Haunt Weekly

Send us Fan Mail Pretty much every business owner hopes to get positive media attention. However, haunted attractions are uniquely positioned to make it happen. Still, dealing with the media can be stressful and it can be difficult to ensure you geet the coverage you want. Fortunately, we're here to help. As a haunt that's had great luck with the media and half of us holding journalism d...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, it's another episode divisible by four and that means it's time to do the news! And boy do we have some doozies this week. First, we FINALLY get to cover the lawsuit filed against Dorney's Theme Park as well as provide an update on the Old Joliet Prison. However, we also have news on a new attraction at Legoland and new study that shows wh...

Send us Fan Mail Haunted attraction documentaries are increasinly common. However, those that put the community in a wholly positive light are still somewhat rare. If that's the case, Spookers: A Family Like No Other, is a great rare gem of a documentary that takes a look bethind the panel walls of a haunted attraction and finds nothing but warmth and happiness. While not a perfect movie, it&...

Send us Fan Mail On May 11, 1984, a tragedy unfolded at the Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ. The fire took 8 young lives and started both criminal and civil proceedings against the company. The fire and the investigation that followed was not only a horrible tragedy, but an event that forever changed the entire industry. This week on Haunt Weekly, we're taking a lon...

Send us Fan Mail HAuNTcon 2019 is in the books and it looks to be the pentultimate HAuNTcon in New Orleans. However, it isn't leaving the city without a party on the way and, to that end, it was an amazing year. With a trade show floor that was double the size of last year, a new education setup and an equally impressive Halloween & Party Expo there was a LOT to do. Best of all, a lot of...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news! Unfortunately though, it's something of a somber episode as we have news not just of a tragedy in Poland but of the haunt industry losing one of its own. We also have irresponsible escape game owners in Canada and some news about planned haunt openings as well as one haunt that has, almost certainly closed. This Week'...

Send us Fan Mail A recent question on Haunter's Hangout asked is 3K square feet big enough for a haunt. There was a great conversation about it with answers ranging a resounding no to many offering support. As overgrown home haunters, we have a lot of experience building in small spaces. Also, as haunt customers we've been to and enjoyed many haunts in that range. However, we've als...

Send us Fan Mail Virtual Reality (VR) is rapidly becoming big business for haunted attraction. The ease of set up along with the novelty of the attraction and the slate of horror-related experiences makes it so that more and more haunts, large and small, are getting into the VR game. But is it worth it? What are the risks? How do you get started? We explore all of that and much more in this virtua...

Send us Fan Mail Happy New Year's Eve everyone! As we're winding down 2018 we're also introducing a slightly new and improved Haunt Weekly as we've got some new kit we're learning to use. Hopefully, this week's podcast sounds a bit better than the previous 160. But this is a big episode for other reasons, we're giving you a local haunters guide to New Orleans for...

Send us Fan Mail Happy Christmas Eve everyone! However, it's also a Monday and that means it's time to do another Haunt Weekly. Furthermore, since it's another episode divisible by four, it's time to do the news. And what a lot of news we have, we have a lawsuit against a haunted house, updates on several stories we talked about earlier and even some great charity work being do...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing things a bit different. I'm recovering from a significant surgery so we're taking the opportunity to not only let Crystal take the lead on the show notes but to do our usual holiday tradition of doing an episode just for us. So what are we doing with that episode? We're targeting Santa Claus. That's right, the fat man...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're celebrating Christmas... sort of. Ok, maybe we aren't big Christmas people but Christmas haunts are definitely becoming a big thing in the industry. Finally, we were able to go to our first one and have spent a lot of time talking about why this is such a major trend in the industry and what we can do to make it really work. So, without a...

Send us Fan Mail When you've been to as many haunts as we have, it all tends to blur together some. We often struggle to remember what we saw in one haunt versus another and really struggle to recall when we saw something. But then there are those moments that really stand out, when we see something so unique and special that we have no difficulty remembering it at all. These moments are gett...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news! This week is something of a catch up week as we cover stories that we either missed or didn't have time to mention last time and also cover some post-season news taking place in our industry. And what a wild week this is! We have a stabbing, a lawsuit over a mock rape and a customer who claims to have had three of his teet...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing something a bit different. Rather than just blabbering on about whatever is on our mind, we're taking a look at Black Friday deals and seeing what might be of interest to haunters. Tis the season for saving and that's true for us haunters as well as everyone else. Fortunately, there are some great deals of haunters to be found!...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing something a little bit different. We're sharing with you the lessons we learned from our 2018 season. The season, overall, went very well and many of the things we tried went swimmingly and will be repeated. Other things we tried went... not so well. However, things that go poorly are often better learning experiences than the thing...

Send us Fan Mail For us, the 2018 season is in the books. We are brain dead, dead tired and damn near just dead. However, it was a great season in every way, record numbers, amazing reviews and a perfect safety record. So, since we are tired beyond belief, we are going to spend this week's episode talking about the only thing we can talk about, how it went. So, sit back, relax and go on a tri...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're winding down the season by doing the news. And what a month for news it has been, with more than a few stories that will make you scream expletives at the top of your lungs. Stories of racism, antisemitism and a mock rape. Though it's been a very good season for us personally, it's clear several other haunts have had much more rough...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about something that has been at the core of our lives this season, queue lines. Whether it's the one we're building for our haunt or all of the queue lines we've stood in at the 15 we've been to so far, we've had a lot of time to think about queue lines from the perspective of both a haunter and a customer. So...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about kayfabe in haunting. What is kayfabe? It's a wrestling term that's used to indicate the presentation of fictional events and information as real. However, kayfabe isn't limited to wrestling. We see it everywhere. Whether it's the craze over the Blair Witch Project, the "Is this place really haunted?"...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're recapping what has beeen one of the best weekends of our lives for visiting haunts: The Lost Souls Chicago Haunted Bus Tour.   To say it was an amazing weekend is an understatement. Not only were there six great haunted houses, but an amazing bus trip plus some great time with a good friend and friend of the show. In this episode, we're r...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, it's another episode divisible by four so that means it's time to do the news! But wait! Haunts all over the country are opening, what news can we possibly cover? Turns out a lot actually. We have several stories of haunts being used for promotion, some tales of haunt promotion and at least a couple of stories about some really, really long-run...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing something a bit different: Answering a question that wasn't even asked of us. The question was asked on the Haunter's Toolbox Facebook Group , which you should join and also join their main site , about how far people are willing to travel for a haunt. The asker was looking at land 45-minutes outside of the city and was curious...

Send us Fan Mail Back in episode 95 , we took a look at all of the major retailers in our area and their Halloween sections. Well, it's 51 episodes later and we're doing it again, throwing in a few new stores to boot. So, with that in mind, here's a look at what our local stores have for Halloween, who disappointed us, who enthralled us and where did we spend our money? Stay tuned a...

Send us Fan Mail This week on #HauntWeekly, we're talking about a group we've neglected for far too long: Yard Haunters It's a strange omission for us. Every year we put a lot of labor into our yard display and far more people see it. However, when it comes to talking about haunting, we're all about what's inside the haunt itself, at least on the podcast. So, we're fi...