Awesome New Idea's and Concepts 2009...Read On!

[damon carson]

I like the whole idea and all but how would your average haunt be able to pull this off? Even your larger haunts just dont have the space. Theme parks have the space. They have abundant parking as well. And it doesnt matter if people stay till they close. For most haunts I think this would turn into trouble unless they did it everynight say right at dark. The only haunt that I can even think of with even the amount of space would be Verdun Manor. There may be others but Lance was building his to be a Halloween theme park. Just my 2 cents.
Damon

[Allen H]

Slain,
If you get a chance please come see us again, I was not director there then and the haunts have gotten way better since then! Screams has a great atmosphere it has always seemed to me to be one incident away from a riot. We have Halloweened up the atmosphere and toned the tension back, I love the environment now. I also Credit our great roaming cast.
Come see us again,
Allen H

[JamBam]

parade

While a parade during our event would not be feasible because of our situation, we have considered starting a local zombie walk with our characters leading it and making sure we get poenty of publicity with it.

We did put our big character (similar to Gore Galore Giants) in our local festival parade along with many of our characters walking behind a truck and trailer. Our sound cube was out for rejuvenation but just the character walking down the street got great repsonse. I was driving the truck and I could hear all the comments of people as they first saw it. It was cool to hear young and old respond very positively to it.

I know that at one time the Niles Scream Park did 30 + parades each summer and fall for promotion. They have a huge trophy cabinet in the entrance to one of their events. Niles is one of the nation's BEST events even though they don't get the respect.

[lurker]

How about a parade of gnomes that piss on cheerios? That would be entertainment!

People love the giant characters, but the draw back for smaller haunts doing a parade is having the man power to pull it off.

Kevin, maybe a remote controlled cart/costume combo might be an idea for the future.

[Slain]

been there

I hope you catch the gnome that pisses in your cheerios each morning.

Allen our group traveled to your place back in 2001 . Gave us a lot of inspiration. Still doing the renaistance stuff?
We had a blast and you have a great venue for entertainment. Verdun does not have that atmosphere. That's what I call a normal haunted house....

[Allen H]

I hope you catch the gnome that pisses in your cheerios each morning.

[Slain]

great for you

I am so happy for you...Do you also go trick or treating?

[Allen H]

Slain,
I have never once had a desire to run a normal haunt!
Allen H

[Slain]

I love a parade!

When us normal haunts start doing parades that's when I figure I will get out of this business

[robos99]

I think there are a lot of crappy haunts out there that are put on by people that are just looking to make a quick buck. These (IMO) hurt the industry. I have long thought that a group like the HHA or IAHA should have a set of standards and market it like crazy.

I think you have the right goal, but it's just impractical. Quality in a haunt is rather subjective. How would you write up these standards? All haunts must spend X number of dollars on scenery and X number of dollars on props? It's just too hard to accurately define a set of quality standards. meat quality is not subjective. There is actual science involved in determining the quality of a cut of meat. Whether a haunt is "good" is really just the opinion of those in it. What you could do is come up with a set of safety standards that all haunts in an association must follow (if it isn't already that way). A crappy haunt I don't think hurts the overall industry much, because people know there are also good ones out there. But a dangerous haunt does. A tragic story spreads like wildfire. I think most of the professional haunts would already be in compliance with any set of safety standards, since I'm sure most of these people know that safety is #1, so the real challenge would be marketing this to the public so they'd know that a haunt without this "seal of approval" either didn't meet those standards, or just didn't want to join the organization.


Peter I could not agree with you more about haunts being about entertainment. When you look at the people being scared, they tend to laugh at themselves (or their friends). They're enjoying being startled. While I'm sure there's still some people who really do get truly terrified (sometimes to the point of pissing themselves), these people are not the majority and would probably not go bragging to their friends that your haunt is so scary they pissed themselves. But on the other hand, us haunters sure do enjoy scaring the crap out of people. haha.

By the way, slightly off topic, if you haven't already read it, Vinyl Leaves is a great great "Disney" book to read. One of my favorites and should really be a must read for anyone in the themed entertainment business.

