FrightWire.Com

Del Toro to reboot Disney’s Haunted Mansion

Tyler — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 03:44:42 +0000

The visionary director behind Blade 2, Hellboy and Pans Labyrinth is working with Disney to create a fresh, scary new take on The Haunted Mansion.

This movie will featured the long rumored and feared…Hatbox Ghost. A very unhappy haunt that’s been lurking the been trapped for years, now, is finally being released on screen.

Fans are excited to see how Del Toro will reinvent the Haunted Mansion, especially after he stated; “Yes…this movie will be scary”! Sounds very exciting and I personally love it when Disney pushes the limits on itself!

Let us know what you think!

SpookywoodsFX seeing class action lawsuit?!

Tyler — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 23:32:51 +0000

Several members of the haunt community are seeking a class action lawsuit against popular haunt vendor, SpookywoodFX. SFX is the maker of popular haunt costumes that feature very detailed skins and several forms of distressing. They’ve even had costumes featured in the Disney parks!

A group of haunters are filing suit against SFX for product paid for but not received. Some of the haunters have not even had ONE phone call from the company, they simply took the money and ran!

This seems to be a growing problem in the industry and we’re sure to see more legal actions like this.

SpookywoodsFX has had no comments.

Hauntworld Mag to end HHA subs!

Tyler — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 19:51:50 +0000

Hauntworld Magazine announced today that they be would be
ending the free subscriptions to members of the HHA. This comes as
a shock as magazine owner/editor Larry Kirchner was involved in the
creation of the Haunted House Assiciation, he says: “Hauntworld
Magazine will NO LONGER send out free magazines to people with
memberships to these organizations.” Mr. Kirchner continues to add
that, starting immediately free subscriptions have ended. No
association member will receive the pre-Transworld edition OR the
March tradeshow edition of the mag. “You must subscribe at this
point… we might in the future do something when or if something
good comes from all this or if approached about it but if you want
the information we provide you will have to get your own
subscription.” This seems very disheartening, I’m sure, to all
members of both associations and is sure to decrease the value of
joining/membership cost! No comments yet from Haunted Attraction
Magazine. Tell us what you think! More to come.

Australian council closes ghost tours

Travis — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 23:04:22 +0000

Business owners in an Australian town are decrying the loss of tourist dollars after the local government shut down its ghost tours.

Picton, Australia.

Picton residents said the Wollondilly Shire Council forced the closure of the ghost tour business in the town, which is famous for its supposed supernatural activity, after some complained of tourists trespassing, causing disturbances and vandalizing property, The (Sydney) Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

Picton Chamber of Commerce President Karl Klein said the closure of the business could affect local motels, restaurants and gas stations.

“It’s an absolute farce, I am bewildered that any minority group can force a business out,” he said. “The (problems) have nothing to do with people who go on the tours, it’s other galahs out there.”

(Galah is an old Australian term meaning loud-mouthed idiot, according to the urban dictionary.)

Other residents and business leaders expressed fears the loss of the tour company will lead to ghost hunters taking their own excursions without organizing or following rules.

Haunt attendance: fact or crap?

spazz — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 07:26:17 +0000

So, a small debate is occurring regarding haunt attendance. Some people are saying that haunts ultra-inflate their numbers in an effort to secure bragging rights? Some are claiming that some haunts actually do 80-100K+… what do you think? Could a haunt put through roughly 100,000 people in a season? Safely? While keeping scares/quality high?

Mathmatically if an attraction was open for 24 nights (typical haunt schedule), and open 24 hours those days. That would be: 100,000/576 (hours) = 173 people an hour! It could work! BUT!! Let’s say there are only seven hours per operation day, that’s 7pm-2pm. That would mean the haunt would have to do about 600 people an hour!

Still, it’s feasible! But consider safety, quality, parking/traffic, load on actors, etc.

What do you think? Let us know!

