Looks like bad news...

[Night Stalker]

Our numbers are up

We are up this year and we are in Michigan go figure. All in all about 37%. We changed the haunt but we do that every year but are numbers are very strong and the reviews have been fantastic we really couldn't ask for much more.

Jeff

[drfrightner]

Some haunts who did bad last year could see their business go up slightly this year but are you hitting those numbers you really need to be at or the numbers you know you can hit. Again some haunts actually MOST haunts are smaller or just starting off, second year, third year whatever and they really have no where to go but up and many of those haunts will see small increases because they are growing but their expectations are lower, their costs are lower, they don't own buildings or employ hundreds of people.

As you grow your costs grow and you depend no count on large crowds because you book lots of advertisement, you take lots of risks with upgrades to your attractions, the amount of people you hire even the long term people who you agree to pay more more more to each year. As you grow your costs grow, the bigger your haunt gets the more it takes to break even so yes most newer haunts or smaller haunts will continue to grow but the haunts who are charging $20 or $30 dollars, which btw, in my opinion no haunt in the country is worth that much money, but more power to them for getting it, but what you have here is people question if the economy is bad maybe they don't go.

Maybe your team is in the world series, or maybe it rains rains rains and bam you do terrible... this year maybe you have all of the above like well this year!

Right now business for the larger haunts who depend on large crowds are DOWN A LOT...

This will end up being the worst year for haunts in maybe 10 plus years.

Again some haunts will do okay, so will continue to grow but the majority of haunts who did awesome last year will probably see a big decrease this year but that doesn't mean you will go broke!

You just want make as much, therefore you might not buy that new car, or take that trip, or and yes probably won't be spending as much on your haunts renovations in 2010.

We did awesome last year, best year ever, now we are going to lose about 20% from last year, but its not the end of the world, we'll still make money, but now won't buy that pool, or pay off your house, or won't take that trip, or again maybe we won't spend as much to renovate.

Our business did very well Saturday and Sunday, and yes there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and maybe it will take another year for this economy to grow who knows. Under Obama it may never grow because he wants to nationalize so much of our lives, he seems more concerned with spending more money than helping Americans make money.

All I can say is this... VOTE FOR REBUBLICANS for the house and senate and take back America and put it back into the hands of people who believe in business. Then maybe we'll get this economy rolling again and next year will be much better.

Right now Halloween is looking south but not Hell South, just south, not sink like the Titanic south, just taking on some water, but getting the pump running soon! I'm sure based on what vendors hear, they will cut back spending, they will build less new stuff, take less risks, but they'll assume haunters are doing the same. Maybe its too early to predict, maybe we should wait another weekend or so to tell, but if you are a haunt who charges 20 bucks or more you could see a big drop off in attendance just like Disney, just like Universal, just like Six Flags.

I guess its something you have to roll with, and we're are rolling and taking it in stride.

LOL

Larry

[MDKing]

Things were starting to gain momentum and then I get hit with this forecast. Rain from last night all the way to Sunday. But Monday and Tuesday look great, when of course when we're closed! It will be windy too. Our normal temp this time is at 70 degrees during the day not 46....

[Nightmare_Trance]

The weather here in St. Louis hasn't been much better. We are about an inch and a half over the average and 10 degrees cooler..... Stinks.

[Todd Shumansky]

"vote for Republicans"..... That may be the most ignorant thing I've read all week. Can you really say that we are in this financial blunder right now because of Obama? This mess didn't start in January of 2009. It started during the Bush administration. It will probably take a little while to correct it.

For the smaller to medium size haunts there is a ray of hope. Since Halloween falls on a Saturday this year it will give us one more busy night compared to last year. We were open on Saturday Nov 1 last year but it was fairly slow. One more good Saturday might make up some lost ground. We'll see how it all plays out.

Good luck to everyone.

[Darkangel]

I agree. Republicns run up the debt and leave the mess for Dems to fix, like Reagan and Bush did for Clinton and all he did was not only balance the budget but we had a surplus.

[drfrightner]

Reagen really run up the budget fighting communism the cold war and he won that and the cold war ended. Rich people make investments which produce new business which hires new workers, and when you take every dime a rich person has in taxes they stop investing.

Right now we're going to spend every dime we have and then some of social programs, and social programs don't create new jobs or spur investment all they really do is take money out of peoples pockets gives them less money to invest or spend.

Face it we are in trouble unless we can vote in more Republicans into the house and senate.

Either way its pointless right now nothing you can do, I've talked to at least 10 more haunt owners and everyone has told me 15 to 30% down.

No one is going broke because we are charging so much money per ticket that we'll be fine its just overall attendance will decline this year. I wonder... if times like this we should all be doing more discounting?

Higher rated coupon offers, stuff like that?

Any thoughts on that? We are considering sending out email blasts promoting like myspace night, or facebook night, or every thursday is buy one get the next one half off or something.

Maybe that would help.

Larry

[REDRUM]

Fright Kingdom is up this season

We are up 12% this season and we cut our radio spots by 50% and completly eliminated our newsprint and put some of that money into internet haunt finder banners and leader boards and that is really working for us. We also added a 3rd haunt and some other elements to our event and kept our prices the same as last year with the economy being what it is.

Its been rainy here too and is expected to rain the next two weekends. Fright Kingdom is all indoors and we are finally getting really busy on rainy nights after 5 years.

Best of luck to everyone this season.

[bhays]

We've been up 15%-20% each night this season, but I would agree that we haven't peaked in our market yet. This is our ninth season.

[Spookyfinder]

As new haunt, we have nothing to compare too... BUT... we're generally happy with how the season is going! -Tyler

[mindtumor]

My website visits are up but attendance is down. Hard to say why, one big thing is I am by Flint and I am in a small town and have a poor location for a haunt to boot. I have had good feedback though this year. Plus we didn't spend as much this year, we cut from everywhere.

[mindtumor]

Tyler

Aren't you like right downtown in a good sized city? You guys have a pretty good location don't you?

[Spookyfinder]

Yeah, we're one block from the arena in town... My only gripe about our location is parking, but who doesn't have that problem! hahaha... Last night, we just past (by a hair) 10K people... so, we're happy. But we don't know if this would have been up or down or not for a haunt in KY. -Tyler

[mindtumor]

Very good! Sounds like a bright future for you guys.