[mindtumor]

I think there are a lot of crappy haunts out there that are put on by people that are just looking to make a quick buck. These (IMO) hurt the industry. I have long thought that a group like the HHA or IAHA should have a set of standards and market it like crazy. The public should know about these standards and haunts should display something that they are a member of this group and lives up to those standards and include it in their advertising. People that go through the attraction and see that they fail to meet those standards should have a place to report them and have their membership revoked.

This is how they treated the meat industry long ago before the FDA. People began to only buy meat that had this logo that they allowed the facility to be inspected.

Local haunt reviewers could play a HUGE roll in this.

So are you saying haunted houses should be forced to join an organization that tells them what to do? And exactly how will this work with local inspectors and the licenses and requirements our own cities put on us? Do you own a haunt? Are you willing to be subjected to the standards of a special interest group? I see a difference between meat standards and how good a haunted house is. I will fight this sort of thing to the end as I would expect most other haunted house owners would as well. We already work with our state and city officials and do what they consider necessary to open and operate, now we need to take it to some sort of national level in your opinion? Is this what you are saying or am I getting the wrong idea here? The moment HHA or IAHA tries to become some sort of a controlling organization that forces haunts to do what they say is when these groups will fail.

[Gore Galore]

Slain,
I am sorry to say but I don't know who you are. I haven't connected the screen name with the customer.
I would be very interested in talking off the board sometime. Maybe we can figure something out.
Investments like that are NOT to be wasted especially when they have so much potential to make a profitable impact on the surrounding market.

Or if you are not happy to have them maybe Gore Galore can post a used costume section on our website for our customers.

[Evilution Unlimited]

I think there are a lot of crappy haunts out there that are put on by people that are just looking to make a quick buck. These (IMO) hurt the industry. I have long thought that a group like the HHA or IAHA should have a set of standards and market it like crazy. The public should know about these standards and haunts should display something that they are a member of this group and lives up to those standards and include it in their advertising. People that go through the attraction and see that they fail to meet those standards should have a place to report them and have their membership revoked.

This is how they treated the meat industry long ago before the FDA. People began to only buy meat that had this logo that they allowed the facility to be inspected.

Local haunt reviewers could play a HUGE roll in this.

[Slain]

costumes

Slain,

I understand your perspective. I don't understand the anger in your tone though (Large font and BOLD).
Since you asked,
I have been involved in designing and building haunts and props and costumes for haunts for OVER 25 years. I have been in business as Gore Galore for 11 years and I have been hired to wear our costumes and puppets at others events throughout the course of that history in addition to making thousands of oversized costumes for Haunted Attractions and Theme Parks. So, I not only understand how to use them, but I use them regularly. We would not be doing this had it not been for my being a part of running a haunted house for over 20 years. Gore Galore stems from my experience at that Haunted Attraction.

But I get it. It might not work for you or your haunt.

That doesn't mean it isn't a good idea.
Our (Gore Galore) perspective isn't exactly about doing a parade on your own grounds but attending events hosted elsewhere to promote your event.
This just fits into that idea.
Again, I can understand why it wouldn't work for you.
And thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Yes I have two (2) of your creatures about $8000 dollars worth. So yes I am also a customer. If were talking about years I been doing this since the early 80's and have seen it all. I also have four (4) stalk arounds. Most of the people thought hey looked cool but agreed that they are not for a haunted attraction. Maybe it's just the market we are in.

[FablesStudios]

Good Idea to work from..

I think parades are great ways to entertain lots of people. Me as a newer smaller haunt I don’t know if it is possible but def something to think about in the future.

This is my opinion but I believe people do not get scared at haunts. People come to haunts for entertainment!! Startled yes, grossed out defiantly, but truly “Like my life is coming to an end” NO. I have read many books on Walt and how he wanted his parks to bring people into another world. It really opens your eyes to some new ideas. “How can you plus it” he always said. So I guess this is a way of +plusing+ your outside entertainment. I agree Disney is on the tamer side and yes I very much dislike all the high school musical stuff and Montana stuff but they are defiantly banking on it.

I think Larry was just shooting an idea out there to see if anyone else has done it. Thanks for the idea, Ill keep it on the back burned.

Peter T
FS