Email marketing for Haunted Attractions

Travis — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 05:47:44 +0000

Whether you’re running a large successful haunted attraction, or you’re just starting out on your first year haunting. Email marketing is a must when it comes to reaching out to your customers with a warm greeting and invite to your attraction.

In this article we’ll talk about the dos and don’ts of email marketing, and how you can use it to increase traffic and your haunted house’s bottom line.

Very few online technologies run their courses and then make a come back as a solid means of increasing traffic and return on investment for a website. Email marketing has done just that. As the web really started to take off around 2000, we were all getting spammed beyond belief with marketing emails that we didn’t want. Then, as the internet progressed and showed it’s self as a true marketing and commerce medium we started to get a little more order applied to the art of email marketing. Now I can already hear people saying “I still get tons of spam to this day! I don’t need a bigger penis” I know, I know, me either. These are not what we consider actual email marketing messages. That’s just spam, plain and simple.

True email marketing is sending out a relevant message to someone that you know will have an interest in it’s content or that has shown an interest in your business. It’s not about numbers. As the old saying goes. Quality not quantity, and it could not be more true than in email marketing. Don’t spend time sending as many emails as you can. Spend you time making the emails you send as good and informative as possible. Here are five steps that we use when launching an email marketing campaign for a haunted house.

1. Make sure you have good data. Some people have existing email lists, some people purchase lists based on the interest of the contacts. Either way, make sure your data is good. You should have all of your data cleaned and ready before you ever send a message. Failure to do this will result in sending to messages that are un-deliverable or produce a lot of bounce backs. When every email sent costs you money, it’s very important to know you’re only sending emails to active email accounts. Most of the time your email contact list will be stored in a CSV file, which stands for comma separated value. These files can be opened with just about any text editor, but for readability you’re going to want to open it with a spreadsheet program like Excel or Google Doc spreadsheet. This will allow you to view your data in nice clean rows and columns. So long as you have under 50K contacts, going through the file and making sure all of the email addresses are in the proper format should not be very difficult. You could even write a formula that auto checks all the email addresses for the correct format, but that’s out of the scope of this article. If analysing and organizing your contact list seems a bit out of your league feel free to contact Ministry80.com for a consultation on haunt website design and email marketing.

2. Use the data you have. Most lists should store quite a bit of information about the contact besides their email address. First name, last name, city, state, age and last interaction is all great data to have. So using this data to target the right customers for your email campaign allows you to create a much more personalized message and increase your clickthrough rate. Addressing contacts by their first name with a personalized greeting is a great start to making good use of the data you may have. Now let’s talk a little more about targeting based on contact information.

3. Relevant information. One of the most important aspects of any email marketing campaign, and especially large campaigns is delivering relevant content to the end user. You can accomplish this by creating multiple messages and using a contact’s demographic information to determine which user gets which message. For example, if you have user data on both local customers and people who live outside your city, you may want to create two messages. One that is targeted to the locals and another that puts an emphasis on why your attraction is worth traveling to for the out of towners. This is accomplished in email marketing by creating a rule that chooses which message the user will get based on the data in their location field. It may not seem like a big deal on the surface, but the ability to speak directly to a certain group of customers can have a lasting impact on your haunted attraction marketing campaign.

4. Creating your email content. Now that we know who’s getting your email, lets take a quick look at what needs to be done to create an effective email marketing message and it’s content. The look and feel of your message can be just as important as who it’s sent to. Effective emails will both inform a user and intrigue them to click through to your website. Content for email messages is created the say way you create a website today, only there are a few exceptions that you need to keep in mind. First off, you must remember that the majority of users are going to be viewing your email through an online email application like Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo mail. This means you have to make sure your message and it’s content fit into the mail message viewing area of a application’s interface. A safe bet is to keep your email message no wider than 600 pixels. The most important thing to keep in mind when designing an email message is that a lot of online mail applications do not fully support CSS in the message unless it’s coded as an inline-style. This means using CSS to position elements isn’t really a good idea. While practicing web standards based design is a must for today’s browsers, creating email messages is one of the few times I recommend using HTML tables to create your message layout. Also remember that if your message contains images, you’ll need to make sure those images are uploaded to a web server where they are accessible. If all of this seems foreign to you don’t worry. Most email programs have sample templates that you can use to base your message on. All you really need to do is change the information to reflect your message. Though a well design email marketing message that matches your website and haunt style is a really great benefit, not having one should not stop you from moving forward with your campaign. If you’re set on getting a custom designed email message, our friends at Ministry80 Interactive can help you no matter what your needs are.

