Haunt Weekly

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we are doing the news! We start talking about one haunt that tragically burned down, several haunts that are expanding, and a new experience that an escape room offers. In short, this is one busy episode despite the summer normally being the quiet season. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Work We Did for the Haunt 3. Question of the Week 4....

Send us Fan Mail Injuries are a part of haunting, or so that's what many haunters say.  Sure, we've all had the magic bruise that appears out of nowhere and the random cut that we can't explain, but serious injuries suck. If nothing else, they keep you from haunting. Fortunately, most haunt injuries can be easily avoided. All you need to do is follow a few simple rules to save your...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're celebrating the retirement of our longest-running partner, our recorder. So we've decided to honor the little recorder that could by remembering how and why we started this podcast and looking back at the ideas, plans and visions we had all the way back in 2015. So take a trip with us down memory lane. Not advised if you have an allergy t...

Send us Fan Mail If you search the web for haunted attractions, you'll likely get the Wikipedia entry as your first result. So, after 400+ episodes and thousands of searches, we're finally reading it. So, does the entry do us justice? What did we learn from reading it? What do we disagree with? We discuss that and much more in this episode. This Week's Episode Includes:  1. Intro 2....

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, it's an episode divisible by four, meaning that it is time to do the news! The news has been surprisingly busy this month, with a haunt scoring a major legal win, the Queen Mary making a comeback, and some haunts getting an early start to the season. So sit back, relax and enjoy as we go through all the haunted attraction news fit to print. This Wee...

Send us Fan Mail The haunted attraction industry is bizarre. In many ways, it more closely resembles a sport than an industry, partly because of the importance of amateur/home/charity haunters for sustained growth. That said, a few professional haunters still look down on the home haunt crowd. So, we will talk about why home haunters are important to the industry and how pro haunters can help thei...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about shadowcasts, including what they are, why you should check them out and what haunters can learn from them. For those who don't know, shadowcasts are when performers pantomime the film while it is being screened. Most commonly associated with Rocky Horror, many other films have been getting the shadowcast treatment, including...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're donning our hazmat suits and diving deep into the two lawsuits filed by Russ McKamey of McKamey Manor fame. What is he suing for? How solid are his arguments? How could these lawsuits impact the haunt industry? We're going to discuss all that and much more. This Week's Episode Includes:  1. Intro 2. Work We Did on the Haunt 3. Questi...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly it is time to do the news! And we have a LOT of news for you this week including an update on McKamey Manor, an attraction closing at Niles Scream Park, a major Halloween Horror Nights change and much more. We even have a summer camp for little haunters, a new video game to check out and, perhaps most importantly, a happy ending for the actor who played T...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we're flipping the script and reading some happy reviews of haunted houses. This includes reading some 30 reviews from the nation's biggest haunts and a few from our own.  So let's all join around and have a feel good moment as we share the love from our happiest and most vocal visitors and learn both what they did and did not mention in th...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about ways that our brains are dumb and how haunters can exploit those tricks to make our scares more effective. With this episode, you can stop living in the past by recognizing that you are always living in the past. You can also learn that your visitors are as well that knowledge can give you an edge. Hat Tip This Week's Episod...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're looking at some of the meanest reviews that large, well-loved haunted attractions have ever received. This isn't to call out those haunts, but to show that even the best attractions sometimes get ugly one star review. But how many of these are customers gone wild or actual haunt issues? That's what we're trying to find out. This...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly it is time to do the news! And it's a quiet month for haunted attraction news but there are plenty of stories for us to sink our teeth into. We have the latest on the Hotel of Terror, a casket washing up on Galveston beach and, yes, that terrible Willy Wonka event in Glasgow. So kick back and relax as we go through the haunt news that is not fit to p...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're taking a more positive approach as we discuss trends we're seeing in the haunt industry that we hope will continue and grow even stronger. Whether it's better accessibility to all, improved marketing or a more diverse vendor landscape, there are a LOT of reasons to be positive about the future of the industry. Here is just a handful...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're letting you write the episode as we discuss 13 trends we hope will die in the haunt industry, as commented by you. So what were your least favorite haunt trends and what are our thoughts on them? That's the exact questions of this week's episode and, believe me, there's a lot of trends to go around. This Week's Episode Incl...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about haunt trends that we wish would just go away... permanently. That's right, we're covering ten of our least favorite things we see in haunted houses and why we think it's past time the industry moved on. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Question of the Week 3. This Week's Question of the Week 4. 1...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news! We have a haunt putting on a special show for a conference, the world's smallest escape room and a petition to save a long-gone but still beloved haunted attraction. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Work We Did for the Haunt 3. Question of the Week 4. Conference Reminders 5. Spanish Company Introduces World&a...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about empowering people, specifically how you can help empower your fellow haunters and your customers through the art of fear. For many people, haunting gives them a very real sense of pride, control and achievement that they can take into other parts of their lives. Here's how to nurture that experience. This Week's Episode...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're taking a look at the things you can learn from reality TV and why your guilty pleasure TV time may not be as big of a waste of time as some may think. To that end, you can learn a great deal from reality TV, from learning what your particular tastes are, mastering new techniques and even basic skills like communication and business operations....

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, due to illness, we are revisiting an older episode where we sat down with Dwayne Sanburn from the 13th Gate. A great interview with a great haunter. Check out part two of the interview here: https://www.hauntweekly.com/1991532/10646240-haunt-weekly-episode-70-dwayne-sanburn-2-13th-gate ----- Previous Notes:  This week on Haunt Weekly, we sit down with a...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we're doing the news!  We have a lot of important stories this week including the latest on a haunt owner pleading guilty to sexual assault, a haunt that is facing imminent domain and two major acts of haunt charity. Not bad for a January. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Housekeeping Notes 3. Question of the Week 4. Conference Reminder...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're taking a look at the (now expanding) public domain and what in there might be of good use for haunted houses. Due to a copyright extension, no new works entered into the public domain from 1999-2019. However, now things are lapsing every year including early versions of Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse and the rest of the Sherlock Holmes stories....

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're celebrating the new year by both looking back at the year that was and looking ahead to the opportunities and challenges we see for the 2024 season. To that end, 2023 was a challenging season with many haunts reporting staffing shortages, lower numbers and rising costs. So, will 2024 break those trends? That's what we look at in this epis...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about flat black walls. We promise, it's at least slightly more interesting than watching paint dry. That's because we're talking about how to quickly and easily decorate such walls. After all, we've all been there and run out of time to detail, here's how to fix it.  But if that doesn't sound interesting...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're celebrating episode 420 (nice) the only way we can... By doing a regular news episode... That's right, we're covering all the haunted attraction news that is fit to print including a possible Terrifier haunted attraction, a huge home haunt that's avoided closure and much, much more! This Wee's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2....