devote to something you just can't do the work.

On the hand I agree with Ken, because sometimes these types of discussions can get personal and sometimes lead to arguements and hurt feelings. But either way if someone needs some advice I say give it to them...

Larry

[MindWerxKMG]

Think Tank website:

http://www.thinktankentertainment.com

- or-

http://www.attractioneering.com/

[HauntedWebby]

Questions like this are really dependant on a few factors. Who you know and how well you know them.

I have friends that own halloween stores/companies that have given me stuff or "samples" for free or cost. So for me they are the cheapest, but that isn't the case for everyone. Nor do I go around saying well so-in-so gave it to me for free, because then everyone will expect that same service. But I do hype them because they are friends and I love them

Also sometimes I do actually pay more then normal for something because the service is WAY more reliable from that company. I don't mind paying for quality service. To me good customer service is the key! Sure cost does come into play, but only on those really expensive things