Market Analysis?

[michilson]

Great Info On this topic

Thanks I hope to see more haunters post info on this as I too am looking into the Idea of a Pro Haunt! I feel I might be in a Better location as I have 3 Major metropolitan areas around me within say a hour drive. So if anyone can give me a rough idea of maybe how to try to look at what I could expect to see as far as like what they may have seen in attendance compared to the avg. Population of where there located!

like a percentage of what I could possibly see my first few years provided I maintain or improve the haunt each year! A smaller haunts first few years numbers would give me a good starting point!

[Greg Chrise]

Even if the former haunt was sucky, how many they saw is a good indicator of how receptive an area is. Generally you depending on terrain figure your population is 30 miles out or as little as a 15 minute drive and then your target is 10% of that with the ultimate advertising plan.

The first years can only be done to see what that opening figure is. It might start at what that old haunt was seeing and go up about 30% per year untill it flat lines. If you are only 25,000 with no mans land for 60 miles all the way around you would be favored to see 2500. In that isolated case, seeing even more means having a really spectacular show.

Some haunts thrive on people coming from tremendous distances and have targeted specificly to increase their customer base. Using off season events to sort of train people to drive that far when commanded to.

Some are quite fine with 2500 total, others aren't happy unless they have 25,000 or more. It is also matching the haunt to how many will come expense wise. You could put even the Darkness in a blizzard zone and still only 1000 people will come.

Proper advertising will bring 10 times what a slacker haunt sees the first year. Exactly 10 times.

Medium G.

[asanve]

We are a home haunt that is interested in going pro over the next few years. We have Allens book and have read it in its entirety. We are starting to collect information for our business plan and are confused as to the best way to do a market analysis. The nearest pro haunts to us are approximately 1 hour away in several directions. There was one haunt in the next town over (about 15 minutes from here) that set up in a building at the local fairgrounds. It was okay but not worth a second trip. We are a small community of about 25,000 people and are comprised mainly of schools, houses, parks, and small shopping centers. Not a big area for market analysis. The schools do not allow anyone to conduct surveys or distribute material, so that idea is out. Can anyone tell us how you did your market analysis and what worked best for you? Are there any pro haunts that are located in smaller towns that do very well and how did you do your market analysis? Does it make any sense to reach out to the cities 60 miles away to research them and include them in our market analysis or is that too far?

Hope you guys are having a great time in St. Louis! Wish we we're there!!! Thanks for all your help.