By Leonard Pickel

By Leonard Pickel

I frequently get phone calls from people interested in starting a Haunted House. Normally buy someone who obviously loves Halloween In many cases they have just seen a local attraction at 9pm on the Saturday before Halloween, guestimated the number of people in line, multiplied that by the ticket price and the number of days in October and get the brainstorm that they could make a living scaring people working and only work one month a year.

This fallacy is very damaging to the industry, as some of these people tend to mortgage their lives to "get rich" in the Haunted House business. When they fail, they fail hard, leaving actors, rent, prop and advertising bills unpaid, and making it even harder for other Haunters to get landlords or radio stations to even talk to them.

So, when these people call me, I attempt to bring them back to reality.

Let me hit some of the highlights for you:

- A Haunted House is not a get rich quick scheme. It is a year round business that takes enormous hours of time and effort.

- A Haunted House is a business like any other, and 60% of all businesses fail in the first 2 years.

- If it was easy to make a living Haunting, everyone would be doing it.

- A large percentage of Haunts in the country, (maybe as high as 70%) do not "really" make a profit. (If they paid themselves for their time, paid their volunteer labor, ect.)

- Most Haunt owners have day jobs that support them the rest of the year, (sometimes even supporting their Haunted Houses).

HOWEVER!

Is it possible to make a living with a Haunted Attraction?

YES!

There are people who are doing just that, and for the last 10 years (or more) I have been doing everything in my power to help the 70% who are not making any money, to get to that point;

- Through the articles I select for Haunted Attraction Magazine

- Through the Haunt Ed Seminars I select for HAuNTcon

- Through the 3 hour plus "How To Get Started" seminar that I offer at every gathering I can talk them into letting me speak at.

- Through consulting services, and used attractions that I offer to the industry.

I am not sure how much of this is sinking in though. Too often I see people skip an important business seminar for one about "Cheap Scares." There is even a mentality out there on some lists, that making money with your Haunt or your Haunted business is some how, not in the spirit of the season! These Haunters look down on others who "just pump people though their Haunt, so they can make a buck!"

Please allow me to fill in those of you who think this is bad thing, (which is the main point that I try to get across in all of my seminars!):

"IF YOU DO NOT MAKE MONEY WITH YOUR HAUNT, THEN YOU DO NOT GET TO PLAY ANY MORE!"

I am NOT advocating ripping people off! That hurts us the industry as a whole, but October is only 5 weekends long. And if your attraction cannot give people a show AND move them along doing it, then you "Will not get to play any more!"

SO YOU WANT TO DO A HAUNT?

The first thing you do, (after a web site) if you are thinking about doing a haunt is to write a business plan. Here is all you need to know about a business plan:

- TICKET PRICE X ATTENDANCE = TOTAL INCOME

- TOTAL INCOME - TOTAL COST = PROFIT

(NOTE: Profit MUST be greater than or equal to zero. If it is not greater than or equal to zero, then don't do the project!)

So how do we do that?

Now this is going to upset several of you, and for that I apologize! Please understand that "I believe that there is not right or wrong way to Haunt, and these recommendations are ONLY what I find to be successful!" YOUR particular situation could be quite different, (but I doubt it!)

Disclaimer out of the way, here is what I preach:

- It will cost you $15 - $25 per square foot to build a show, or a little bit cheaper if you decide NOT to hire a consultant. (NOTE: If you decide not to hire a consultant, then PLEASE also decide not to open a Haunted House! Even a bad consultant will save you several times what he charges you.)

- You should spend between $2 and $3 per person in advertising for every person you are trying to get to buy a ticket, and spend it wisely. (Top Forty radio is king in most markets. Shoot for 20,000 people)

- Attendance in most markets is exponential, it almost doubles each weekend!! To be able to do $20,000 people in 5 weekends (75 hours) your hourly capacity needs to be at least 700 people per hour on last weekends. To design a Haunt that can take 700 people an hour and still give them a quality experience, you need to hire a consultant! It is what we do!! (My record is 1,800 people per hour for a show designed for Universal Studios, and I could do better from what I learned).

- In my personal opinion, Haunts are over priced, which is why I push people to go MULTI ELEMENT! (Whatever you are charging now for your single haunt, if you divided it in two, you could charge more! So why do you still have a single Haunt?) My approach is at least two elements, but preferably 4 elements to get a $20 "COMBO" ticket price. (And put them side by side please. When you put them nose to tail, it is still just one haunt, with queue lines inside!)

- Today, I do not design anything over 2,000 square feet PER element, so a 4 element event, (which, now that you have 4 Haunts it IS an event!) is only 8,000 square feet of plywood actors and props. Each differently themed and completely different styles! To provide a much greater PRECIEVED value than what a single 8,000 SF Haunt, and that you would never get $20 for!

- Don't do a Haunted House in your home town, just because you live there! Go to the big city!! You will only be there a month and there are many more people there for you to draw from!! (Seems simple enough, but I can count on one hand how many clients have said to me, "I want to open a Haunt... where should it be?")

- Don't do a Haunted House inside of an interior Mall. For some reason it is more difficult to drive large numbers, 20,000 plus, people to an event in a mall. Can't tell you why for sure, but I know the same attraction would do much better in out the parking lot of the same mall, than it does inside.

So! You take these numbers and plug them into the formulas above to figure out if your business plan will make a profit, (it takes 3 to five years for most start up businesses to turn a profit! So put that in your calculations.) If the numbers don't work, then change the parameters, until they do work. Decrease the number of actors required, add an additional element to increase the ticket price, or decrease your construction costs! But do something to make the math work BEFORE you by a single sheet of plywood.

BECAUSE! (Read it out loud with me!!) "IF I DO NOT MAKE A PROFIT, THEN I DO NOT GET TO PLAY ANY MORE!"

Leonard Pickel is editor of Haunted Attraction Magazine and is available for consulting, Haunt design, attraction drawings and lectures, (like the one above :-).