How Many Sq. Ft. Is Your Haunt?

[TheDarkestHour]

I'm in the process of building my first haunt, and as I'm looking at locations and land, I wonder what the ideal size for a haunt should be. I know they can be as big or small as you want them to be, but I'm leaning towards something at least 18k - 30,000 sqft. I'd like it to take an hour, to match the name, but realistically at least 45 min to walk through.

How big are your haunts, and what type of building do you recommend? Is a warehouse the only way to go? Has anyone ever used empty office space?

Short term Lease / Own / build / long term lease? Recommendations?

Thanks guys!

[screamforadream]

Well.....all of that depends?

What are you able to spend?
Have you created a business plan?
Made a solid itemized budget?

Those two components are commonly overlooked by individuals beginning their journey into the haunt industry.

Do you have $50,000 and need it to stretch as long as possible?
Or do you have $1,000,000 and want to secure a long standing location?

What is your demographic used to?
Also sounds like a silly question, but I'll give you an example. I have three haunts in a very large location, we had an indoor, a modular outdoor, and a wooded trail. The wooded trail was the cheapest to produce, was the least detailed and performed better than the other two by a SIGNIFICANT amount every night. Whereas the indoor was the most detailed, most expensive to produce, and was significantly higher quality, however it always performed the worst. Why? Because there are only two other haunts in our market, and they are both wooded trails, attempting to sell an indoor attraction was beyond difficult. So that should be taken into account, when you plan for your location.

Once we know your plans for the future, it'd be significantly easier to help you out.

All the best!

[knettles]

Possibilities limitless!

I have produced and been to just about every kind of haunt there is. More recently, I have gotten into the outdoor cornfield, woods, and "abandoned mine" style of haunt. I have to agree there is a lot less cost to the outdoor haunts. Just being outside, vast, dark, natural is spooky! However being inside has many advantages also. Weather being the biggest disadvantage for us outside. That is why we do two. One 3D haunt in a Barn. I would guess our customers walk half a mile and it takes about 20 - 30 minutes. I have also used office space but only about 2,500 sq ft. That was really nice, new building, no leaks. One of the most interesting places we had was a 40,000 sq ft abandoned sale barn.
That was best because your maze was built in. Everyone scares differently, so people like different settings. I am getting the best feedback from the outdoor haunt. However in my situation, working with a non profit organization and now partners, I haven't had to pay any rent! My personal favorite as a patron was the abandoned mine setting outside. So I have tried to recreate that! If you are in a city, the warehouse would probably be most cost effective. My 2 cents Good luck!

[TheDarkestHour]

I am going back and forth a lot from indoor to outdoor haunt, but the weather in Utah it's the most unpredictable weather of anywhere I know of. So, I keep going back to indoor. However, we have a really popular haunt here that is outdoor, and I know they've done very well in the past. They recently moved to a much worse location however, so I'm not sure how they did this last year.

How did you guys go about getting access to the land you have your outdoor haunts built on? I would be totally willing to try an outdoor event the first year, but I haven't been able to find land that I think would work, while maintaining a prime location.

To answer some of screams questions, this question is part of my business plan. I have a partner who has the cash, but he wants me to do the leg work first. He wants me to delve into the nitty gritty details of the industry, which will include reaching out to owners in our area and other areas for info and expertise. I'm also figuring out budget and such, but whether I decide to do indoor our outdoor will drastically change that, which is why I'm trying to cover all my bases. Our demographic has both indoor and outdoor options to choose from, but nothing like what I want to create.

I'd say if I can get accurate and detailed info from other haunt owners, along with some mentorship, or even possible partnerships, I could have an investment of around $250 - $500k at my disposal.

[Jim Warfield]

Tanner right here, yes you can!

