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  • How is Everyones Season Up or Down

    I have been pretty busy the last couple months but things are calming down. Thought I'd ask the big question about how everyone is doing. The season is basically half over now so here it is up or down so far. I also wanted to ask what is everyone's most effective marketing tool this year?

  • #2
    Fourth year running, third year in our current location. Ours is down a little from last year. No weather issues in our area... just slightly down on attendance consistently every night so far. Which is depressing since we literally have nothing but 5 star reviews from all reviewers so far. Such is the reality when you think you can defeat the old axiom: Location, Location, Location. Our location is not great.

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    • #3
      Another year battling weather...

      Finally get Detroit Tigers off our back for a year and 6" of rain in last 3 weeks. Fall harvest is farthest behind of 20-30 years. Combine cutting ruts in fields so we try a different field. Will not get all of our intended wheat acres planted this fall. Our maze and haunted trail though in corn field is designed to handle rain...haunt in corn field 6 miles from us was shut down this weekend...while you could practically rollerblade on our trails. BUT...no matter how good our trail conditions are people see rain every Thursday of last several weeks and think "muddy'. Attendance is behind....though we set a 16 year record last Saturday.

      Wicked Farmer
      Central Michigan

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      • #4
        First year.
        Great location, on hwy just outside city limits.
        Marketing: Bunch of Flyers at halloween / costume / party stores, distributed by several stores inc, Radio ads blowing up two stations, zombie promo truck hanging out in high traffic stores.
        Weather: Great for the weekends
        Projected 100 patron nights by now, haven't hit that mark yet.

        I'd say attendance is down even though it's our first year and considering that, we still felt we should be seeing more numbers by this time.

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        • #5
          Our first year commercial, so really no frame of reference.

          We're about on par with our last year as a donations only home walkthrough (pretty large scale with 10 years of history).

          We'll be lucky to hit 50% of the numbers we anticipated and budgeted our marketing for.
          We're definitely seeing that we targeted our marketing budget at the wrong venue, and our local population may just not support the numbers we anticipated.

          Different clientele; free/donation vs. paid, so it was tough to estimate what we thought we'd see. People don't want to pay for what they think they got for free in the past, regardless of the obvious investment and up-sizing.
          Fright In Falcon Haunted Maze
          http://frightinfalcon.com

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Abunai View Post
            Our first year commercial, so really no frame of reference.

            We're about on par with our last year as a donations only home walkthrough (pretty large scale with 10 years of history).

            We'll be lucky to hit 50% of the numbers we anticipated and budgeted our marketing for.
            We're definitely seeing that we targeted our marketing budget at the wrong venue, and our local population may just not support the numbers we anticipated.

            Different clientele; free/donation vs. paid, so it was tough to estimate what we thought we'd see. People don't want to pay for what they think they got for free in the past, regardless of the obvious investment and up-sizing.
            I honestly feared that for you guys. Once I saw how elaborate yall's home haunt was prior, we talked about that a few times here and everyone felt the same about that very thing... how folks would be disheartened by having to pay now, for something that was donations prior. You're absolutely right, you could've gotten in a 30k sq. ft. building, lots of big props such as scarefactory, gore galore puppets etc... and they'd be like "WTF MAN, we gotta pay now??"

            But, such is life when dealing with the public. Some folks just don't think about things. That's ok I guess. Just gotta push forward bub and show them the differences you can do now that you're pro. Good luck next week.

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            • #7
              We are down this year big league... PR is down and I think overall interest is down in Halloween because of the election. This is an election like we've never seen before. I think people are worried about who will be President, what will happen with the economy, etc.

              Haunted House prices have skyrocketed over the last decade and no longer are you seeing people visit like 3 or 4 of these. And when the economy is down, or something has the countries attention like this election I mean what can you do I guess?

              I'd say we're down about 20% probably.

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

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              • #8
                Closed the season last night. We had our best night ever last night but still ended the season down around 5% from last year. We keep in contact with several other haunt owners within 200 mile radius of ours. I think most reported being down with the exception of one but they think their numbers were only up due to a local competing haunt having closed down.


                I think Larry is right about the elections being the source of the decrease in interest in Halloween. Let's all hope for better stability next year regardless of who wins.
                Last edited by mrfoos; 11-02-2016, 09:08 AM.

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                • #9
                  up a bit

                  We're a touch down on people compared to last year but $ are about the same. BUT we are open this coming weekend so That will put us above last year.. Food sales have been crazy this year. Last years weather was perfect for us after 10/5 or something. We lost a big friday 2 weeks ago so that accounts for the lower attendance. We expect about 1/3 - 1/2 capacity each night this weekend. Its our 9th year, same location and almost perfect weather. Target demographic is high schoolers so maybe they don't care as much about the election.
                  Lucas Cox
                  Cox Farms
                  www.Fieldsoffear.com

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                  • #10
                    Pulled the magic rabbit out...

