Hello fellow haunters,
I have been thinking about this for a while and I wonder what you think..
I want to give people a scary and memorable experience.
What is the best approach - to create high expectations in people in terms how scary it is before they enter the attraction or to downplay it and allow them to be shocked?
I run a haunted house attraction and we sit down with visitors before they enter the attraction and give them instructions. We deliver the instructions so that we scare the people as much as we can. Example: "(serious and concerned face) Are you sure you want to enter this experience? It is really intense... Do you have any medical conditions? .... You may get in contact with some living creatures...". Sometimes people get really worried to the point of hesitating whether they can handle it. I believe that is a good thing and that it makes our haunt more scary. So in short we set the fear factor expectations as high as possible.
Another approach would be to deliver the instruction is a mild way with smiles, vagueness and irony. Example: (friendly, ironic or joking manner) "Don't worry, we had children go through... You will have fun... ". This way people can be more surprised as to how scary it actually is.
What do you think? What is your experience?
I am particularly interested in hearing about the second way - downplaying it. Do you have some experience with that?
Yours Horribly
Jakub
I have been thinking about this for a while and I wonder what you think..
I want to give people a scary and memorable experience.
What is the best approach - to create high expectations in people in terms how scary it is before they enter the attraction or to downplay it and allow them to be shocked?
I run a haunted house attraction and we sit down with visitors before they enter the attraction and give them instructions. We deliver the instructions so that we scare the people as much as we can. Example: "(serious and concerned face) Are you sure you want to enter this experience? It is really intense... Do you have any medical conditions? .... You may get in contact with some living creatures...". Sometimes people get really worried to the point of hesitating whether they can handle it. I believe that is a good thing and that it makes our haunt more scary. So in short we set the fear factor expectations as high as possible.
Another approach would be to deliver the instruction is a mild way with smiles, vagueness and irony. Example: (friendly, ironic or joking manner) "Don't worry, we had children go through... You will have fun... ". This way people can be more surprised as to how scary it actually is.
What do you think? What is your experience?
I am particularly interested in hearing about the second way - downplaying it. Do you have some experience with that?
Yours Horribly
Jakub
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