Haunt Weekly

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news and what a news week it is! As we inch closer to haunts opening their doors we're getting a slew of announcements and other news from haunts. Sadly, a lot of those announcements are of haunts not opening this year but many others are big stories about new and creative haunts that are opening up. So kick back and relax as we...

Send us Fan Mail The New Orleans 2018 haunt season may well be the most chaotic of all time. The oldest and most famous haunt has closed, another is taking over the location and we have a brand-new scream park opening up. Needless to say, Crystal and I are equal parts excited and nervous about the new season. We've had a relatively stable haunt scene for the past decade so this shakeup is ver...

Send us Fan Mail This weekend, we took a trip to the Alario Center here in New Orleans to visit the Oddities & Curiosities Expo as it toured through the city.  With over 120 vendors we went in hopes of finding some new things for both our house and our haunt. Along the way, we ran into a bunch of our old haunt friends and more than a few of our other strange/unusual buddies. All in all, it was...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly is a bit different. Caught up in the midst of a major project that's giving us little room to breathe, so we decided to take some of the points and ideas we like to beat on and organize them into a bizarre parody of a book we've never read. With that in mind, we present to you: The Ten Habits of Really Great Haunts. All of this is based on thing...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, it's an episode divisible by four and that means it's time to do the news. And what a roller coaster do we have this week. Everything from a change of direction at a major haunt to a pair of cautionary tales about taking over historic buildings. So take a break from your haunt work and actor recruitment and find out what else is going on in the...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about our process for creating a scare, everything from where we get the idea to questions we ask about it all the way through build and testing.  While this might seem like a basic topic, a lot of people in the industry, especially actors who are used to working in finished rooms, may never have gone through it. As we work to bring mo...

Send us Fan Mail Do you like making more money? Sure, we all do. But instead of getting a new degree from a 90s correspondence school, may we suggest something a little more practical? Making more money per customer. Video games may have brought us the microtransaction to the forefront but they also showed us how not to do them, now the time has come for us to learn the lessons from gaming in both...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're taking a look at one of the less pleasant sides of the industry: Haunt Directories. Directories have the potential to be a very powerful tool for the industry, a way to help people find new haunts in their area or when they travel. However, our current options are, to put it simply, less than perfect. So we're going to take a deep dive, l...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, it's another week divisible by four and that means it's time mto do the news. And what a load of news we have this week! Not only do we have two stories of local importance here in New Orleans, but we have stories of haunt mergers, new attractions opening and some major stories from big industry players. All in all, this is one jam-packed episo...

Send us Fan Mail A wise person once said, what goes up, must come down. So is also true for haunts. But why are you talking about tearing down haunts in Summer? People are building their haunts now, not tearing them down!  Glad you asked. That's because the success of a haunt teardown sttarts during haunt construction. Decicions made during the build impact how smoothly the haunt comes down....

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we're going back to school! Yes, we know it's the middle of summer but that makes it the perfect time to pick up some non-credit or continuing education courses. Need some suggestions on what to take? We look at our local schools and see the types of courses you might be able to pick up closer to your home. Best of all, many of the courses can b...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about everyone's favorit topic: RULES! Wait, wait, wait, before you leave. Hear us out. Rules are vitally important to your haunt but they are also something that none of us really pay much attention to. Heck, we haven't updated our rules in 12 years. However, now is a good time to start thinking about those rules and, maybe,...

Send us Fan Mail Sorry for the late podcast this week! We've been travelling and this week's episode is brought to you from a Super 8 motel near St. Louis. If we sound a bit different or seem a bit out of sorts, that's why. But, the show must go on and there is a lot of news to cover this week. We have a major announcement from both Halloween Horror Nights and VooDoo Fest, We also h...

Send us Fan Mail When it comes to talking about spooky things, Crystal and I got our start reviewing "Garbage Horror" movies, low budget horror movies that were usually the brainchild of one or two people. We've seen hundreds, possibly thousands of these films. Many are unwatchable, most are forgettable, but some are actually very good and very memorable. So what can those GOOD budg...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're lightening things up a bit. After such a downeer last episode, we decided to talk about something everyone loves: Saving money. But here's the deal. Every article, podcast, forum, etc. covers the same tips and tricks. We all know to go dumpster diving, shop at thrift stores and troll through Craigslist. That's the easy stuff. So we w...

Send us Fan Mail Last week, Crystal and I had some time off. So we decided to take something of a staycation and explore the French Quarter and do some spooky things. One of which was visit the Bloody Mary Museum and Tour.  While the museum shop wass your fairly standard New Orleans French Quarter affair, it was the tour that stuck with us. Rather than being a generic tour of a "haunted"...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, it's an episode divisible by four and that means it's time to do the news!  And what a busy news week it is! We have some major news about new haunts opening, haunts moving and one haunted attraction that's doing away with its ghostly theme. There's also some news about Disney's Haunted Mansion and a new documentary that focuses...

Send us Fan Mail It's that time of year where haunt building is in full swing so what happens if you have a prop, room or character that you need to push your haunt over the top but can't come up with the idea? Well you go to the internet! Our industry has gotten very good about swapping and sharing ideas and, if you're scratching your head looking for something to go in your haunt,...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about villains! Every haunt has a villain, the difference is that many haunts take the time to flesh their villains out into marketable characters that add to the scare while others put no real time and attention into them. However, that's pretty insane. Crafting a good villain is free and relatively easy to do. All you have to do...

Send us Fan Mail Haunt consolidation has been a big topic in the haunt community lately. With 13th Floor making major moves to acquire haunts all over the country, many are wondering what these purchases and further consolidation mean for the industry. However, consolidation in the industry goes well beyond the purchase of a few dozen large huants. There's other typeps consolidations to consi...

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! It's a surprisingly busy month for haunted attraction news, lots of legal cases going on and some general fallout from Transworld to discuss. On top of that you can watch our (previously recorded) appearance on Haunt Chat Live  and we have the usual spate of co...

Send us Fan Mail How did this episode not happen before now? Just... how? My (Jonathan) day job is working in copyright and plagiarism matters. I run the site Plagiarism Today , I run a consulting firm at CopyByte . This is my non-haunt life. So how is it that we are 123 episodes in and we have not done this topic? Regardless, we're writing that wrong this week and going over the basics of co...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly it's a two for one sale as you're getting two guests for the price of one! This week we have Mike Ross, the owner/operator of Sinister Sidney and The Gravedigger Reverend Michael, the host of Sinister Sidney and the host of Haunt Chat Live . It's two very different people who are very much of the same mind. So, in this episode we not only g...

Send us Fan Mail Easter is almost upon us and, as we've been doing what we've been doing for other holidays, we're taking a look at traditions around the world and seeing which may work well in a haunted attraction. That's only understandable as more and more haunts are working to open year-round, either to cash in on various holidiays throught the year or simply to escape the...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, it's an episode divisible by four and that means it's time to do THE NEWS! However, we have to be honest, this is one heavy and sad news episode. There's just a lot of bad news to go around. If haunt closings to community closings were not sad enough, the community has also lost one of its greatest members to cancer. But, bear with us. If...