                    ...of the hat...not sure how! Think last year I said we were down some but had to call it a win with weather. This year we had 4 Thursdays we got hammered with rain; which turns on everyone's mud phobia. Never in all 16 years of operation have I had so much fun sweeping water puddles off of our 3 miles of maze trails. But our trails are hard packed so it works out. Over 7" of rain the last 4 weeks. Combine is finally rolling today Nov. 1 for first time in over a week harvesting beans. I mean mud bogging in bean fields. Down a smidgen. Had we had good weather I think we would have blown all our previous records away. We had HUNDREDS of foreign MSU students this year! Our vortex tunnel broke down the very last night so I was at the exit of that waiting for gripes...none came! Did a lot of talking to customers as we do the start odd with our field set up. We run them through vortex; then give haunt rules to smaller group instead of trying to give rules to the line with 100 people behind them carrying on. VERY pleased with info I got the hour I spent in face time to customers. "Our friends told us to come here" over and over and over....music to my ears. Going to kick butt in 2017!

                    Wicked Farmer

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Hacksaw View Post
                      First year.
                      Marketing: Bunch of Flyers at halloween / costume / party stores, distributed by several stores inc, Radio ads blowing up two stations, zombie promo truck hanging out in high traffic stores.
                      We had a 400+ patron night on Saturday. Our highest here in our first commercial season and higher than any night in our 10 year home haunt history. Still not making our numbers, but it felt good to have long lines.

                      At one point, we had about 200 in line, I sent out an assistant with a clipboard. I can post full stats later, but her poll of the patrons, and where they heard about us, showed that, at least in our area, signage and social media were the biggest exposures we got.

                      I'm going to discount Groupon, because I only plan to use them this year to build brand awareness and there is absolutely no way to gauge whether or not I got ANY full priced sales out of that.

                      I spent a butt-load (for me) on radio ads this year. Out of 200 people in line, only 4 people had heard of us on the radio, and those 4 people worked for one of the radio stations and were there on tickets that I comped to the radio station.

                      Word of mouth was also a pretty large percentage, as was returning patrons from our home haunt.

                      I will be spending a lot less, if any, on radio next year. More on signage and social media ads.

                      Anyone else care to divulge their marketing lessons learned?
                      Fright In Falcon Haunted Maze
                      http://frightinfalcon.com

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Abunai View Post
                        Anyone else care to divulge their marketing lessons learned?
                        We have my mother-in-law surveying everyone as they exit the haunt.

                        We used billboards for 2 years. Surveys told us they barely paid for themselves if they did so we dropped them this year. We ran radio ads this year and they most definitely did not bring in enough to pay for it.

                        For the past 3 years the consistent message is word of mouth and facebook. We do lots of facebook advertising but people also use it to communicate plans so I think a lot of "heard about it on facebook" is just online "word of mouth".

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Abunai View Post
                          We had a 400+ patron night on Saturday. Our highest here in our first commercial season and higher than any night in our 10 year home haunt history. Still not making our numbers, but it felt good to have long lines.

                          At one point, we had about 200 in line, I sent out an assistant with a clipboard. I can post full stats later, but her poll of the patrons, and where they heard about us, showed that, at least in our area, signage and social media were the biggest exposures we got.

                          I'm going to discount Groupon, because I only plan to use them this year to build brand awareness and there is absolutely no way to gauge whether or not I got ANY full priced sales out of that.

                          I spent a butt-load (for me) on radio ads this year. Out of 200 people in line, only 4 people had heard of us on the radio, and those 4 people worked for one of the radio stations and were there on tickets that I comped to the radio station.

                          Word of mouth was also a pretty large percentage, as was returning patrons from our home haunt.

                          I will be spending a lot less, if any, on radio next year. More on signage and social media ads.

                          Anyone else care to divulge their marketing lessons learned?
                          Radio can still have decent success if you know what you're buying and buying it right.

                          It always comes down to understanding exactly who your demographic is and what it SHOULD be. These can sometimes be two different things. Your advertising should only have one goal...revenue generation. Your business should only have one goal...to create maximum profits from revenue. Sometimes the audience you go after isn't the audience you'd think it is.

                          I think haunters in general also don't fully understand what social media and how it should be used. Social media should NOT be used strictly as an advertising medium for your attraction. If that's all you do, then it will never work for you. It has to be social. Meaning, you need to be creating and putting up content that people WANT to share and enjoy. The content should be relevant to your business. Videos will always win on social media.

                          Achieving ROI on advertising and marketing can take MONTHS of planning, production, implementation, and optimization. I could go on all day about this! haha...Anyways, feel free to email me at tyler@fearworm.com to talk about more about your advertising.
                          Digital Marketing Manager at Fearworm Hauntvertising.

                          Celebrating 14 years of "haunting".

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                          • #14
                            Had a great season content wise. Great weather also. But we had a tough football season to compete with, Plus the lackluster economy and election concerns. So we are down a bit but overall not complaining. When the show is good and the attendance is consistent and No one gets hurt, it's a great season!
                            Last edited by monsterwax; 11-11-2016, 08:53 PM.
                            www.TerrorOfTallahassee.com

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                            • #15
                              When the show is good and the attendance is consistent and No one gets jhurt, it's a great season![/QUOTE]

                              Amen!

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