If you wish to dispose of a pile of money send it to me. A plexiglass dome over my house would be just wonderfull! No more customer's excuses saying it's too cold, too rainy, too windy!
the consession stand would be selling various types of Tacos and 47 flavors of bean-dip, so I would be re-naming my place "The Thunder Dome!".. or has that name already been used? Mel?
You could find it from the other side of this little town, no, the dome would not be that high, just look for the perpetual blue flame exiting from the center tip of the dome, gas-powered!
Good luck. I talked my butt off for a long time to find a backer to loan me a very smallamount of money, but it was enough, then another man asked me if i could use more money? You bet! Both were paid off just a few years later.
The second donar had a slight family history with this property which was why he didn't wish to see it destroyed.

[screamforadream]

Ok, that's VERY useful information.

With an investment of that amount, if you're going to do anything, you're going to want to protect your assets because god forbid you need to short sell any assets, you'll want them to be in good shape. So for the purpose of asset protection and to ensure that you can open rain or shine, you will benefit the greatest from an indoor attraction.

Are there any easily accessible warehouses or vacant chain buildings (i.e Staples, Sports Authority, mega chains that typically are anchor tenants in larger buildings)? If so, a high ceiling and an open floor plan would best benefit your ability to camouflage the fact that you're inside of a building, and allow you the ability to create detailed sets with individualized ceilings on rooms or other misc methods to develop the feeling of an actual environment.

Also, with that level of investment and the amount of asset acquisition, you'll be better off having a year round lease, as take down and set up with a temp lease will sacrifice the quality of your show...

If you can get a warehouse at a reasonable rate, snag it up, and have Decimated Designs help you design the most effective haunt to get the best use of space (Couldn't help the shameless self promotion, BUT in all seriousness, a decent design would really help you increase length of show and utilize actors to the fullest).

[Jim Warfield]

Unfortunatly the actual answer(How many sq ft)

Should be asked of the customers. what would they say?
They wouldn't care as long as the place was somewhat easy to find with some parking.
Customers only usually care about how much fun they had in relation to their expense to do it .
It's not the size that matters (heard that before, Guys?)
It's what you make of it.
Will they be still talking about it months maybe years later?
Or will it be forgotten so soon as to fade from them even remembering being there and doing it?
A very succesful haunter told me about a year-round haunt he was in as a teenager , the roof leaked! He will never forget that leaky roof!
Because it got his imagination going, imagining he was hearing Blood Dripping, from what? from Who? It was dark, he never would have found out what it was until the owner apologised for the leaky roof.

[knettles]

Wow! That's a lot of money! I have never had to pay to lease or use land. It was always donated. The place I am now is partnered with a pumpkin patch, so it worked out great!

[gadget-evilusions]

I built a 3 attraction haunt in a 30,000 sf warehouse. We used about 15,000 for the attractions, 8,000 for indoor waiting, and the rest for actor areas, workshop, and offices. Our event took about 20 minutes to get thru all three haunts if there were no lines. If there were lines, it could be up to 2 hours.

I really wanted the indoor que lines, because the old event we worked at was on the local fairgrounds, and when it rained, our attendance dropped considerably. Bad weather never seemed to affects us with the indoor waiting. The downside when we didn't have lines though, was that our customers sometimes felt ripped off when they were able to get in an out in a half hour. When they had to wait longer, see others get scared, interact with the que line actors and animatronics and effects, they were happier. If I had to do it again, I would build in more of a guaranteed wait. Some video effects and maybe something else that entertained and kept them in the building longer when there were short lines.

[BigT]

Asking myself the same thing

Our last location had both indoor and outdoor. Outdoor took about 30 minutes, and was by far the most popular. The indoor was better for us (about 2500 sq ft) because it was sheltered, etc etc, but as everyone has already said, the most expensive to build and maintain. We are now looking for a new location so I have been pondering the same questions.

My present thinking is to have both, but a small indoor because I have some props that won't do well outside. And I won't have a lot of money to invest in a building. I would rather build a small building, and concentrate on the outside for the first year. Build an environment on the cheap, and use the proceeds to build bigger and better in the following years.

We lost a lot this season because we lost our building the end of September (suddenly, without warning). Really sucked - but forced us into thinking how we do business going forward, and gives us the opportunity to build what we really want to build instead of what we can fit in the facility made available.

[gorezone]

6000 Screaming Feet. GZ