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Notice... Hha / iaha

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  • Notice... Hha / iaha

    Hauntworld Magazine will NO LONGER send out free magazines to people with memberships to these organizations. It is my understanding that both organizations disbanded and as of right now they are not merged together or nothing... but might soon who knows.

    So if you are counting on a FREE magazine being mailed to you as part of your membership to HHA you will NOT get a magazine when its mailed out in ahhh about well a few weeks.

    You will also not get one in March either.

    You must subscribe at this point... we might in the future do something when or if something good comes from all this or if approached about it but if you want the information we provide you will have to get your own subscription.

    If you are UPSET about this because you thought or felt that you paid dues and this was covered you'll have to take it up with someone on the board not me...

    If they want to pay for them we'll ship them otherwise you can subscribe at www.hauntedhousesupplies.com

    Thanks
    Larry
    Larry Kirchner
    President
    www.HalloweenProductions.com
    www.BlacklightAttractions.com
    www.HauntedHouseSupplies.com
    www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

  • #2
    Larry,

    It would probably be a good business decision for you to mail out subscription reminder cards. To be honest, I have no idea where I am at with my subscriptions to the industry magazines. Between having paid for multiple years, missed issues, membership in organization(s), being an advertiser, etc... I may have 0 issues left or 10 years. LOL

    Barry

    Comment


    • #3
      I h.eard that Berry

      Comment


      • #4
        Hoping this merger thing gets all sorted out soon. If even Larry doesnt know what is going on with them thats pretty crazy. Hoping it all works out for the better. For this very reason am glad we only ended up joining one association last year, but definitely very interested in staying involved with whatever new incantation pops up.
        -Mike "Pogo" Hach

        Comment


        • #5
          We do mail out renewal letters. Let me tell ya when you are not really in the magazine business as we are but are not... its VERY hard to keep track of and I mean really hard. The magazine is done for the industry, its something you do because you want to do... I would be the first to admit we are not perfect at doing it. We always continue to try and get better.

          We've added something like 500 new subscribers just within the last 4 months... if there was some expert out there who knew how to manage the list I would simply hire them. LOL

          As for IAHA/HHA it became very clear to me after starting HHA that this industry does not want to support an association to this industries potential. Hence not worth anyones time or effort. Example... Hauntworld magazine has around 2000 subscribers plus or minus. Another example Hauntworld.com haunt directory has over 3000 haunts listed and even if a 1000 or so are not active it still leaves about 2000 haunts trying to open a haunt in 2011. So the point is HHA had maybe 250 members IAHA had maybe 250 members and many of those are the same people.

          When I was President of IAHA I think the membership was less than 200 after I became President I think it got as high as something like 400 and no matter what awesome things you attempted to do, national PR program, whatever you couldn't get higher than say on average 300 350 members out of a couple thousand.

          Its very disappointing to know when all the guys who busted their buts for HHA and did some really awesome things and even dedicated a lot of their time even during Halloween season couldn't be rewarded with a bigger support from our industry.

          The success of HHA is forcing IAHA to FINALLY realize an association for the haunt industry shouldn't be run by home haunters, IAHA changed basically EVERYTHING they do to match HHA, and only now they want to merge up. All great things.

          However even though they merge it won't mean much... because there just isn't that much support for our industry to have an association.

          To be honest we don't need one considering Transworld produces the tradeshow, and others such as MHC, Hauntcon, and others produce seminars, events, tours, and conventions. Traditionally the associations produce the magazines, seminars, tradeshows, events, and so forth and profit by them to fund the organization.

          Considering that will more or less NEVER happen I guess the importance of an industry association is low.

          Even said doesn't mean that good things can't happen its just I expect more of the same which is low support, low interest, from the same 2 or 300 folks year in and year out.

          I think in Missouri the motto is SHOW ME... I think the haunt industry motto is something along the lines of 'what have you done for me lately..'.

          LOL

          Its hard to very hard when you run your own business to do do do do for the industry when you have to do do do do for yourself. Associations shouldn't be managed, owned and operated by the actual operators it should merely steared and guided and when you do NOT have the funds because you dont' do tradeshows, that rake in tens of thousands you are more or less doomed.

          The good thing though is IAAPA is a real association that had TONS of money and fight all kinds of law changes and more that could affect their amusement parks, which could also affect our haunts... they do all the things we need done so that is a good thing.

          I think the guys who started and dedicated their time to HHA deserve a huge medal or something... they worked hard, and believed in something and accomplished a lot but when the industry doesn't throw the kind of support it needs to continue and that means for EITHER association they will not last long.

          Lets see what happens now but overall an industry association is my book is just a website that gets updated every now and again. Without the potential to raise hundreds of thousands it will never ever be all that it can be and due to that the whole industry as a whole will never join.

          Larry
          Larry Kirchner
          President
          www.HalloweenProductions.com
          www.BlacklightAttractions.com
          www.HauntedHouseSupplies.com
          www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

          Comment


          • #6
            I think Larry had alot of good points there. But i do believe the reason for the low turn out is because people are not being shown a value in joining. And after so many years in the being of mismanagement who can blame them. If there could be a total reboot and start with a solid plan of action I think the people in our industry may give it other chance, but without a clear course of the purpose in the association people just won't care.

            Robert

            Comment


            • #7
              A reboot won't matter... this industry has tried and failed to find interest from the industry to support such a thing. The fact is the people running them are busy themselves, and find it hard to do anything.

              The biggest and I mean the biggest failure is simply that our industry association have no importance because they do NOT do anything not one thing that the industry or any industry depends on such as...

              TRADESHOWS, SEMAINRS, MAGAZINES, EVENTS, EDUCATION because all of these things are done by private business.

              In all the years of associations NOT ONCE did IAHA ever produce a tradeshow which is the ONLY and MAIN way MOST if NOT all associations SURVIVE! Its the tradeshow that pays for the year around staff, the management the programs, everything!!!!

              You've had ever single Tom Dick and Harry produce tradeshows in our industry but never once the association... when you agree to be a lap dog for a free booth at a tradeshow and or a couple bucks you basically are agreeing to be worthless.

              Tradeshows rake in hundreds of thousands for the industry associations.

              Considering this just isn't going to happen at least not any time soon, NO industry association we could ever create will EVER be able to do the things and or fund the things and or sustain the things neccessary to build a brand that hte industry would eventually support.

              I'll give you an example... IAAPA SHOW, you can't even exhibit if you are NOT a member. Every single one of those thousands or so exhibitors are members. All of those 20,000 or so people who attended are probably members... all that money went to IAAPA. It has to be in the multiple millions of dollars.

              For the haunt industry an association like AEALI hope I got that right was a perfect modal for our industry... they ran a show about the same size as ours had over 1000 members all supported by small FEC type industry. Their tradeshow pocketed about $300,000 - $400,000 cash in hand for them... what could the haunt industry do with that kind of coin if we had the right people in charge?

              Ahh a lot... could we then force people to join or you can't enter the show or you can't exhibit... ahh yep!

              This might be the ultimate reason our industry will probably NEVER have a TRUE association doing the things like IAAPA or others. The good news is though... that we have a lot of GREAT organizations out there doing seminars, tradeshows, magazines, events, or whatever... yes all for personal profit, but still all doing a good job, so with all the things a normal association would do there really is no dire need for one. Its sad but true.

              I had to learn this the hard way! LOL

              Larry
              Larry Kirchner
              President
              www.HalloweenProductions.com
              www.BlacklightAttractions.com
              www.HauntedHouseSupplies.com
              www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

              Comment

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