Haunt Weekly

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news! It is a very busy news month as we have the latest on the ongoing Field of Screams scandal, a copyright case filed against Spirit Halloween (that we get to break) and the latest on Halloween Horror Nights. We also have a big announcement about where you can meet us this coming weekend and much, much more! This week's episo...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, it is admittedly a difficult subject. With news about the sex ring at the Bloodshed Brothers' operated haunted house.  We've invited Maddie Rachael, better known as Maddi Monster, to talk about her experience at the haunt, and what other haunt owners can and should do to prevent something similar from happening. It's a difficult but import...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're spending more time looking at our week away and discussing some other lessons that we learned from our time in Myrtle Beach. While we visited a lot of haunted houses, we also checked out some of the other tourist trap locales and came with it a new appreciation for how these kinds of businesses operate. So sit back and relax as we take a look...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're enjoying a bit of vacation. However, what vacation is complete without visiting a haunt or three? That's precisely what we've been doing, and we've got a lot to discuss as we talk about the various places we've been to as we explore the year-round haunted attractions that make up the Myrtle Beach area.  So join us as we dis...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we are doing the news!  Even though it may not be the busy season for haunted attraction news, there is still a lot going on, including an arson at a trail haunt, an update on HHN and a haunt coming to the Gathering of the Juggalos.  We have all that and much, much more on this episode of the Haunt Weekly News! This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about comedy. Humor may seem to be the antithesis of what haunting is all about. However, it's a potentially powerful tool that can make your scares hit harder and give customers new reasons to love your haunt. So, this episode we are looking into humor in haunting, including how, when and why you might want to incorporate a littl...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we are returning to our live format to bring on two amazing haunt actors, Japes Palles and Katie Lane, to talk about the ins and outs of being a traveling actor. So sit down as two expert actors, discuss the topic ahead of their face off at the Midwest Haunters Convention Next month. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Interview with Japes Pall...

Send us Fan Mail THIS IS NOT A HAUNT WEEKLY EPISODE!Haunt Weekly is moving web hosts. It's not our choice, especially right now, but we have to do it urgently. We need YOU to check your feed Monday/Tuesday and make sure that the move worked swimmingly. However, for those that are either podcasters or curious, I will spend a little bit of time talking about exactly what happened and why we&apo...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're having a bit of a fantasy. We are exploring the various things we would change about the haunted attraction industry if we could wave a magic wand and do it. Some of these items are big, some of them are fairly small, but they are all things we feel that the haunted attraction industry could be improved by implementing. So kick back and relax...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we are doing the news. It may be mid-Spring, but there's a great deal of haunted attraction news to go through, including the latest on the Myrtle Beach shooting. We also have a series of wild Disney stories, an update on the 13th Gate and a look at the Spooky Swap Meet. So sit back, relax and learn about what is going on in the haunted attraction i...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about the middle of haunting. THe middle class of haunts, the middle tier of vendors and so forth. Though the haunt industry is doing well, much of those gains are at the extremes. Large haunts getting bigger, small haunts that are hanging on. The middle tier of haunts, however, have had a rough time of it lately. The reasons are many,...

Send us Fan Mail Age restrictions in haunted attractions are something of a touchy subject. Some don't want the kids around, others don't want to turn away a major part of their audience. But we're going to talk about it, looking at the reasons you might have to set up an age gate, the reasons you might want to, and some alternatives. So take a seat and relax as we talk about the yo...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're asking some tough questions. Or rather, we're telling you questions that you should ask yourself before starting any haunted attraction. Whether you want to start a pro haunt, a home haunt or something in between. So, if you're looking to make 2022 or 2023 your first haunting year, these are the questions you should be asking yoursel...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news! And we have a lot of big news stories for you this month. Whether it's a tragic death at a Florida theme park, Disney suffering supply shortage issues, a haunted house restaurant teaming up with the movie Ambulance and much, much more. So sit back and relax as we take you through all the haunted attraction news that's...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we are revisiting episode 86 (https://www.hauntweekly.com/86) where we featured 13 online services every haunter should know. It was a great episode that's held up well, but we have 13 MORE services we want to share with you. So whether you're looking to build a haunt, improve your marketing, edit together your promo video or a myriad of other t...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're not getting political, we're getting realistic. The truth is that the labor market in the United States has changed a great deal over the past few years, and it isn't going back to the way it was. In many states, the minimum wage was lifted, everywhere, the practical minimum wage is going up. Likewise, it's getting harder to rec...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're looking back to some of our most WTF haunt moments, both in our haunt and while visiting others. To most people, haunting is something of a head scratcher already. We're a bunch of weird people that enjoy scaring others and go to great lengths to make it happen. So, what does it take to make a pair of haunters with decades of experience g...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news! It's been a surprisingly busy week for haunted attraction news as police seek your help in finding a haunt arsonist, a huge new haunt is announced in North Carolina and Disney suffers from issues with two of its most popular attractions. Add to that some lighthearted fun, including a look at some of video games' scari...

Send us Fan Mail For many haunt fans, the peak of haunted attraction love is the haunt road trip. This is when you take off and try to squeeze a bunch of haunts into just a handful of nights. However, they can be something of a nightmare too. You're trying to plan a large number of haunted attractions into very little time, all the while visiting a strange city. There are so many things that...

Send us Fan Mail If you're a haunt owner, it will happen at some point. An actor will approach you with a character of their design that they want to bring in to your haunt. To that end, there are a lot of reasons to consider bringing in actor-created characters, but also a lot of pitfalls that can make it go badly awry. Weighing those pros and cons is not easy. That's why we're her...

Send us Fan Mail Group size is one of the most important, if one of the most mundane questions, every haunt owner has to answer. It's a question that impacts every area of your haunt from how much money a haunt makes, to the experience of both customers and actors. It can literally make or break your haunt. So sit back and relax as we discuss some group dynamics and ask: How many people shoul...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we are doing the news. However, we are deep into the off-season and, for the first time in a while, we don't have a lot of news to go through. But, that doesn't mean that there is nothing. We have an interesting study that looks at fear reactions in haunted attractions, a major international haunt up for sale (again) and other great haunted attr...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're rolling back the clock and looking at a topic we first covered more than six years ago: Touch vs. No Touch Haunts. Simply put, a lot has changed in the past six years. We've learned a lot, visited a ton more touch haunts, and gotten some feedback. So, we wanted to revisit this point. So what is the difference between touch and no touch ha...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're discussing HYPE!!!That's right we're talking about what it takes to adequately hype up a haunt and how anyone, with a few marketing tweaks, can increase the excitement others feel as they show up at your door. The message is actually very simple: Give people a reason to be excited, then give them a mystery to have fun with. However,...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we are revisiting one of our older topics: Online TicketingCovered all the way back in September 2016, we're taking a fresh look at the subject including explaining why haunts should offer online ticketing, the companies that specialize in doing it and some pitfalls that you should avoid. Ultimately, this is a topic that impacts everyone in the haunt...