Haunt Weekly

Send us Fan Mail Japes Palles is one of the busiest men in haunting, and that's saying something. Not only is he a new father but, even as haunt season is ramping up, he is taking on not one but two new projects, both of them epic in their scale and what they can do for area haunts. The first is a new Facebook group that aims to help haunts and actors pair up. Haunts and actors alike sign up,...

Send us Fan Mail You guys should go pro! Why don't you? It's a question we get asked dozens of times per year, usually starting right now as the work ramps up.  Usually the question is high praise and comes from happy visitors to our overgrown home haunt. They see the work and money we put into it and want us to be successful. But while it's flattering, it's alst not something...

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 a busy time for haunt news it is. As haunts gear up for the start of season, press releases are flying everywhere and everyone is talking about actor auditions and openingn nights. But that's not why we're here. Though it tickles us pink to see the gre...

Send us Fan Mail Halloween & Hauntfest 2017 is in the books and what a show it was. Some great classes, an exciting trade show floor and some after hours events that will make a lifetime of memories. Over the course of the 48 hours there, I have two talks, attended half a dozen more, Crystal acted in a small haunted house, we both were chased around a room by a zombie, bought a prop for our ha...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're not just staring at the eclipse, we're gearing up to go to Halloween & HauntFest next weekend in Dallas! Now, before we begin, we had some technical issues with last week's episode. If you didn't ge the full 50 minutes of the podcast, simply refresh the feed and you should download a new episode that fixes it.  Sorry for tho...

Send us Fan Mail To those who are not and never have been fans of pro wrestling, it can seem silly. That's partly because it is, but, then again, so is haunting a lot of time. Just because something is silly doesn't mean it isn't also very serious. But, most importantly, professional wrestling is both a form of storytelling and a form of acting that is easy to overlook. As an indust...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we're doing the news and we have a lot to go through this episode! We have tales of two break ins at haunted attractions, an update on McKamey Manor, a new and unique haunt opening up in Orlando and another merger in Pennsylvania. Combine that with the next announcement from Universal's Halloween Horror Nights and news about a Nightmare Before C...

Send us Fan Mail Most haunters are already very familiar with Raven's Grin Inn , a year-round haunted attraction in Mt. Carroll, IL. The brain child and labor of Jim Warfield, it is an attraction that is both unique and revered. Last week, we got the chance to see the iconic haunt and it was indeed every bit as unusual an amazing that we thought it would be. But, equally awesome, Jim agreed t...

Send us Fan Mail After a heavy podcast last week, we're lightening things up this week with a podcast all about web services that can you run, promote and monetize your haunt more effectively. Best of all, these are all web services that, while very useful, aren't targeted at the haunt industry. Even better still, most are free or at least offer a free tier. So, whether you're looki...

Send us Fan Mail Haunting is hard. Threading the needle between scaring someone and actively traumatizing hem is a difficult task. However, sometimes haunts can cross the line and include scares, props and scenes that do more to offend than scare.  While haunting is an art and no haunter should feel like they're being censored, it's also important to understand that haunt is a commercial...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, it's another "4" episode meaning that it's time to do the news! This is admittedly a slow week for haunted attraction news but there are still a few stories of serious import including the purchase of a major haunt conference and the merger of two major costume companies. Beyond that, we have a bill that was tanked by the inclusion of...

Send us Fan Mail Previously, on Haunt Weekly, we looked at haunt marketing and the questions that you need to answer with every single piece of marketing you put out. This week, we're getting a bit more holistic and looking at haunt branding.  This week's episode is a whirlwind tour through the basics of haunt branding including what a brand is, how you develop a brand and how you expand...

Send us Fan Mail We've been spending a lot of time on haunted attraction websites and haunted attraction conference websites lately. What have we learned? That there is a lot of basic information missing from them. To that end, we've decided to do a little bit of marketing 101 and discuss the six questions that every piece of marketing you put out must answer in order to be successful. T...

Send us Fan Mail Making a good escape room is tough. It requires days of planning, countless hours of beta testing and an endless string of adjustments and tweaks. And we don't have that kind of time, knowledge or expertise. However, we are avid players of escape games and, if you want to know how to make your escape game really crappy, we can tell you that real easy. We didn't even have...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly it's another episode divisible by four so that means we are doing the news! And it's a surprisingly busy week for news as theme parks seem to be picking up the slack from the dead part of the year. We have news of several parks either opening or renovating haunted attractions bringing more spooks into the summer months. We've also got updat...

Send us Fan Mail Not many podcast episodes start with a bit of house cleaning but this one certainly does. While doing some sprucing up ahead of a family visit, Crystal found a time capsule in an old box, a 2010 edition of Haunted Attraction Magazine , issue #53 to be exact. So we decided to take a look at the magazine and do something we probably didn't do when we got it: Read it cover to co...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we have a real treast for you as we sit down with Brooke Englehart of Svenpuss Productions .  Based in Chicago, Svenpuss Productions is a traveling haunter troupe that also specializes in character designs, costumes and accessories. Whether you need line actors, costumes for said actors or a bulk costume order for your haunt, they have your back. Brooke h...

Send us Fan Mail The number one reason that haunts don't make it past the concept stage is funding.  However, as haunts get more expensive to open and remain high-risk traditiional sources to raise capital are being closed off. Banks, investors and self-funding are getting harder and harder to do. In response to that, some haunts are turning into a more tech-savvy means of getting off of the...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we are doing the news! As we are wont to do on episodes diisible by four, we're bringing yout the latest and greatest of haunted attraction news and, despite being literally as far away from Halloween as you can get, we have a LOT of news to go through. So strap yourself in and prepare to get updated on all the goings on in the haunted attraction ind...

Send us Fan Mail You might remember we sat down with Japes a few times in the past. For example Episode 59 , Episode 46 and Episode 43  if you're curious. You migh also remember that, on Episode 65 , we discussed toxic actors and repeatedly said we wishes we could have Japes on this subject.  Well, our Japes prayers have been answered as the actor guru sat down with us to discuss toxic actors...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we are continuing our women in haunting series (it's been far, far too long) and sitting down with Sylvia Vicchiullo , the cast managager for A Petrified Forest in central Florida.  In this interview we learn a great deal about Sylvia and her history with haunting. We discuss how she go into the industry and what were some of the lessons she had to l...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're kicking off interview month as we sit down with Matt Scott of Von Grimm Productions . Matt is a virtual wizard when it comes to masks and makeup effects for the haunt industry. He places an emphasis on creating high-quality looks that are both fast and affordable, meeting both of the needs that the industry has. In this interview, we talke a g...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly it's another episode divisible by four and that means it is time to do the news! And it's a busy month for haunted attraction news as we have the first haunt announced for Universal's Halloween Horror Nights, an upcoming documentary about haunt life and several stories about haunts needing help to open their doors. So while it may be the de...

Send us Fan Mail The idea for this week's episode comes from one of our listeners and man is it a great one (Thank you Maximus Christian Bryant!). So good, it may well become a miniseries.  Basically, as New Orleans residents, we've been to nearly every haunt along the gulf coast. However, due to time and geograpny, there are many, many haunts across the country we've not been able...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we are back with Dwayne Sanburn of the 13th Gate Haunted House in Baton Rogue, Louisiana but this time we're not talking haunts, we're talking room escapes, specifically the 13th Gate Escape . That's right, this week is all about Dwayne's push into room escapes and both the lessons he learned in the process. The 13th Gate was one of th...