5. Gather data and review analytics. Now that you have a good idea of what to send and who to send it to doesn’t mean you’re finished. Your email marketing campaign should always be evolving and getting better. Make sure you’ll always gathering data on your customers and contacts any chance you get. Offer incentives like coupons or discounts to customers or users who are willing to fill out a quick survey. Make sure it’s optional and the info you ask for isn’t too intrusive, and know that a lot of users aren’t going to want to take the time to complete an online survey, but always remember that it doesn’t hurt to ask. Having demographic information on your customers will help you with all advertisers, not just your email marketing.

Lastly, make sure you review your campaign analytics. Depending on the email marketing platform you’re using, you should have access to some great analytical data about your campaign. Even the simplest of tools should offer you the ability to view open and click-through rates for your email campaigns. Review this data, test different subject lines, content and targeted customers to see what performed best and then try to get a good understanding of why you came to your conclusion. Just like with your haunted attraction, it’s all about finding what pleases your customers and why, that way you can be sure to use that information to your advantage on future campaigns.

We’ve covered a lot in this article, and I hope it helps you on your way to a great haunt email marketing campaign.

If you have any questions about anything discussed here or would like to suggest topics for future articles feel free to comment below.

Happy Haunting!

Raycliff Manor interviewed on how to start a haunt

Tyler — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 19:51:36 +0000

Kelly Allen, owner and operator of Raycliff Manor haunted house in Joplin, MO., was recently interviewed on how to start-up a haunted attraction.

Not a particularly informative interview, mostly just Mr. Allen picking apart the finer points of start-up, but a great read none-the-less that we suggest you take a look at.

To read the interview; go to http://www.hauntedhousestartup.com/haunt-interview-with-kelly-allen-of-raycliff-manor

Coming Soon: Haunted How-To’s

Tyler — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 02:19:22 +0000

COMING SOON!! Frightwire.com present’s Haunted How-To’s!

Learn tips, tricks and secrets in various topics that will help better your haunt and/or business! Video tutorials in vivid HD, in-depth articles full of pictures and useful resources that you can use…and all for FREE!!!

More info later! Stay tuned!

Transworld: Insane Party!!

Tyler — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 07:37:21 +0000

Looking for something to do while in St. Louis this year
for the Hauntshow? How about the “Insane Shane Kick-Off Party”?
Hosted by Shane Dabbs (Disturbia Haunted House) and sponsored by
several top haunt vendors, the party will include music, dancing,
contests, great food and over $20,000 in DOOR PRIZES donated by
haunt vendors from across the country! This is always the “must
attend” event for the industry and a great way to kick off
Transworld! For tickets and more information, visit http://insaneshaneparty.com/

Transworld: Bigger in 2011!

Tyler — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 06:52:35 +0000

The 2011 Transworld Hauntshow returns this year to the
America Center in St. Louis, MO. This year shows the return of the
retail only Halloween section! The haunted attraction industry has
seen it’s own show for the past few years, but this time it proves
that the retail side NEEDS the attraction side. We would love to
hear your thoughts on this! What do you think about the retail side
of the show returning? Will the attractions side be treated as
second-class citizens once more? Let us know! For more information
on the Hauntshow, please visit http://www.hauntshow.com