Haunted Houses - Attendance Updates 2020

[drfrightner]

I'm starting a new thread to report on everything I'm learning or anything you want to post about attendance updates.

I've talked to several haunts already who're telling me they're selling out everything but tickets have been limited. I haven't talked to one haunt yet who's sold more than 1000 tickets but those are the caps.

Everyone I'm talking to are reporting positive reception to haunts being open.

The negative stories are ramping up at the same time. We'll see how it all ends up! Most haunts are going to open October 2nd so we'll see then.

Larry

[hauntfarm]

We opened last weekend with limited ticket sales. We set our ticketing availability at 750 per night and sold out. So far so good. This weekend we're going up to 1,250 per night.

[drfrightner]

Obviously we're down because we didn't open in September but last night we were slightly up from last year. Overall down because of September and tonight might be down because its raining.

We'll see.

[drfrightner]

Now this is really interesting ... we didn't open for September, nor did we open on Thursdays in October and what is going on? We've almost made up all the lost attendance from September and the missed Thursdays. We cut our marketing budget in HALF! Our labor is down. Fewer days open means fewer wear and tear and problems. So say that again open just three days a week with half the budget for everything and we're doing better than last year. WHAT? So far so good already planning on spending some money with our amazing vendors.

Your phone should ring soon!

[monsterwax]

We've cut attendance by 50%, but this early, we still (usually) have lots of empty slots. They seem to be coming much earlier this year though-- a good sign.

[monsterwax]

As stated before, we're only offering half as many tickets, but they are selling out now so we expect full attendance (at our pre-set reduced numbers) for the remaining weekends.

[drfrightner]

Here is an update from me... we're blowing away last years numbers by a long shot. If we would have opened in September and more days in October this might be our biggest year ever. We're turning away THOUSANDS of people because we refuse to stay open past 11:30 pm. We've been shutting down our haunts at 11 to get thru all the people. Its crazy.

Our escape rooms are TRIPLE last year. We're booking solid its nuts!

I hope everyone else is doing great.

[monsterwax]

We limited tickets to reduce group size so people went with their own personal bubble, and we didn't want the line extending out past the gate this year so they wouldn't pack close together. With all that in mind, we still did well but are glad we took the precautions that we did.

[drfrightner]

Our attendance numbers ... Darkness was around the same but we opened the Darkness 11 fewer days than in 2019. Creepyworld was up about 5,000 guests but some of that has to do with a lot of rain last year. We got rained out three nights this year.

We were down 100% at Lemp because we didn't open it out of fear it would flop. Turns out we should have opened it but we're not looking back now. Here is the funny thing we closed Creepyworld and Darkness early this year on weekends, had we stayed open we could have done THOUSANDS more people. We turned away customers believe it or not. The year was stressful because the crowds got really rowdy and some just didn't want to follow any rules.

So we kept closing an hour early on weekends.

We cut marketing by 60%, we opened 30% fewer nights and say that again we did the same or more money than last year. Huh?

What are my biggest take aways?

Radio doesn't work and we cut that by 80% and we did better than ever. Facebook worked great, Google was good as was snapchat.

NO ONE should pay a marketing agency to help them with digital... you can do everything yourself and save the money. The key is creating good content and next year I'll offer a content program across the board. Do your own digital.

Cut radio all TV because its next to worthless. We didn't even do billboards. Everything was digital.

We're officially in the digital realm and its something anyone can learn and you can find customers while saving a ton of money.

Also we found being open more days is not a path to making more money. Something to strongly consider next year. We also added tons of air cannons and reduced our stuff by a lot especially when you consider opening fewer days.

I have to rethink everything going forward. With Creepyworld I now realize bigger isn't better. Longer isn't better either. We cut out two haunts at Creepyworld and with Darkness we cut out Hive and people loved it.

Haunted Houses need to figure out ways to reduce labor, add upcharged events, add retail or open something like escape rooms which are seriously money makers. Our escape rooms did nearly $80,000 in October, add in our two 5 minutes and we did over $100k.

People need to totally rethink the overall model for owning and operating profitable haunted houses.

Larry

[Demon Knight]

We sold out every night but with restrictions. We were not allowed to have more than 100 people in our waiting area and no more than 50 inside the haunted house. Our capacity per night was 500 in the end we paid our bills. Hoping for a better 2021.

[haunter1313]

Same thing here had some restrictions going in so our attendance was limited. Demand was higher than capacity but we'll survive. Honestly don't have a lot of money to spend at Transworld but we're coming.