This past season was our second year putting on a charity haunt. With last year being what I thought a great success I was a little let down by this years numbers.
I live in a very rural area and the haunt was in a city of approx 15,000 people. The nearest haunt is about an hour away.
Our first year we brought in about 12% of our area population. Which from what I've been reading is about par for a 1st year haunt. We literally lost count of the number of people who couldn't make it through and wet themselves. There were 3 confirmed to have defecated and one who threw up. Some of those after paying decided to not even enter or chickened out after entering the first hallway.
Personally I didn't think we could be too scary, and for the most part still believe that. But after our numbers were down a little this year (-63 people). I'm wondering if we've over scared our advertising market? This year we were in a more visible location, open 3 additional nights, tripled our marketing budget and still came up short from last years numbers.
The frustrating part is when I hear about people driving that hour plus to other haunts and paying more in admission to be let down and they do this every year.
Is this norm for a new haunt? I realize relocating every year doesn't help, but just trying to get ideas as what to do/expect next year. Maybe we should broaden our marketing area.
Do potential customers see our lesser price associated with a charity fund raiser and automatically think we're a sub-par haunt?
Thanks for your time and I appreciate any and all feedback.
I live in a very rural area and the haunt was in a city of approx 15,000 people. The nearest haunt is about an hour away.
Our first year we brought in about 12% of our area population. Which from what I've been reading is about par for a 1st year haunt. We literally lost count of the number of people who couldn't make it through and wet themselves. There were 3 confirmed to have defecated and one who threw up. Some of those after paying decided to not even enter or chickened out after entering the first hallway.
Personally I didn't think we could be too scary, and for the most part still believe that. But after our numbers were down a little this year (-63 people). I'm wondering if we've over scared our advertising market? This year we were in a more visible location, open 3 additional nights, tripled our marketing budget and still came up short from last years numbers.
The frustrating part is when I hear about people driving that hour plus to other haunts and paying more in admission to be let down and they do this every year.
Is this norm for a new haunt? I realize relocating every year doesn't help, but just trying to get ideas as what to do/expect next year. Maybe we should broaden our marketing area.
Do potential customers see our lesser price associated with a charity fund raiser and automatically think we're a sub-par haunt?
Thanks for your time and I appreciate any and all feedback.
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